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USING A MOTIVATION-BASED INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL FOR TEACHER
DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING OF SCIENCE

By

Min-Jung Bae

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Educational Psychology and Educational Technology

2009

ABSTRACT

USING A MOTIVATION-BASED INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL FOR TEACHER
DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING OF SCIENCE

By
Min-Jung Bae

Science teachers often have difficulty helping students participate in scientific
practices and understand scientific ideas. In addition, they do not frequently help students
value their science learning. As one way to address these problems, I designed and
examined the effects of professional development using a motivation-based instructional
model with teachers and students. This motivation-based inquiry and application
instructional model (MIAIM) consists of four steps of activities and identifies
instructional and motivational functions that teachers can use to engage their students in
scientific inquiry and application and to help them value their science learning.

In order to conduct this study, I worked with three teachers (4th, 8th, and 8th) in
both suburban and urban environments. This study consisted of three parts-an initial
observation of teachers’ classrooms, professional development with MIAIM, and an
observation of teachers’ classrooms after the professional development.

Data analysis of class observations, interviews, and class artifacts shows that there
was a moderate change in teachers’ teaching approach after the intervention. The three
teachers designed and enacted some inquiry and application lessons that fit the intent of
MIAIM. They also used some instructional and motivational practices more frequently
after the intervention than they did before the intervention. In particular, they more
frequently established central questions for investigations, helped students find patterns

in data by themselves, provided opportunities for application, related science to students’

everyday lives, and created students’ interests in scientific investigation by using
interesting stories. However, there was no substantial change in teachers’ use of some
practices such as providing explanations, supporting students’ autonomy, and using
knowledge about students in designing and enacting science lessons.

In addition, data analysis of students’ surveys, class observations, and tests
indicates that some students from each class became more motivated to learn science
when their teachers taught MIAIM based science lessons. They became more interested
in science class and more appreciative of how science is related and important to their
lives. In addition, students from all classes significantly increased their knowledge about
scientific topics.

Several factors might have influenced the teachers’ use of MIAIM: their initial
teaching approaches and practices; experiences with using MIAIM in their class; the
content area; and school and classroom contexts. Those aspects of MIAIM that teachers
did not use may have been more difficult for the teachers to understand or may have been
inconsistent with other some of their other beliefs. In addition, the changes in students’
motivation. and understanding of scientific ideas seemed to be closely associated with
what kinds of practices of MIAIM the teachers used.

This study indicates that teachers can help students participate in scientific
practices, learn important ideas, and value learning science with the help of MIAIM as a
conceptual tool and contextualized support from professional development activities and

curriculum materials such as worksheets and lesson plans.

Copyright by
MIN-JUN G BAE
2009

To Eunhye, Jungi in, Kwangsu, parents in law, and my mother

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have been blessed with good professors, teachers, friends, and my family. I am
indebted to my dissertation director, Christina Schwarz for her encouragements and
guidance. She supported me in various ways and helped me conduct my work about
teacher development and motivation. I learned passion and curiosity from her. She is a
model of a good mother and scholar. She has been invaluable professional mentor. I owe
a great deal of gratitude to my advisor, Jack Smith. He guided and cared me throughout
my graduate career and helped me finish this doctoral program. His questions and
comments stimulated me to think harder about my ideas. Without his kind support, it
would be impossible for me to endure my difficult early years in the program.

I am gratefirl to my guidance committee members: Jere Brophy and Gail
Richmond. Jere helped me study motivation and his comments were always thoughtful. I
enjoyed talking with him. Gail Richmond helped me study teacher development which
was a new research area for me. In addition to my committee members, I would like to
thank Dr. Edward Smith and Andy Anderson who supported my study and gave great
insights about science education.

I have been blessed with talented graduate student colleagues, who have
exchanged insights and shared fi'iendship. Especially, I would like to thank Lindsey
Mohan, and Krisitin Gunkle for fellowship and their comments on my dissertation. I also
thank Dan and Julia Hudson for love, kindness, and friendship.

I would like to thank three teachers, Richard, Teresa, and Dan who volunteered to
participate in this study. Without their participation, this dissertation would not have been

possible. In spite of their busy schedule, they opened their classrooms to me and shared

vi

with me their work and thoughts about teaching science. Through them, I had
experiences of observing American classrooms which are rare to international students.
They are valuable experiences to me. The teachers were the best science teachers that I
have met.

I really appreciate my family for their support and love. They are the center of my
life. I would like to thank my mother and parents in law for their support and love along
the way. I am deeply grateful to my husband, Kwangsu for his endless support, kindness,
wisdom, encouragement, and love. He is my love and best friend, better than I deserve. I
also thank my babies, Eunhye and J ungjin, for their love, smiles, and enduring the time
when mommy had to study.

Most of all, I would like to thank God who created me and guided my way until
now. His unfailing and endless love has always protected me. In his love and overflowing
blessings, I was able to enjoy the journey through the Ph.D process at Michigan State

University. To Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, now and forever.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................. x
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................. xii
Chapter One: Introduction and Overview of the Study .......................................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................... 1
Overview ...................................................................................... 9
Chapter Two: Background-Literature and MIAIM ............................................. 13
Teacher learning ............................................................................ 13
Motivation ................................................................................... 22
Instructional model ......................................................................... 28
Motivation—based inquiry and application instructional model (MIAIM) ......... 40
Chapter Three: Method ............................................................................. 47
Design ........................................................................................ 47
Participants ................................................................................. 48
Classroom contexts and typical lessons of the three classes .......................... 52
Intervention for professional development ............................................. 55
Implementation of this study ............................................................. 60
Data Sources ................................................................................ 62
Data Analysis ............................................................................... 71

Chapter Four: Findings and discussions About Teachers’ Teaching Approaches and

Practices ..................................................................................... 76
Part 1: Teachers’ initial teaching approaches and practices ............................... 76
Teaching approaches ....................................................................... 76
Comparison of teachers’ instructional practices to MLAIM .......................... 96
Comparison of teachers’ motivational practices to MIAIM ........................ 113
Part 11: Changes of teaching approaches and practices ................................... 125
Changes in teaching approaches and practices ....................................... 125
Changes in teaching practices compared to MIAIM ................................. 155
Summary and Discussion ................................................................ 177

Chapter Five: Findings and Discussions About Students’ Valuing of Science,

Efforts to Learn, and Understanding of Science Ideas ............................... 189
Valuing of learning science ............................................................. 189
Effort: Student’s on-task and their perceived effort ................................. 207

viii

Understanding of scientific ideas ....................................................... 211

Chapter Six: Conclusion .......................................................................... 222
Summary of findings and discussion ................................................... 222
Implication of the study .................................................................. 233
Limitations and Directions for Future Research ...................................... 234
Conclusion ................................................................................. 238

Appendix ............................................................................................ 240
Appendix 1. Teacher actions/strategies for instruction in MIAIM ............... 240

Appendix 2. Example Lesson Plan about the periodic table ....................... 242
Appendix 3. Motivational principles in MIAIM ..................................... 244
Appendix 4. Teacher actions/ strategies for motivation in MIAIM ................ 245
Appendix 5. Interview Protocol about teachers’ teaching approaches
and practices ................................................................. 247
Appendix 6. A survey to assess students’ motivation ............................. 250
Appendix 7. Interview protocol about students’ motivation ...................... 252
Appendix 8. Test to assess students’ understanding of scientific ideas
from Ricahrd’s class ............................................................. 253
Appendix 9. Test to assess students’ understanding of scientific ideas
from Teresa’s class .............................................................. 255
Appendix 10. Test to assess students’ understanding of scientific ideas
fi'om Dan’s class ................................................................. 258
REFERENCES ..................................................................................... 260

ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. The Inquiry-Application Instructional Model ...................................... 38
Table 2.2. A motivation-based inquiry and application instructional model ............... 46
Table 3.1. Participating teacher demographics ................................................... 49
Table 3.2. Time line and teaching tmits for the three teachers .............................. 61
Table 3.3. Teaching practice analysis focus ..................................................... 73

Table 4.1. Sequence of activities on a lesson about phase change

from Richard’s class ...................................................................... 80
Table 4.2. Sequence of activities from three separate lessons from Teresa’s class ........ 90
Table.4.3. Summary of class activities from Dan’s class ...................................... 93

Table 4.4. Summary of Richard’s teaching approach and practices

before and after the intervention ........................................................ 126
Table. 4.5. Lesson sequence for the periodic table unit from Richard’s class ............. 129
Table 4.6. Story used in element research project from Richard’s class .................... 135

Table 4.7. Summary of Teresa’ teaching approach and practices
before and after the intervention ........................................................ 137

Table 4.8. Sequence of activities on three separate lessons from Teresa’s class .......... 140

Table 4.9. Summary of Dan’s teaching approach and practices

before and after the intervention ........................................................ 146
Table 4.10. Sequence of activities on four separate lessons from Dan’s class ............. 148
Table 4.11. Story of shipwreck without electricity from Dan’s class ....................... 154
Table 5.1. Students’ reasons for why learning science is useful or not useful ............ 196

Table 5.2. Students’ reasons for why learning science is important or not important. ...199

Table 5.3. Student’s reports for the interesting or not interesting parts in science
and their reasons for interest or the lack of the interest .............................. 203

Table 5.4. Mean percentage correct for each test topic on atoms
and the periodic table from Richard’s class (n=19) .................................. 212

