July 13–17, 2013
63
Monday afternoon
how scientific terms are perceived if they are not well understood. Of equal
importance is the ability to see both sides of any issue, whether or not one
side is uncontroversial to the scientific community. The ability to perceive
and address misconceptions while at the same time leveraging economic
and social interests provides a context for understanding research and
development.
BI04:
4-6 p.m. Teaching Climate Change Science in a
Skeptical World
Panel – Minda R. Berbeco,* National Center for Science Education, 420 40th
St., Oakland, CA 94609;
Though the scientific consensus around human causes of climate change
are clear, the public remains skeptical, making it challenging for educators
to teach well-established, peer-reviewed science to their students. Further-
more, the implications for climate change can be emotionally disturbing
for students to learn, potentially leading to a sense of disillusionment. How
do teachers address the science of climate change without scaring students?
How do they address challenges from students, parents, administrators
and even other educators that are based in political ideology? The National
Center for Science Education is using its 30 years of experience counter-
ing science denial in evolution education to support, educate, and counter
denial in climate change education. As climate change science is increas-
ingly integrated in public education in coming years, teachers will need to
take advantage of the strong scientific network that has been established to
support teachers, debunk myths, and provide quality educational materials.
*Sponsored by Steve Lindaas
Session BJ: Evolving Practices of
Teacher Preparation to Meet the Next
Generation Science Standards
Location: Galleria III
Sponsor: Committee on Physics in Pre-High School Education
Co-Sponsor: Committee on Teacher Preparation
Date: Monday, July 15
Time: 4–5:30 p.m.
Presider: Jon Gaffney
BJ01:
4-4:30 p.m. Scientific Practices in NGSS and Physics
Courses for K-12 Teachers
Invited – Paul Hutchison, Grinnell College, Department of Education, Steiner
Hall, Grinnell, IA 50112;
Tiffany Sikorski, George Washington University
With the arrival of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) it is
important to consider how physics content courses for K-12 teachers
can support NGSS-envisioned science instruction. The NGSS is the first
significant science education reform document to place the learning of
scientific practices on equal footing with the development of conceptual
understanding. While teachers are skilled in assessing students’ conceptual
understanding, we expect many current and future science teachers “even
those with undergraduate degrees in science” are ill-prepared to assess
the quality of student engagement in scientific practices. That is an ability
teachers will need if implementation of NGSS is to be successful. Physics
content courses provide an ideal venue for developing that ability, but only
if we shift our assessment in them away from conceptual correctness and
toward the authentic use of scientific practices. We provide examples from
courses we and others have taught.
BJ02:
4:30-5 p.m. Preparing Teachers for the Next
Generation Science Standards
Invited – Jennifer L. Docktor, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Department
of Physics, 1725 State St., La Crosse, WI 54601;
Gubbi Sudhakaran, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
The release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in spring
of 2013 not only dramatically impacts K-12 science education, but also
requires institutions of higher education to reform the preparation of
preservice science teachers. I will describe the efforts we have made at the
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse to integrate the NGSS into the physics
for elementary school teachers course and the secondary science methods
course. I will also describe a project funded by a U.S. Department of Edu-
cation Math Science Partnerships program grant to provide professional
development for in-service elementary and middle school teachers during
summer institutes and weekend workshops which has been explicitly
designed to integrate the draft NGSS into physical science activities and
pedagogy instruction.
BJ03:
5-5:10 p.m. Physics in the Earth and Space Science
Strand of the Next Generation Science Standards
Contributed – Ramon E. Lopez, University of Texas at Arlington, Department
of Physics, Arlington, TX 76034;
The Next Generations Science Standards (NGSS) will guide K-12 science
instruction in many states. Earth and space science comprises a signifi-
cant amount of the NGSS content, and much of that content will likely be
distributed among typical courses as opposed to the creation of new Earth
and Space Science courses in high school. This has enormous implications
for high school physics classes since much, if not most, of the space science
content is based in physics. This presentation will provide an overview to
the NGSS and illustrate the kinds of space science content that high school
physics teachers may be asked to include in their classes.
BJ04:
5:10-5:20 p.m. Preservice Teachers’ Understanding
of the Nature of Science vs. Engineering
Contributed – Jill Marshall, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station,
D5705, Austin, TX 78712-0382;
Physics teachers at the introductory level are aware that the majority of
their students will not ultimately become professional physicists. Future
engineers comprise a large fraction of our students at the introductory
university level, and likely at the high school level as well. The Framework
document for the Next Generation Science Standards explicitly includes
engineering practices, and engineering is increasingly being offered as a
high school course, but many of our preservice teachers are not well pre-
pared to represent engineering as a career or as a practice to their students,
and to articulate differences between engineering and science. I will pres-
ent results of a study of UTeach preservice teachers’ understanding of engi-
neering as a discipline and how incorporating a design challenge into their
preservice training affected that understanding. Student understanding is
probed pre and post-instruction with previously developed instruments
assessing knowledge of engineering design, supplemented by interviews.
BJ05:
5:20-5:30 p.m. Educational Data Mining: An Approach
in Physics Education Research
Contributed – Daniel Sanchez-Guzman, Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Le-
garia, No. 694, Mexico City, NA 11500, Mexico;
Educational Data Mining (EDM) is becoming a powerful tool to analyze
the behavior of students and the practice of teachers; their implementa-
tion has been done in most cases with students that work with Math-
ematics, Learning Languages, and Social Topics. Present work shows the
preliminary implementations of an EDM System with Physics Education
Research. This implementation tries to support the research made with
post-graduate students in the Physics Education Research field in Mexico;
the goal is to have a website that lets the teacher upload and analyze data
generated of the experiments and to offer a set of web tools to have a better
granularity in the research.
