Teacher educators - Understanding Science (original) (raw)

Instructors of pre-service and in-service teachers can use the following resources to support the integration of the nature and process of science into existing science methods courses or professional development workshops:1

• Modified conceptual framework. Due to time constraints, most courses for pre-service and in-service teachers do not cover all of the concepts included at the undergraduate level of the Understanding Science conceptual framework. This list provides a “top twenty” subset of concepts that should be the focus of instruction at this level.
• Learning goals for preservice teachers. The concepts and skills described here are key for teachers who wish to effectively address the nature and process of science in their classrooms.
• Misconceptions about teaching the nature and process of science. We all know that students have many misconceptions about the nature and process of science itself, but misconceptions about teaching the nature and process of science are also rife. Instructors of preservice teachers should be aware of these common misconceptions.

Teacher educators should also explore our resource on student misconceptions about the nature and process of science, our summaries of key papers from the research literature on teaching the nature and process of science, the teaching guides for specific grade levels. For more ideas about how to incorporate Understanding Science into your preservice or inservice teacher instruction, check out these first-hand reports.

1This list of resources was generated through an NSF-sponsored workshop (supplement to Grant No. EAR-0624436) held in Berkeley, CA in January 2012 and attended by 11 science educators who taught pre-service teachers, teacher educators, and/or in-service teachers.