Table 5.5. Mean percentage correct for each test item on plate tectonics
from Teresa’s class (n=15) .............................................................. 214

Table 5.6. Mean percentage correct for each test item on electricity
from Dan’s class (n=19) ................................................................ 217

xi

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1. A model of teacher learning by Fishman, Marx, Best, and Tal (2003). ........16
Figure 2.2. A revised model of teacher learning ................................................ 21
Figure 4.1. Frequencies of scientific practices used in Dan’s class ........................... 95

Figure 4.2. Frequencies of teachers’ use of instructional practice
before the intervention ..................................................................... 97

Figure 4.3. Frequencies of teachers’ use of motivational practice

before the intervention ................................................................... 114
Figure 4.4. Frequencies of using MIAIM practices from Richard’s class .................. 156
Figure 4.5. Frequencies of using MIAIM practices from Teresa’s class ................... 157
Figure 4.6. Frequencies of using MIAIM practices from Dan’s class ...................... 157

Figure 5.1. Students' valuing of learning science from a perspective
of everyday related utility value ........................................................ 193

Figure 5.2. Students’ valuing of learning science from a perspective

of job related utility value ................................................................ 194
Figure 5.3. Students’ agreement with the idea of importance of science .................. 198
Figure 5.4. Students’ situational interest in science class .................................... 201
Figure 5.5. Student’s general interest in science ............................................... 201
Figure 5.6. Mean percentage of the number of on-task students from each class... .. ....208
Figure 5.7. Level of students’ perceived efforts in science class ............................ 209
Figure 5.8. Example test item about open and close circuit ................................. 219

xii

Chapter One: Introduction and Overview of the Study

Introduction

Problem statement

Reform efforts in science education have focused attention on how teachers can
improve their knowledge and instructional practices. Reformers encourage teachers to
help students understand scientific ideas and participate in scientific practices and
discourses as opposed to presenting factual information in a lecture (National Research
Council, 2000, 2007). Traditional science teaching approaches, which treat science in its
‘final form,’ leave students with a limited sense of what science is and what it means to
understand or use science. Although students work on many different activities such as
reading, writing, and hands-on activities, teachers do not typically use these activities to
support the development of content areas in ways that are coherent and challenging for
students (Roth, K., & Gamier, H. 2007). When they did present science content, they
more commonly organized it as a collection of discrete facts, definitions, and algorithms
rather than as a connected set of ideas. In addition, teachers often have difficulty
supporting students’ participation in scientific practices and discourses (Marx,
Blumenfeld, Krajcik, & Soloway, 1997; Weiss, Pasley, Smith, Banilower, & Heck, 2003).
One possible reason this occurs is because teachers have few opportunities to learn about

reform-based teaching approaches and did not learn science in the way (Lortie, 1975).

In addition, although the reform efforts in science educations do not emphasize

motivational approaches for learning science, teachers can and should help students be

motivated to participate in a science learning community. Teachers’ effective use of
motivational strategies is important in order to increase students’ understanding of
scientific ideas and their participation in science practices and discourses. Furthermore, it
is also necessary to help students appreciate how science is relevant and important to
their lives, and enjoy their science class. However, teachers do not frequently use
motivational strategies to increase students’ valuing of learning school subjects and some
teachers even use strategies that undermine students’ motivation for learning science
(Green, 2002; Raphael, Pressley, & Mohan, 2008). Many students express that science is
not interesting, or not useful although some of them wanted to have jobs in science fields
(Osborne, 2003, Yager & Yager, 1985). One possible reason this occurs is because
teachers maybe usually do not have a chance to learn about the motivational strategies
that best support students’ learning (Harris, 2008) and teachers may not know what
motivational strategies will be effective for their students. Therefore, teacher educators
should help teachers learn about and effectively use motivational strategies as well as
teach science in ways that closely align with the reform-oriented approaches of science
teaching.

In order to help teachers learn about and use effective motivational approaches,
they must engage in professional development. Effective professional development
involves several aspects. First, teacher educators need to help teachers revise or develop
their beliefs or knowledge of teaching and learning because their beliefs or knowledge
influence what and how they learn at teacher education programs (e.g., Hammemess,
Darling-Hammond, & Bransford, 2005; Pajares, 1992). Teachers also need to develop

their knowledge about specific subj cot-matter content and their understanding of how

students learn that content (Fennema et a1, 1996; Kahle, Meece, & Sxantlebury, 2000;
Wood, Cobb, Yackel, 1991). In addition, many researchers suggest helping teachers
analyze cases of teaching and reflect on their own teaching (e. g., Zembal-Saul,
Blumenfeld, & Krajcik, 2000; Davis & Smithey, 2009). In addition, it is important to
help teachers develop professional development communities for teachers to share their
ideas or coach other teachers (van Driel, Beijaard, & Verloop, 2001).

However, current research on teacher development has several limitations for
understanding how to help teachers develop knowledge and practices about both
motivation and instruction. First, there are few studies on developing teacher
motivational strategies. While many professional development programs focus on
developing teacher knowledge about instruction, they tend to be silent about how to help
teachers develop motivational practices and knowledge. Fives and Manning (2005)
argued that there is the lack of emphasis on knowledge related to student motivation in
the fiameworks about teachers’ knowledge. Research on teacher understanding of diverse
student needs has the potential to uncover the importance of teacher knowledge and
practices for motivating diverse students to learn science but research tends to focus on
cultural or social differences and equality. If teacher educators and researchers on
motivation cooperate to develop professional programs, we may learn about how teachers
develop motivational and instructional practices.

Second, a great deal of teacher development research reports the impacts of
professional development on teacher knowledge and practice, they tend to be silent about
the influence of teacher professional development on students’ learning and motivation

(Fishman, Mark, Best, & Tal, 2003). Few studies examine the relationships between

students’ understanding of scientific ideas and teacher practices (McNeil & Krajcik,
2008). However, in order to understand the effect of professional development, we need
to assess students’ learning outcomes or their changes in their motivation to learn in
addition to teacher outcomes. This will help to develop evidence-based teacher
development programs that actually result in changes among students, and will help
educators understand the types of instructional and motivational practices that are
effective in the classroom.

Therefore, there is a need for a research on how to support the development of
teachers’ knowledge and practices about science instruction and motivation, and how

teacher development and practice influences students learning and motivation.

Purpose of the Study

As one way to address the need, I design and test a motivation-based
instructional model and related professional development intervention for supporting
teacher motivational and instructional practices in several science classes. There are two
main reasons that I chose a motivation-based instructional model as the center for the
intervention. First, instructional models can support coherent learning experiences that
can help students build new understandings by participating in inquiry-oriented lab
activities and constructing conceptual frameworks (Abraham, 1998; Bybee, 1997;
Edelson, 2001). This meets the goal advocated by science education reform documents
(NRC, 2007). In addition, researchers have reported the positive influence of using
instructional models such as inquiry and application instructional model in teacher

education programs on pre-service teachers’ knowledge of teaching science, and their

practices of planning and teaching science(e.g., Schwarz, & Gwekwere, 2007; Zubrowski,
2007; Zembal-Saul, 2009). Instructional models can serve as cognitive tools that enable
teachers to synthesize ideas, guide their own skills in teaching science, and apply core
principles of reform-based science teaching (Schwarz & Gwekwerere, 2007). They can
also help teachers think about how to engage students in lesson sequences in those
practices (Abraham, 1998; Bybee, 1997; Edelson, 2001; Lawson, 1995). However,
existing instructional models do not usually include recommendations from motivational
research. To address the issue, I incorporate motivational components into an inquiry-
application instructional model (I-AIM) which synthesizes many existing frameworks for
inquiry-application type lessons (Gunckel, Bae, & Smith, 2007).

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of professional development
experiences around a motivation-based instructional model on teachers’ teaching
approaches and practices and on students’ motivation and learning in science. The
suggested model used in this study is called “Motivation-based Inquiry and Application
Instructional Model” (MIAIM). It focuses on 1) using scientific inquiry, 2) applying
scientific knowledge to students’ every day lives, and 3) helping students enhance their
valuing of learning science. During the intervention for professional development using
MIAIM, teachers learned about inquiry-and application-based science lessons and
motivational strategies to make science relevant and interesting to students, and modified
their classroom teaching materials to address some of these issues. This study
investigates how teachers change their teaching approaches and practices after
participating in the intervention and what effects the instructions based on MIAIM have

on students’ motivation and learning.

Research Questions

There were three research questions in this study aimed at addressing these issues.
The first two research questions involved the influence of the professional development
intervention using MIAIM on teachers’ approaches and practices. The first question
asked about teachers’ initial approaches and practices. In order to understand the effect of
professional development activities on teachers, it is necessary to understand what
teacher’s teaching looked like before they participated in professional development
activities. In particular, I wondered what teachers’ science teaching approach were. For
example, did they use a traditional didactic approach to focus on presenting scientific
information? Or did they use other approaches that align with reform-oriented models of
instruction? In addition to teaching approach, I was interested in specific instructional
and motivational practices used in their classes. Among various kinds of instructional
practices, I focus on a few instructional practices relevant to promoting students’
scientific practices because prior studies show that teachers have various views about
scientific inquiry (e.g., Kang, Orgill, & Crippen, 2008) and that they have difficulties in
helping students participate in the practices (e. g., Marx, Blumenfeld, Krajcik, & Soloway,
1997). Regarding motivational strategies, I focus on value aspects of motivational
practices because teachers do not frequently use motivational strategies to increase
students’ valuing of learning school subjects while they use other aspects of motivational
practices.

