Understanding of Earth and Space Science Concepts: Strategies for Concept-Building in Elementary Teacher Preparation (original) (raw)
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Research on conceptual change indicates that not only children, but also teachers have incomplete understanding or misconceptions on science concepts. This mixed methods study was concerned with in-service teachers' understanding of four earth and space science concepts taught in elementary school: reason for seasons, phases of the moon, rock cycle, and earthquakes. The participants were 29 second year graduate students in an Urban Master Program at a southeastern American university. The data sources were: an open-ended survey given before and after participation in six hands-on learning stations on earth science concepts and teacher reflections in dialogue journals while participating in the stations. Rubrics were used to score answers to each survey question. Findings indicate that in-service teachers have low conceptual understanding of the earth and space science concepts taught in elementary school. Secondly, paired samples t-tests results showed that participation in hands-on stations on these science concepts changed teachers' understandings of these topics. Finally, dialogue journals contained useful positive reflections, negative reflections, suggestions, and comments on preference to teach the activities in the future. This study has implications for teacher preparation programs, staff development, and conceptual change practices at elementary schools.
EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2014
Nowadays, the importance given to astronomy teaching in science and physics education has been gradually increasing. At the same time, teachers play an important role in remediating the misconceptions about astronomy concepts held by students. The present study aims to determine the misconceptions of pre-service physics teachers (n=117), preservice science teachers (n=97) and in-service physics teachers (n=174) about astronomy concepts using a three-tier test. The Astronomy Concept and Achievement Test (ACAT), developed by Trumper (2001a, 2001b, 2006), was adapted as a three-tier instrument and used as the data collection instrument. The first tier, first and second tier and all three tier responses that were obtained from the ACAT were analyzed separately to identify misconceptions and to evaluate the respondents" achievement. The results showed that the achievement scores of pre-service and in-service teachers considerably decreased when the third tier was considered. In addition, when the misconceptions of pre-service and inservice teachers were determined using all three tiers, they held extensive misconceptions especially about the reasons for seasons, the Moon"s phases, the Moon"s phase in the solar eclipse and the Sun"s position in the sky.
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We report on the development of an item test bank and associated instruments based on those K-12 national standards which involve astronomy and space science. Utilizing hundreds of studies in the science education research literature on student misconceptions, we have constructed 211 unique items that measure the degree to which students abandon such ideas for accepted scientific views. Piloted nationally with 7599 students and their 88 teachers spanning grades 5-12, the items reveal a range of interesting results, particularly student difficulties in mastering the NRC Standards and AAAS Benchmarks. Teachers generally perform well on items covering the standards of the grade level at which they teach, exhibiting few misconceptions of their own. Teachers dramatically overestimate their students' performance, perhaps because they are unaware of their students' misconceptions. Examples are given showing how the developed instruments can be used to assess the effectiveness of instruction and to evaluate the impact of professional development activities for teachers.
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Pre-Service Teachers’ Conceptions of Specific Astronomy Concepts: A Longitudinal Investigation
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The aim of this study is to determine the changes in the knowledge of pre-service Primary and Science teachers related to basic astronomy concepts occurring after four years of undergraduate study in education and the extent of and reasons for these changes. For this purpose, a "Basic Astronomy Test" involving 14 questions was administered to the pre-service Primary and Science teachers by education faculty members in the Black Sea Region of Turkey in the first (2009) and fourth (2013) years of their educations. In the data analysis, nonparametric Mann-Whitney U tests and Wilcoxon signed ranks tests were used to
Students Are Not Highly Familiar with Astronomy Concepts – But What about the Teachers?
Journal of Education and Training Studies, 2015
This study aims to assess primary school teachers' knowledge of basic astronomy concepts, such as the sizes and shapes of, and the distances between, the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon, lunar and solar eclipses, and the motions of the Moon and the Earth. Out of a total of 1,533 teachers, 398 (26%) were reached and asked to take a knowledge test. On the knowledge test, the overall performance of the teachers, whose task it is to teach the astronomy concepts in the fifth grade Science and Technology curriculum, stands at 70% while the students' success rate is approximately 50%. It is noteworthy that approximately one out of every three teachers answered the questions incorrectly. In this study, the primary school teachers' low performance on the same questions as the students can be observed as an indicator of this. Placing an astronomy course in undergraduate level in the elementary school teacher-training program could be useful. Thus, pre-service teachers have enough knowledge regarding astronomy subjects before starting their careers.