My second research question focused on changes in the approaches and practices

after the intervention. I was interested in how their teaching changed after the

intervention. The answers to my first two research questions lead to a better
understanding of how teachers use motivation-based best practices to teach science after
participating in professional development using MIAIM. In summary, these questions
about teachers were:

1) What were teachers’ (a) initial teaching approaches, (b) instructional practices
for promoting students’ scientific practices, and (c) motivational practices for helping
students value learning science?

2) What changes in teachers’ approaches and practices occurred after their

participation in the professional development?

In order to understand the effect of professional development, we need to assess
students’ outcomes in addition to teacher outcomes. My last research question focused on
the influence of the intervention on students’ learning and motivation. Ideally, changes in
teaching approach and practices after teacher development should have some positive
influence on students’ participation in class activities, their motivation to learn science,
and their understanding of scientific ideas. In this study, I hypothesized that changes in
teaching practices would influence students’ motivation, especially, their valuing of
learning science and their understanding of scientific ideas. I also hypothesized that
changes in teaching practices and students’ valuing of science would positively influence
their effort in participating in class activities. The research question was as follows:

3) What effect did instruction based on MIAIM have on students’ valuing of
learning science, efforts to learn, and understanding of scientific ideas? What features of

instruction might have played a role in these outcomes?

Contribution of this stun)»

This study contributes to research in several domains including teacher education,
motivation, and science education. First, this study looks at motivational aspects of
teaching and learning, integrates knowledge about inquiry-based science teaching and
motivation, and develops a motivational-based instructional model tool for teacher
development. Because current instructional models do not include motivational aspects of
learning, the professional development using MIAIM is a new approach to help teachers
develop both instructional and motivational practices. In particular, the model stresses the
importance of helping students appreciate their learning of science, which lacks in our
current goals in school learning (Brophy, 2008).

Second, this study informs the teacher education community about what kinds of
professional development and support can be incorporated in teacher education. MIAIM
and the intervention of this study suggest one way to support teachers’ practices and their
students’ learning in a relatively short term. Introduction of MIAIM and co-developing
curriculum materials using MIAIM was helpful for teachers to use some practices for
scientific inquiry, application, and motivation.

Third, the results of this study about teachers’ initial teaching approaches and
practices shows what happens in typical science lessons. This finding is very important
because there are few studies that actually examine teachers’ instructional practices in
inquiry classrooms (McNeil & Krajcik, 2008) and motivational practices to promote
students’ valuing of learning science (Brophy, 2008). The finding regarding the changes

in teachers’ teaching approaches and practices also inform the community about what

kinds of teaching practices can be changed though the professional development using
MIAIM.

Finally, this study provides empirical evidence for relationships between teacher
development and student learning. It helps teacher educators develop evidence-based
teacher development programs and understand what types of teaching practices actually

help students with their learning and motivation.

Overview
I provide an overview of the following chapters, outlining the study and my

finding.

Chapter Two: Background-Literature and MIAIM

In chapter 2, I explain the background literature guiding my dissertation and a
motivation-based inquiry and application instructional model (MIAIM) used in the
professional development activities for my dissertation. This study is based on three
kinds of literature—teacher learning, motivation, and instructional models. The literature
review on teacher learning gives a conceptual framework about teacher development for
this study and relates it to professional development. In addition, the literature review on
motivation outlines what motivational principles or practices teachers should know to be
able to enhance students’ valuing of learning science. The literature review on
instructional models explains the features of the models and provides a rationale for using

instructional models in teacher development activities. The literature provided an

important foundation for design the motivation-based inquiry and application

instructional model, and conducting the professional development in this study.

Chapter Three: Methods

This chapter presents the research methods for this study. First, I explain the
design of my study, which consists of three stages: 1) initial data collection, 2)
professional development intervention, and 3) data collection after the intervention. The
design was appropriate to understand how professional development activities using
MIAIM affected both teachers and students. Then, I describe the participants of my
study—three teachers and students from their classes—and classroom contexts. I also
explain how I introduced MIAIM during professional development activities, and provide
a timeline of the implementation of this study. Finally, I describe data sources and my
analysis, including the analysis of the teaching approach and practices and the analysis of

students’ valuing of science, efforts to learn science, and understanding of scientific ideas.

Chapter Four: Findings and Discussion about Teachers’ Teaching Approaches and
Practices

In this chapter, I examine the influence of professional development on three
teachers’ teaching approaches and practices. Chapter four consists of two parts. Part I
describes teachers’ initial teaching approaches, including their goals in teaching science
and ideas about scientific inquiry and their lesson sequences. It also describes their initial
instructional practices addressing scientific practices as well as their motivational

practices for enhancing students’ valuing of learning science. Part II describes the results

10

of the professional development intervention using MIAIM on teachers’ teaching
approaches and practices. I describe how and what features of MIAIM each teacher used
in their science lessons and explain patterns in their use of MIAIM. Finally, I discuss the
role of MIAIM in teacher development and reasons for individual teacher’s differences in

their changes of teaching approaches and practices.

Chapter Five: Findings and Discussions about Students’ Valuing of Science, Efforts to
Learn, and Understanding of Scientific Ideas

In this chapter, I examine the influence of the professional development on
students’ valuing of science, efforts to learn, and understanding of scientific ideas. First, I
describe the overall change of students’ motivation to learn science and student’s changes
in their views of whether they think science is useful, important, and interesting to them. I
discuss the relationships between students’ changes in their valuing of science and each
teacher’s use of practices in MIAIM. Second, I describe changes in students’ efforts to
learn science, focusing on the number of on-task students in science class and their
perceived efforts in science class. I also discuss the relationship between the changes and
their teacher’s use of MIAIM. Finally, I report the results of student understanding of
scientific ideas from the three classes and discuss student gains in understanding and

teachers’ use of MIAIM.

Chapter Six: Conclusion

In this final chapter, I summarize the findings and discussions in this dissertation.

ll

I discuss the implications of this study for teacher development. I also describe the

limitations of this study and directions for future research.

12

Chapter Two: Background-Literature and MIAIM

In this chapter, I discuss the background literature guiding my dissertation and the
motivation-based inquiry and application instructional model (MIAIM) used in the
professional development activities for my dissertation. This study is based on three
kinds of literature—teacher learning, motivation, and instructional models. The literature
review on teacher learning gives a conceptual framework about teacher development for
this study and relates it to professional development. The literature review on motivation
gives ideas about what motivational principles or practices teachers should know to be
able to enhance students’ valuing of learning science. The literature review on
instructional models explains the features of the models and provides a rationale for using
instructional models in teacher development activities. The literature provided an
important foundation for design the motivation-based inquiry and application

instructional model, and conducting the professional development in this study.

Teacher learning
Teacher learning has been described in a number of different ways (e. g. Darling-
Harnmond, & Bransford, 2006; Feinman-Nanser, 2008). This study is particularly
focused on professional development and ways in which professional development
affects teacher knowledge and practice. In this section, I explain teachers’ knowledge and
practices for effective science teaching and a model of teacher learning that provides a

useful foundation for understanding teachers’ knowledge and practices.

13

Knowledge and practices for effective science teaching

Effective teachers have extensive knowledge about various aspects of teaching
and learning and are able to put what they know into actions. Shulrnan (1987) categorizes
knowledge that teachers need for effective teaching. These categories are content
knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Effective
science teachers have extensive knowledge about science contents and the nature of
science, knowledge about teaching and learning in general, and knowledge about how to
help students understand scientific ideas and participate in scientific practices and
discourses. In addition, although there is a lack of emphasis on knowledge related to
student motivation in the frameworks about teachers’ knowledge (Fives & Manning,
2005), science teachers also should have knowledge about how to help students be
motivated to learn science. These knowledge and skills help teachers solve various
challenge that they face in their science classes.

As one areas of pedagogical content knowledge, science teachers should know
about how to help students participate in scientific inquiry and application practices
(NRC, 2007). For example, students should have central questions for investigations,
collect and analyze data, and construct explanations. They also apply the knowledge to
new situations. Through these inquiry and application activities, students understand and
develop scientific ideas. To help student learning, teachers should have knowledge and
practices to effectively support each scientific practice and organize the several class
activities to help students learn scientific ideas.

In addition, teachers should know about how to help students to be motivated to

learn science. This is because students’ learning is not a cold, isolated cognitive process

14

but is highly related to their motivation (Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle, 1993). Furthermore,
effective motivational strategies in traditional science classrooms focusing on
transmission of knowledge may differ from those in reform-oriented science classrooms.
For example, the motivational strategy of focusing on test results may be effective in
traditional science classrooms but not in inquiry classrooms. Therefore, there is need for
clarifying knowledge and skills to motivate students to learn science in reform-oriented
science classes as well as knowledge and skills regarding instructions. In the next section,
I introduce a model of teacher learning that provides a useful foundation for

understanding how teachers develop knowledge and practices.

A model of teacher learning

Teacher learning has been described in a number of different ways (e. g. Clarke &
Hollingsworth, 2002; Darling-Harnmond, & Bransford, 2006, F einman-Nemser, 2001 ,
2008). There are the central tasks of teacher preparation, new teacher induction, and early
professional development (Feinman-Nemser, 2001). For example, pre-service teachers
need to revise their beliefs about teaching and learning, and have beginning repertoires of
teaching. In-service teachers need to develop their knowledge and practices that align
with the reform-oriented model of instruction. As children’s learning occurs within the
‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD) (V ygotsky, 197 8), teachers may have their ZPD
in their learning to teach. With help of other knowledgeable persons and theoretical and
practical tools, teachers may be able to develop these knowledge and practices, and solve

problems in teaching science.

15

This study is particularly focused on professional development and ways in which
professional development affects teacher knowledge and practice. Important components
of such a model typically include professional development activities, teacher, and
enactment. F ishman, Marx, Best, and Tal’s (2003) model of teacher learning is
particularly useful for describing how teachers learn to teach science as they participate
in professional development activities because this model clearly points out the process
of ongoing teacher learning with respect to relationship among professional development

activities, teachers, students outcome. Figure 2.1. illustrates their model of teacher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

learning.
Professional Development < """"" V ------------------------------------
Design Elements 4— Curriculum
9
l 5 Evidence of
student fl
PD activities performance

 

 

 

 

 

 

A t h , / Enactmem F ______
eac er S

Knowledge, beliefs, & Attitudes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2.1. A model of teacher learning by Fishman, Marx, Best, and Tal (2003)

In the model, they explain that teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes are the aspects
of teacher cognition that are affected by participation in professional development.
Teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes are formed interactively with class enactment
and each can influence the other. Student performance also influences teacher knowledge,

beliefs, and attitudes, mediated through enactment. As they teach, teachers intuitively

l6

look to their students for feedback about the instruction. This information forms a key
component of the feedback loop that shapes teachers’ beliefs about their students and
their own teaching (Richardson, 1996). In addition, they argue that ‘curriculum’ holds a
central place in any model of teacher learning, because curriculum presents direction for
teachers to teach in classroom. Professional development needs to help teachers to
successfully teach the curriculum to students. Finally, there are ‘professional
development design elements.’ These are the components that comprise professional
development. Designers of professional development have immediate control over and
are able to modify them in order to increase their impact on teacher knowledge, beliefs,
and attitudes, and subsequent enactment. The authors argue that there are four primary
‘elements’ over which designers of professional development have control: the content of
professional development, the strategies employed, the site for professional development,
and the media used. These four elements can be combined in various ways to create
professional development experiences for teachers.

The model of teacher learning from professional development is useful for
explaining teacher learning. Teachers develop their knowledge and practices not only by
participating in teacher development, but also by using and enacting what they learned in
the professional development (PD) in their classes. By the continuous cycle of learning in
PD activities, using what they learned in class, and reflecting what they did in class,
teachers continuously develop their knowledge and practices. In addition, this model
points out the relationship between teacher learning and student learning. Finding out the
relationships helps teacher educators understand what changes in teaching practices

actually influence student learning. This process will eventually help develop an

17

empirical basis for design decisions in professional development rooted in evidence
linking student and teacher learning.

However, this model also has three important limitations for explaining how
teachers learn. Each of those limitations is important for understanding the outcomes of
this study. First, this model focuses highly on teacher knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes
rather than teacher practices. The authors argue, “a chief objective of professional
development should be to foster changes in teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes,
because these components of teacher cognition show a strong correlation to teacher’s
classroom practices” (p.645). Although teacher knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes are
important in teacher development, changes in teacher practices should also be the direct
goal of teacher development programs. This is because many studies have reported
discrepancies between teacher knowledge and their practices (e.g., Loughran, 1994). In
other words, teachers do not always do what they think best when teaching probably
because of lack of skills, conflictions among their beliefs, or other constraints such as
time. In addition, what actually influences student learning or motivation is teacher
practices, such as what teachers say and do in the class, rather than what teachers know
and think. Therefore, professional development activities should focus on developing
teacher practices as well as helping teachers develop their knowledge (Darling-Hammond,
& Bransford, 2006).

Second, this model is not clear about the importance of teachers’ existing
knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes for their development. The authors define teacher
learning as ‘changes in the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of teachers that lead to the

acquisition of new skills, new concepts, and new processes related to the work of

18

teaching’ (p.645). Although ‘change’ in teacher knowledge and acquisition of ‘new’

ideas are important, it is hard to change teacher knowledge without considering their
existing knowledge. Furthermore, the authors do not mention how to use teachers’
existing knowledge in teacher development. Although they assessed teachers’ existing
knowledge or beliefs, the primary purpose during their study was to find out the effects of
professional development on teacher knowledge.

However, learning is heavily influenced by an individual’s existing knowledge
and beliefs and is situated in contexts (Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996). Like all
learners, teachers interpret new knowledge and experiences through their existing
knowledge and modify and reinterpret new ideas on the basis of what they already know
and believe (Feiman-Nemser, 2008). As van Driel, Bejaard and Verloop (2001) argue,
“reform efforts in the past have often been unsuccessful because they fail to take
teachers’ existing knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes into account” (p.1). A reform project
should take teachers’ knowledge and practice into, and changes in these should be
monitored through the project.

Finally, this model does not consider the influence of social and cultural contexts
on teacher learning. Learning is situated in particular contexts where knowledge is
acquired and used (Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996). What teachers learn is also
influenced by the social and cultural contexts. For example, when the principal of a
school expect certain things like standardized test improvement or quiet classrooms his
expectation can affect how teachers teach science. Teachers may put their efforts into
helping students memorize scientific information rather than helping students to

participate in scientific inquiry. Various settings in which teachers learn—professional

l9

development programs, schools and classrooms—enable and contract teachers’ adoption
and use of knowledge and practices and their ongoing learning (Feiman-Nemser, 2008).

Based on the critique, I modified the model of teacher learning (See figure 2.2.)
This model showed components over three different time intervals. At Time 1, teachers
interpret new knowledge and practices through their existing knowledge and practices
and learn new ides and skills by participating in professional development (PD) activities.
The PD activities influence what teachers learn, but what teachers already know and do
influence the interaction with teacher educators during the PD activities. In addition,
curriculum materials present the direction for teachers to teach in the classroom. At Time
2, teachers enact the curriculum materials in their classrooms. Through planning,
enacting, assessing, and reflecting on their teaching, teachers learn how to use new
practices and acquire new knowledge. The curriculum materials are used as a tool to
guide their teaching. Teachers interact with curriculum materials when constructing the
planned curriculum. This planned cun'iculum guides the teacher in co-constructing the
enacted curriculum with the students (Remillard, 2005). Depending on contexts in which
teachers use their knowledge, what teachers learn differs. While teachers’ new practices
influence students’ learning and motivation, student reactions in their classroom also
influence what teachers learn. Teachers look to their students for feedback about the
instruction and reflect their teaching. Finally at Time 3, teachers transfer their new
knowledge and practices to teach different curriculum materials. The application of the
knowledge and practices is also influenced by the features of the curriculum materials,
their students, and other contexts. Teachers experience ongoing learning through

participating in several teaching cycle of planning, enacting, assessing, and reflecting.

20

 
 
 
   
 

 
   

 
   
  
   

Professional

 
 
  

    
   
 

  

Time 1:

PD Teachers development

activities -Knowledge actrvrtres
-Pract1ces with curriculum

   
   
  

materials

 
 

 

 

School/Classroom contexts

Teachers _ f
-Knowledge
-Practices /

Curriculum <
\y

 
  
 
 
 

Time 2:
Enactrnent

 

 

 

 

 
   

  

Teachers
-Knowledge
-Practices

Time 3:
Post
Enactrnent

      
       
   
 
 

  

Different
Curriculum
materials

 
   

Figure 2.2. A revised model of teacher learning

21

While this model is useful for describing how teachers continuously learn to
teach through participating in professional development and enacting curriculum
materials, it does not adequately specify which teacher knowledge bases and practices
should be developed. In particular, while researchers have identified knowledge and
practices related to instruction such as teachers’ views of inquiry, there is a need for
clarifying knowledge and skills to motivate students to learn science in reform-oriented
science classes as well as knowledge and skills regarding instructions. In the next section,
I summarize the literature on motivation in order to explore what motivational knowledge

and skills are necessary for teachers.

Motivation

This study will focus on the value aspects of motivation among three big areas of
motivational research: classroom environment, expectancy, and value. Researchers
concerned with the classroom environment are interested in developing classroom
motivational climates and goal structures that can promote students’ motivation.
Research on expectancy aspects of motivation addresses topics about expectation of
success or failure and concerns about social comparisons. Research on value theory
focuses on answering questions about what makes a content or learning activity valuable
and how we can help students appreciate it (Brophy, 1999, 2008). All three areas are
important, but I argue that teacher educators and motivational researchers should help
science teachers be able to enhance students’ valuing of learning science. In other words,
teachers should be able to help students find science interesting, relevant, or important to

them. This is because helping students appreciate their learning is important in

22

motivating them to learn science, but teachers do not frequently use practices that help
students see the value in learning activities (Bae, 2007; Green, 2002). Valuing
motivational practices are less found in typical classrooms than other motivational
strategies such as motivational strategies to improve students’ expectancy to success in a
task probably because the valuing motivational strategies are related to content areas and
because teachers did not have opportunities to learn about the motivational strategies at
the University. In the next paragraphs, I will explain the framework of values, how
teachers value science, and motivational principles to enhance students’ valuing of

learning science.

Framework of values

Eccles and Wigfield (198 5) suggest that people participate in a task when they put
value on it and expect they will succeed in the task. They suggest that subjective task
value has three major components: attainment value, intrinsic/interest value, and utility
value. Attainment value is the subjective importance of doing well on a task in order to
affirm one’s self-concept or fulfill one’s needs for achievement, power, and social needs.
Intrinsic/interest value is the inherent enjoyment one gets from engaging in an activity.
Utility value is the perceived usefulness of a task as a means to achieve a career goal or
other larger goals. In order to focus on cognitive aspects of students’ motivation to learn
academic content, Brophy (2004) includes the satisfaction of achieving understanding or
skill mastery under attainment value, aesthetic appreciation of the content or skill under
intrinsic value, and improving one’s quality of life or making one a better person to the

framework under utility value. This framework of three values is useful for explaining the

23

various reasons that students learn science. For example, a student may study science
because science is exciting (intrinsic value). Another high school student may take an
advanced science course in order to gain entry into a certain university program which he
wants to attend (utility value). One female student may not study science hard because
she does not think that doing well in science is important for girls and her friends do not

study it as well (attainment value).

Teachers ’ valuing of science

A few studies have investigated teacher knowldge and practices regarding the
valuing of learning science. For example, Helm (1998) shows how experienced
secondary science teachers appreciate the value of science. According to the analysis of
interviews, science was important to all five teachers but they appreciated it in different
ways. For example, they liked science because of the thrill of discovery, the scientific
perspective in seeing the world or giving a chance to work with students as a teacher.
Although Helm illustrated teachers’ perceived value of science, he did not report how
their views influenced thier practices, particulary how they helped their students
understand the value of learning science.

Bae (2007) investigated teachers’ views and practices of valuing of science
through survey, interviews, and classroom observations. Analysis of classroom
observation and interviews showed that teachers did not frequently communicate the
values of science in class. In addition, their communication had limitations in helping
students enhance their valuing of learning science because their comments to help

students find science interesting or relevant to students’ lives were short. This result

24

corresponds with other research. Studies on teacher motivational practices reports that
many teachers do not frequently use motivational practices in a way that helps students
appreciate their learning (Brophy & Kher, 1986; Green, 2002) and that some teachers
even use practices that undermine students’ motivation to learn school subjects (Dolezal,
Mohan Welsh, Pressley, & Vincent, 2003; Raphael, Pressley, & Mohan, 2008).

In addition, teachers do not have sufficient knowledge of the effects of
motivational practices. For example, many elementary and secondary teachers try to
make school subjects fun through hands-on activities, believing that this practice is
effective (Zahorik, 1996; Bae, 2007). However, the strategy of just using hands-on
activities, which is frequently used in inquiry classes, is not related to improving
students’ perception of utility value of science or their interests in science (Mac Iver,
Young, and Washburn, 2002). The possible reasons for teachers’ ineffective use of the
practices may come from their lack of opportunities to learn about student motivation.
Teachers do not have experiences learning about motivational practices at the University
and want to learn about motivational practices (Harris, 2008). Therefore, teacher
educators should help teachers learn motivational principles and practices that are useful

to help students understand the value of science.

Motivational principles to enhance students ’ valuing of science

Until very recently, few studies focused on the question of how teachers can help
students understand the value of school subjects and develop interests (Brophy, 2008).
There are some recommendations for classroom application which are given by some

motivational theories and studies. Because my study focuses on intrinsic/interest value

25

and utility value], I summarize motivational principles helping students understand utility

values of science or develop their interest in science.

Utility value: In order for students to understand the utility value of science, the content
that teachers teach in school should be meaningful or relevant to students’ lives.
Meaningfulness refers to students’ perception of the content’s application to life outside
of school (Mitchell, 1993). Relevance refers to one’s perception that something is related
to one’s personal needs or goals (Keller, 1983). Science is useful for solving problems in
students’ everyday lives, understanding the world around them, and accomplishing other
goals such as career goals.

Many motivational theorists have expressed the importance of meaningfulness
and relevance of school subjects to students’ lives (e. g., Hidi & Renninger, 2006;
Mitchell, 1993). Students are more willing to engage with content that they view as
relevant to their agendas and applicable to their lives outside of school (e.g., Blumenfeld,
et. al., 1991; Frymier, 2002). Regrettably, classroom observation studies show that many
teachers do not frequently use practices to make school subjects relevant to students
(Green, 2002; Newby, 1991).

Researchers make several recommendations for framing content or learning
activities to enhance their perceived relevance to students (F rymier, 2002; Keller, 1987).
The recommendations include 1) stating how the learning would build on the students’

existing skills; 2) using analogies familiar to the learner from past experience; 3) relating

 

Among the three values, in thlS study, I focus on mtrrnsrc/rnterest value and utility value, but not
attainment value. This is because the first two values seem to be more related to the scientific content than
the other value.

26

it to their interests; 4) attempting to link content to students’ needs such as the need for
affiliation, power, and achievement; 5) pointing out its current or future applicability in
their lives; 6) modeling enthusiasm for its applications; 7) using authentic material and
activities; and 8) asking them to determine for themselves why or how the content is
relevant to them.

Interest value: In order to help students be intrinsically motivated to learn science,
intrinsic motivational theorists and interest theorists have given some general
suggestions: 1) use classroom management and teaching styles that address students’
needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness; 2) plan learning activities that students
are likely to find enjoyable or intrinsically motivating; and 3) modify the design of other
learning activities to include features that will enhance the activities’ appeal (Brophy,
2004; Hidi & Renninger, 2006; VanSteenkiste, Lens, & Deci, 2006).

Brophy (2004) listed the following as potential sources of intrinsic or individual
interest in activities: 1) genetically-based temperament or predispositions (e. g., high-
arousal people are likely to prefer active pursuits, whereas low-arousal people are likely
to prefer quieter ones) 2) fun, enjoyment, 3) self-actualization potential (allows one to
feel empowered or creative), 4) meaningful, satisfying (allows one to experience new
understandings or take satisfaction in achieving new insights or syntheses of knowledge),
5) identification/self-proj ection (allows one to project oneself into situations, such as by

identifying with a central character in a story, simulation, or historical text), 6)

27

identification/assimilation to self (experience with an activity or exposure to modeling or
information about it makes one want to engage in it, to learn more about it, and so on).2
Although some general recommendations and possible sources of interests are
suggested, those recommendations and sources have not been fully realized in science
classrooms (Raphael, Pressley, & Mohan, 2008) because specific practices are not
suggested. In addition, there is a need for creating coherent, effective approaches that
synthesize recommendations about teacher learning regarding instruction and motivation.
To address these problems, this study uses an instructional model as the center for
professional development activities to provide a tool for teachers to synthesize ideas

about instruction and motivation for effective science teaching.

Instructional model
As I said before, this study uses an instructional model as the center for
professional development activities to provide a tool for teachers to synthesize ideas
about instruction and motivation for effective science teaching. In this section, I review
literature on instructional models, focusing on the background of instructional models
and uses of the models in teacher education programs. I also introduce one instructional
model, I-AIM, to which I add motivational components in order to help teachers develop

both instructional and motivational knowledge and practices.

 

2 . . . . . ,
Brophy (2004) also mentioned that relevance/utility to one’s agenda has potential to mcrease one 5
interest in it.

28

Definition and theoretical backgrounds of instructional model

An instructional model is defined as a simplified representation of the process one
might engage in and the content one might address while teaching science (Schwarz &
Gwekwerere, 2007). Examples of instructional models includes the Learning Cycle
Approach (Abraham, 1998), the conceptual change model (Teichert & Stracy, 2002;
Minstrell, 1989), and the BSCS 5E’s approach (Bybee, 1997). Each instructional model
consists of several phases that help teachers sequence activities to coherent learning
experiences. For example, the learning cycle approach (LCA) consists of three phases
(Abraham, 1998). First, in the exploration phase, students are given experience with the
concept to be developed, often involving a laboratory experiment. Second, in the
conceptual invention phase, the students and/or teacher derives the concept from the data,
with this usually being carried out during a class discussion. Third, the application phase
gives the student the opportunity to explore the usefulness and application of the concept.
Similarly, another model, the conceptual change model, consists of three phases. A
teacher finds out students’ preconceptions, challenges them by providing discrepant
events or conflictions between ideas, and helps students integrate the preconceptions into
new classroom ideas (Teichert & Stracy, 2002; Minstrell, 1989). Through lessons based
on the conceptual change model, a set of concepts is replaced with another if the learner
is dissatisfied with the former, and the latter has a higher status in terms of its
intelligibility, plausibility and fi'uitfulness from the learner’s viewpoint (Posner, Strike,
Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982).

These instructional models has been developed and used since the late 19503. For

example, the term ‘learning cycle’ was used since 19503 when school science curriculum

29

project initiated. The conceptual change model was studied after Posner, Strike, Hewson,
and Gertzog, (1982) posed the model of science learning as the process by which
people’s central concepts change from one set of concepts to another set, incompatible
with the first.

These models are based on a cognitive perspective of learning. Specially, the
learning cycle approach and the conceptual change model are based on constructivism
influenced by Piaget who argued that a child constructs knowledge by interacting with
the environment (Ginsburg & Opper, 1979). Knowledge cannot simply be transferred to a
passive receiver but is constructed and based on the learner’s existing knowledge and
experience. Learners reorganize or remove their prior knowledge3 through the process of

assimilation and accommodation.

Effects of instructional models on students’ learning

Many studies on instructional models have reported a positive influence on
students’ learning while some reported no influence on students’ learning. Instructional
models, which focus on students’ active construction of scientific knowledge, have been
strongly proposed as the alternative of traditional science lessons in where knowledge is
informed by teachers. In spite of their strengths, they have some weaknesses in
effectively enhancing students’ learning. In the next paragraph, I will describe the effects

of instructional models on students’ learning, focusing on two instructional models, the

 

3 For example, McClosky (1983) proposed that students’ well organized misconceptions, called naive
theory, should be removed and changed by scientifically accepted knowledge. diSessa (1988) suggested
that Students’ preconceptions, called knowledge in piece, should be restructured and reorganized.

30

learning cycle approach and the conceptual change model, because the two models have

been widely studied in the area of science education.

Learning Cycle approach. Many studies on the learning cycle approach has confirmed
that this is an effective instructional strategy with many advantages over more traditional
approaches in terms of student’s attitudes, scientific skills, and conceptual understanding
(Abraham, 1998). For example, Bowyer’s (1976) study of scientific literacy among 521
nual six grade students showed significant gains in basic process skills and content
knowledge associated with exposure to the lessons based on the approach. The most
important conclusion from studies using the approach is that merely providing students
with hands-on laboratory experiences is not by itself enough. Laboratory activities should
be used to introduce concepts so that students are given the opportunities to construct
knowledge from their experiences and apply the knowledge to new situations.

However, the approach has two main limitations. First, based on largely Piagetian
psychology, the learning cycle approach focuses more on individual construction of
knowledge than on social construction of knowledge. Although discursive practices are
expected in the second phase of the learning cycle approach, the focus is more on
personal construction of knowledge developed from the data or observations in the
experiments. However, because learning is both “a process of actual individual
construction and a process of enculturation into the... the practices of wider society”
(Cobb, 1994, p.13), teachers should not disregard the social aspects of learning science.

Second, the learning cycle approach does not give any information for teachers on how to

31

know and use student’s intellectual and motivational resources in order for teachers to

help students construct their knowledge and want to participate in learning activities.

Conceptual Change model. Researchers have reported mixed results of the effects of
the conceptual change model on students’ learning. Many reported a positive influence of
the conceptual change model on students’ positive motivation and their deep
understanding of scientific concepts (e. g., Barlia and Beeth, 1999; Lee and Anderson,
1993; Melonie & Stracy, 2002). For example, Melonie and Stracy (2002) explore the
effectiveness of the conceptual change model for a college general chemistry course. This
study is focused on student preconceptions, knowledge integration, and student
explanation. The experimental group explained chemistry topics at a more sophisticated
level than did the control students and they also had fewer misconceptions. The number
of poor performers in the experimental group was significantly smaller than that of the
control group. Studies that reported positive influences argued the need for using the
conceptual change model to help students construct their knowledge instead of a
traditional didactic teaching approach’.

However, some studies reported no effects of the conceptual change model on

students’ learning (e.g., Hellden & Solomon, 2004). For example, Helleden and Solomon

 

4 For example, Unit (1991) described the roles of students’ preconceptions in the traditional classroom
setting and emphasized the need for the conceptual change model. First, students’ conceptual frameworks
guide observations. Although demonstration experiments are very important in science and are used in
classrooms, research has shown that students very often do not observe what is obvious from the scientific
point of view. Second, empirical evidence does not necessarily convince students that their preconceptions
are inadequate. Third, there is a tendency to “observe” only the aspects of experiments that support one’s
own views. Fourth, conceptions guide the information provided by the teacher or the textbook. Finally,
traditional didactic instruction very often fails to guide students from their own conceptions to the scientific
conceptions.

32

(2004) reported that there was no significant change in student’s preconceptions between
an experimental group, who learned science based on the conceptual model, and a control
group. As the reason for the ineffectiveness, researchers criticized the conceptual change
model for ignoring other aspects which can influences learning, such as social, cultural,
contextual, affective, and motivational aspects (Pintrich, Marx, & Posner, 1993; Abd-el-
Khalick & Akerson, 2004; Solomon, 1987). For example, Pintrich, Marx, and Posner
(1993) criticized the model because it focuses only on student cognition without
considering the influences of students’ motivational beliefs about themselves as learners
and their roles in the classroom community. They say the model fails to explain why
students with the needed prior conceptual knowledge do not activate this knowledge
when engaged in school tasks. They suggested that conceptual change is mediated by
four general motivational constructs (goals, values, self-efficacy and control beliefs), and
is moderated by a host of classroom contextual factors (task, authority and evaluation
structures, teacher modeling and scaffolding, and classroom management). In other
words, although many researchers agreed on the need for conceptual change to help
student learning, the model did not consider other facts that may influence students
learning such as social, contextual, and motivational aspects

Instructional models can support coherent learning experiences that can help
students build new understandings by participating in lab activities and constructing
conceptual frameworks. They have potential as the alternative to the traditional didactic
science teaching approach. However, these models have limitations. They focus on
individual construction of knowledge rather than social construction of knowledge. They

also do not include other factors that influence student learning such as social, contextual,

33

and motivational aspects. In addition, these models do not include the most recent
recommendations about scientific inquiry practices (NRC, 2000). Therefore, in order to
increase the positive effects of models on students learning, those models need to be
refined, I suggest, to include motivational components, social aspects of learning, and

scientific inquiry practices.

Use of instructional model in teacher education programs

Recently researchers started using the instructional models to help pre-service
teachers understand how to teach science. This new tendency seems to be based on three
factors—positive influence of the models on student learning, using the models as a tool
to help pre-service teachers develop their ideas about and practices for science teaching,
and creating coherence for the design of teacher education experiences across various
communities of practices. First, although there are limitations of instructional models, the
models have positive effects on student learning compared to the traditional teaching
approach (e.g., Abraham, 1998, Melonie & Stracy, 2002). Secondly, those models can
serve as cognitive tools that enable pre-service teachers to synthesize ideas for how to
teach science, guide their own skills in teaching science, and apply core principles of
reform-based science teaching (Schwarz & Gwekwerere, 2007). Teachers need
conceptual and practical tools to enhance their knowledge and practices (Darling-
Hammond, et al., 2005). Finally, instructional models can be used as a central framework
for cooperation of several communities of practices (Zembal-Saul, 2009). In order to
effectively help teachers learn to teach, it is important to give similar and repetitive

messages across communities of practices that teachers participate in (Darling-Hammond,

34

et al., 2005). For example, pre-service teachers learn how to teach inquiry-based lessons
using instructional models in science methods courses, learn experiences of participating
in scientific inquiry in their science courses, and observe science instruction based on the
models in their field placement.

Recently developed instructional models used in teacher education programs
include recent recommendations about scientific inquiry practices (NRC, 2000) and
several features of pre-existing instructional models such as the learning cycle, 5Es or
conceptual change. These recently developed instructional models include the
argumentation framework called TESSA (Teaching Elementary School Science as
Argument) (Zembal—Saul, 2009), EIMA (Schwarz & Gwekwerere, 2007), observational
and planning tool (Zubrowski, 2007), Inquiry-Application instructional model (Gunkel,
Bae & Smith, 2008) and model-based inquiry (Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2008).
The argumentation framework called TESSA (Teaching Elementary School Science as
Argument) employed by Zembal-Saul (2009) focuses the pre-service teachers’ attention
on authentic scientific discourse, explanation structure, and scientific reasoning and
emphasizes the use of evidence to construct arguments. The author provided
opportunities for the pre-service teachers to use the TESSA framework for argument
construction to plan and teach a series of lessons on one scientific concept. The author
immersed the pre-service teachers in an explanation-driven inquiry so they could better
understand how to use this pedagogical stance to develop their students’ understanding of
science concepts. Schwarz (2009) used an instructional tool called EIMA (Engage-
Investigate-Model-Apply) to plan lessons that incorporate scientific practices. EIMA was

especially intended to help the pre-service teachers sequence their lesson activities so

35

students could engage with real-world phenomena and use model-based reasoning to
develop explanations. Zubrowski (2007) developed an observational and planning tool
which describes categories of pedagogical practices related to an extended inquiry-cycle
model. During the professional development project, mentors used the tool to provide
effective feedback to mentees, and mentors and mentees used it for adapting existing
curriculum to a more standards-based mode of instruction. Gunkel, Bae and Smith (2008)
designed an Inquiry-Application Instructional Model (I-AIM) which synthesizes many of
the instructional frameworks to help pre-service teachers critically analyze curriculum
materials and plan and teach science lessons in ways that more closely align with reform-
based models of instruction. Findings from studies on the instructional models showed
that the models helped teachers 1) use reform-based criteria to critically analyze
curriculum resources, 2) plan science lessons that more closely align with reform-based
models of instruction, and 3) develop their views of teaching science. In other words, the
studies suggest that instructional models serve as a powerful scaffold for teachers’
developing, thinking, and practice.

While instructional models are useful for teachers to plan and teach lessons, the
models themselves do not mention enough about students’ motivation and their prior
knowledge. However, good science teachers should consider students’ prior knowledge,
experiences, backgrounds or motivations when planning and teaching. While
instructional models can give structure to a lesson, effective science teachers should think
about their students. Some instructional models have components to understand the

cognitive aspects of students such as prior knowledge and experiences, but fewer have

36

components relate to student motivation. Therefore, there is a need to incorporate some
motivational components to existing instructional models.

To address the problem, I chose one instructional model, I-AIM among the many
instructional models for several reasons. First, I-AIM has few components to help
students become motivated to learn science but it has potential to include several
motivational components in the model. I will explain it in detail in the following section.
Second, I-AIM includes some components related to understand students’ prior
knowledge and experiences. Finally, while TESSA or EIMA focus on specific scientific
practices such as argumentation or modeling, I-AIM deals with general scientific
practices including inquiry and application. For this reason, it can be widely used among
various science teachers. In the next section, I will discuss I-AIM in order to examine the

benefits and the possible limitations of the model.

The Inquiry-Application Instructional Model

The Inquiry-Application Instructional Model (I-AIM) synthesizes multiple
instructional models such as conceptual change and SES as well as the recommendation
about scientific practices (NRC, 2000). I-AIM consists of four steps and each step has its
own functions to help students achieve specified learning goals. The steps and their
functions in I-AIM are the following: Engage (establish a problem and elicit student
ideas); Explore & Investigate (explore phenomena and explore student ideas); Explain
(Develop students’ explanation; introduce scientific ideas; compare to student ideas); and

Apply (apply scientific knowledge to new situations) (See table 2.1 .).

37

Table 2.1. The Inquiry-Application Instructional Model

 

Model Stage Activity Functions for instruction

 

0 Establish a Problem/Ask a Question

 

Engage O Elicit Student Ideas about the question
Explore & 0 Explore Phenomena and look for patterns
Investigate 0 Explore Student Ideas about the patterns

 

0 Develop students’ explanations
Explain 0 Introduce Scientific Ideas
0 Compare and revise Student Ideas

 

A l 0 Practice with support
PP y 0 Practice with fading support

 

 

 

 

This model has several benefits for student learning and teacher learning.
Regarding the benefits to student learning, science lessons based on I-AIM can provide
students with opportunities to participate in scientific practice, understand scientific
knowledge, and use the language of science. Scientific practice is made up of interrelated
cycles of inquiry and application (Anderson, 2006), and the steps of MIAIM mirror the
scientific practices in many ways. The first three steps of I-AIM focus on helping
students participate in inquiry practices—learning from experiences by looking for
patterns across many phenomena and developing explanations for those patterns. In
addition, the last step focuses on application practice—using knowledge to understand
other patterns and experiences. As the result of productive participation of inquiry
practice, students can construct scientific knowledge about patterns, models, and
explanations, and apply the knowledge to new situations. Finally, students use the
language of science (Lemke, 1990) when exploring their ideas, using evidence to justify

their ideas, or comparing their ideas to scientific explanations in the second and third

38

steps of I-AIM. Science lessons based on I-AIM have the potential to provide a rich
environment where students participate in the science learner community.

Regarding benefits of the model to teachers, I-AIM can be used as a cognitive
tool to scaffold teacher’s learning to teach science. First, I-AIM highlights critical
features of inquiry and application based science lessons that teachers might overlook.
Teachers have different ideas about what inquiry is (Windschitl, 2004) and there is a gap
between teachers’ views of inquiry and features of inquiry reported by NRC (2000). For
example, teachers did not mention the two important features of inquiry—evaluating
explanations in connection with scientific knowledge and communicating explanations
(Kang, Orgill, & Crippen, 2008). However, I-AIM clarifies the components of inquiry
and the sequence of inquiry and application based science lessons. It can also give
guidelines for planning and teaching science lessons.

Second, I-AIM gives teachers guidelines about how to take account of students’
ideas and build their knowledge. Understanding students is one of the important problems
of practice that teachers face (Davis & Smithey, 2009; Mikeska, Anderson, & Schwarz,
2009). Instruction that follows the model provides students with opportunities to share
their ideas, then revise their ideas as they engage in new experiences. Students compare
their explanations of observed patterns with the scientific explanations introduced, thus
supporting students in recognizing how scientific explanations are plausible and fruitful
(Posner et al., 1982; E. L. Smith, 2001).

Finally, I-AIM helps teachers critically analyze curriculum materials and think
about what activities they would use to support student’s conceptual learning (Gunckel,

Bae, & Smith, 2007). Beginning teachers tend to use hands—on activities for motivating

39

students in class activities or make science lessons fun, but do not necessarily think about
how the activities would support to help students learn specified learning goals (Kang &
Anderson, 2009; Mikeska, Anderson, & Schwarz, 2009). However, lessons based on I-
AIM connect hands-on experiments, patterns in data from the experiments and
explanations; therefore, teachers have to think about which experiences they would use to
help students find patterns that support scientific explanations.

While I-AIM has the potential to give students opportunities to participate in the
science learner community and to be used as a cognitive tool to scaffold teacher learning
to teach science in a way that closely aligns with the reform-based models of instruction,
it does not include the research from literature on students’ motivation. However,
motivating students to learn is one of teachers’ big concerns and teachers do not
frequently use motivational practices that support students’ valuing of science (Bae,
2007; Raphael, Pressley, & Mohan, 2008). Therefore, there is a need to incorporate
motivational components into I-AIM in order for the model to be useful as an effective

tool for teacher development and students’ learning of science.

Motivation-based inquiry and application instructional model (MIAIM)
In this section, I explain MIAIM; motivational components added to I-AIM. First,
I provide the rationale for why I choose I-AIM among various instructional models for
adding motivational strategies. Then, I describe motivational principles and practices that
can be used to help students appreciate their learning of science. Finally, I explain the

steps and feature of MIAIM.

40

Rationale for adding motivational components to I-AIM

While I-AIM gives ideas about how to sequence activities, it tends to be silent
about how to flame the activities for motivating students to participate in the activities.
However, learning is situated in contexts as well as involving active construction of
knowledge. Therefore creating contexts in which students are easily motivated to learn is
very important in teaching science. Specifically, if students do not appreciate the goal of
science learning or lack interest in the leaming, they may not use their prior knowledge to
understand specific learning goals (Barlia and Beeth, 1999; Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle,
1993) or legitimately participate in scientific practices.

I-AIM has the potential to be combined with motivational principles. For
example, it includes an activity asking students’ ideas about scientific questions, in which
teachers have a chance to understand students’ prior knowledge and experiences. In
addition to this intellectual resource, teachers may have a sense of their students’ interests
in the question and connect students’ personal interests with topics that they learn. In
addition, I-AIM provides students with experiences with phenomena. Students’
involvement in hands-on investigations or group works in the investigations is one of the
sources to catch student interest (Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Mitchell, 1993).
Application of scientific knowledge can also give students a sense of the relevance of the
topic to their lives and understand the importance of learning science if a teacher clearly
and repeatedly shows how scientific knowledge applies to students’ everyday lives (Pugh,

2002)

41

Adding motivational components to I-AIM
As part of my preparation for this study, I added motivational components to 1-

AIM, in particular helping students appreciate values of learning science. The
motivational components are chosen based on the recent literature on value aspects of
motivation and science learning. The components includes: teaching contents that have
significant value, making the relevance of the topic to student’s lives, organizing
activities to catch and hold student’s interests, supporting students’ autonomy, and know
and use knowledge about students. In the next paragraphs, I will explain the components.

First of all, to help students appreciate values of learning science, a teacher should
teach content or use learning activities that have significant value (Brophy, in press). A
teacher needs to focus on big or powerful ideas rather than individual facts to help
students understand the world. The learning activity should focus on helping students
acquire important scientific skills such as finding patterns or making argumentations,
rather than just for fun for Students’ engagement, which is one of problem pre-service
teachers face when they organize science lessons (Mikeska, Anderson, & Schwarz, 2009)

Second, a teacher needs to make the relevance of the topic to students explicit
rather than assuming students understand it in class or in their future. As making thinking
visible is useful to students’ understanding of science content (Linn, 2000), making the
relevance or application visible may scaffold students’ valuing of learning science. For
example, a teacher may explain the relevance/benefits of learning the contents to students
or society, point out its current or future applicability in students’ lives, or ask students to

determine why or how the content is relevant to them.

42

Third, a teacher needs to organize learning activities to catch and hold students’
situational interests as well as leveraging students’ individual interests (Hidi &
Harackiewicz, 2000). For as a secondary science teacher, it is not easy to find out all his
students’ interests and to tailor the lecture to each student’s interest. In that case, he may
plan learning activities that students are likely to find enjoyable or intrinsically
motivating, and modify the design of other learning activities to include features that will
enhance the activities’ appeal. For example, he may use themes relating to topics widely
viewed as interesting (animal or human life, injury or death, and so on), use stories to
allow students to project themselves into situations, such as identifying with a central
character in a story.

Fourth, a teacher needs to use classroom management and teaching styles to address
the students’ needs for autonomy (Deci & Richard, 2000; Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Deci,
2006). The more students perceive learning activity as autonomous rather than
extrinsically controlled, the more they experience intrinsic motivation. Students can
perceive a learning activity as autonomous or self-detemrined by adopting values of the
task as personally important or integrating the values into their coherent sense of selves.
A teacher may help students to increase their autonomy by providing choices, minimizing
extrinsic performance pressures, or encouraging students to solve problems in their own
ways rather than insisting on a single method.

Finally, teachers should know their students and use this knowledge about
students in their lessons. Knowing about students’ experiences can help teachers link

their students’ ideas with those in the content area and help students become more

43

invested in knowing the outcome. Knowing about students’ interests or values can help a

teacher link their interests or values with those of science.

Motivation-based inquiry and application instructional model (MIAIM

Motivation-based inquiry and application instructional model (MIAIM) brings
together essential elements of scientific practices (NRC, 2000) and motivational
components to scaffold students’ appreciation for science learning. Table 2.2 shows steps
and activity functions for instruction and motivation in MIAIM.

In the Engage stage, a teacher establishes a problem that gives purpose to
students’ study and elicits students’ ideas about the problem. The problem and the
learning goals of the overall lessons should have significant value. Because the engage
stage is the beginning of the overall lessons, a teacher needs to help students have
positive attitudes towards upcoming learning activities (Burden, 1995). To do so, a
teacher needs to make the relevance of the topic to students explicit and catch students’
interests in the topic. While eliciting students’ ideas about the problem, a teacher may
know students’ prior experiences, knowledge, or interests, and connect their interests to
the topic that they learn (see Appendix 1 &2 for specific instructional and motivational
strategies).

In the Explore and Investigate stage, students explore phenomena and explore
their ideas. They are provided with experiences with scientific phenomena and have a
chance to find patterns in the experiences and construct explanations for the patterns. In
the Explain stage, students explain their ideas about their patterns and explanations, and

a teacher introduces scientific ideas. Students compare their explanations for observed

44

patterns with scientific explanations introduced, and revise their ideas when the scientific
explanations are plausible and fruitful (Posner et al., 182). In those two steps, which are
the middle of the overall lessons, a teacher needs to hold students’ attention and interests
(Burden, 1995). In addition, he needs to set up learning activities in a way to support
students’ autonomy.

Finally in the Apply stage, students use newly-developed ideas to explain similar
phenomena in new situations. Cognitive apprenticeship (Brown, Collins, & Duguid,
1989) is used to provide students with practice applying new explanations in both
familiar and less familiar contexts. While helping students apply scientific ideas to new
situations, a teacher should help students understand the role of science in their lives or
society, and realize affordances of participating in science learning activities. These
efforts may help students enhance their valuing of learning science and develop positive
attitudes toward science class.

Through these four steps, MIIAM systematically presents the components of
scientific practices and motivational components to scaffold students’ appreciation for
science learning. Therefore, it can help teachers plan and teach science lessons in ways
that closely align with reform-based models of instruction. It also helps teachers
effectively use motivational strategies to help students understand the values of learning

science and participate in scientific practices.

45

Table 2.2. A motivation-based inquiry and application instructional model

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

support

 

Model Activity Functions for instruction Activity Functions for motivation
SAge
0 Establish a Problem] Ask a 0 Understand relevance of
Engage Question topic to students’ lives
0 Elicit Student Ideas about 0 Catch students’
the question situational interests
0 Explore Phenomena and
Explore & look for patterns
Investigate 0 Explore Student Ideas ,
about the patterns . Support students
autonomy
0 Develop students 0 Hold students’ attention
explanation and intereSt
Explain 0 Introduce Scientific Ideas
0 Compare and revise
Student Ideas
. Practice with support 0 Understand the role of
Apply 0 Practice vvrth fading science

 

46

 

Chapter Three: Method

Design

In order to determine how professional development activities using MIAIM
affected teachers’ teaching approaches and practices and their students’ learning, I used a
design-based research approach (Barab & Squire, 2004; Cobb, Confrey, DiSessa, Lehrer,
& Schauble, 2003; Design-Based Research Collective, 2003). The design-based research
approach is developed for understanding learning and teaching through the design and
study of learning environments. My study focuses on creating teacher education learning
environments with the goal of better understanding the development of teachers’ reform-
based teaching practices and their influences on students. The design-based research
approach is appropriate for this study because (1) the purpose of this study is not only to
determine whether the intervention around MIAIM worked, but also to investigate why
and how the intervention worked and did not work and what components of MIAIM
seemed to have the greatest effect, and (2) a researcher collaborates with teachers to
incorporate MIAIM into teachers’ science units.

I designed MIAIM and professional development activities and conducted the
interventions with three teachers. This study consisted of three stages. In the first stage,
teachers taught one or two units without any intervention. Data from this stage provided
me with an understanding of each teacher’s existing approaches and practices, and
student features. In the second stage, an intervention stage, the teachers participated in the
professional development activities. I introduced MIAIM and helped them incorporate

this into their lessons during the intervention. In the final stage, the teachers taught other

47

units. Data from this stage provided me with an understanding of the intervention’s
effects on teachers and students.

In this study, I had two roles. During the intervention stage, I served as a teacher
educator to help teachers develop science teaching practices. However when teachers
taught science in their classrooms before and after intervention stages, my role was that
of an observer. I only observed and recorded the happenings in the science teachers’

classrooms.

Participants

Teachers

Two 8th grade science teachers and one 4th grade elementary teacher participated
in this study. I recruited them by searching for experienced or recommended science
teachers who use or want to use various reform-based instructional strategies in their
classrooms. Experienced teachers were selected because they already possessed skills for
classroom management, leaving time to focus on the promotion of the value of learning
science. Michigan State University (MSU) science education faculty members suggested
several possible teachers, and I also knew some teachers through my prior study on
teachers’ motivational strategies. I contacted multiple teachers to inquire whether they
would like to incorporate a new instructional model into science units or learn more about
motivational strategies. Three teachers agreed to participate in this study. Two 8th grade
teachers had been students of one faculty member at MSU and the other teacher who had
participated in a professional development program designed by MSU faculty members.

All three teachers were similar to one another in terms of years of experience (6 to 9

48

years) but showed variation in their backgrounds related to science and professional
development experience, school contexts, and student features (see Table 3.1. for
summary of participant demographics). Therefore, the case studies of the three teachers
can provide information about the nature and success of the intervention across settings.

Next, I describe each teacher and characteristics of school for this study.

Table 3.1. Participating teacher demographics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher Richard Teresa Dan
Gender Male Female Male
Grade Level 8 8 4 and 3
Experience 9 years 8 years 6 years
Settings Suburban Urban Urban
# of total
students in 25 31 23
class
Elg‘ggt‘tgf“ 78%-White 45% Black 42% White
36% White 33% Black
Students
% eligible for
free or reduced 25% 71% 54%
lunch

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard teaches 8th grade science in a suburban middle school serving students in
7’h and 8th grade. He had taught science for nine years since receiving his bachelor’s
degree at the local university. He had not participated in professional development
programs on scientific inquiry or motivation. However, he took classes about educational
technology for his master’s degree although he did not finish it. His school had been
worked with faculties at the local university for three years on the study of reading
strategies and understanding texts. So, he said that he tried to do some of that.

The school in which Richard taught is located in one of the more affluent

residential neighborhoods in the city. Public records indicated that only 25% of the

49

students in the school were eligible for free or reduced lunch. This school’s students were
approximately 78% White, 9% Black, 1% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 1% American Indian, and
4% other. He taught four science classes a day and the science class that I observed
included 25 students. When I observed him, he was teaching physics and chemistry.

Teresa teaches 8th grade science in'a middle school serving students between 6th
and 8th grade. The school was very close to the neighborhood she grew up, which is why
she wanted to teach there. She has taught science for eight years in the school since she
received her bachelor’s degree at the same local university. In contrast to Richard, she
had experience participating in a professional development program related to scientific
inquiry for a couple years. The program was called PI-CRUST, which stands for
“professional inquiry communities for reform-based urban science teaching”(Richmond,
2002). The program focused on helping teachers learn about science content and inquiry,
students’ understanding, standards-and research-based science teaching and assessment,
and exemplary science curricula. In particular, it gave opportunities for teachers to learn
about scientific content that they would teach, to participate in scientific inquiry, and to
observe inquiry oriented teaching strategies. In that program, Teresa participated in
developing curriculum materials for inquiry and implemented them in her classes.

The urban middle school in which Teresa taught is located in a mid-sized
Midwestern city. Public records indicate that 71% of the students in the school are
eligible for free or reduced lunch. This school’s students were approximately 36% White,
45% Black, 4% Asian, 14% Hispanic, and 1% American Indian. In this sense, the socio-

economic status and ethnicity of Teresa’s students are different from those of Richard’s

50

students. She taught four science classes a day and the science class that I observed
included 315 students. When I observed her, she was teaching biology and earth science.

Dan teaches a 3rd and 4th grade split in an elementary school serving students
between 1S” and 5th grade. Because his 4th grade students numbered less than 20, he had to
teach both 4th and 3rd grade students in one class in the school year of 2008-2009. He had
six years of teaching experience at the elementary level and received both his bachelor’s
degrees and master’s degrees in education at the local university. Before becoming a
teacher, he worked in biology laboratories at the local university. He also had experience
participating in the same project that Teresa participated in. The project supported him in
standards-based, inquiry-oriented professional development.

The urban elementary school where Dan taught was located in the same mid-
sized Midwestern city as Teresa’s school. Public records indicate that 54% of the students
in Dan’s school were eligible for free or reduced lunch. This school’s students were
approximately 42% White, 33% Black, 6% Asian, 17% Hispanic, 1% American Indian
and 1% other. His class included 23 students (15: 4th graders and 8: 3 'd graders). When I
observed him, he was teaching earth science and physics.

In summary, each teacher taught science for six to nine years. They were
different from each other in background, school context, and student characteristics.
Richard taught science in a suburban school, but Teresa and Dan taught science in urban
schools. The two urban school teachers had some experiences of participating in a project
that supported them in standards-based and inquiry-oriented science teaching. Richard

and Teresa started their teaching after they graduated at the local university like many

 

5 In the fall semester of 2008, there were 31 students, but in the subsequent semester, there were 33
students.

51

other teachers, but Dan began to teach after working as a research scientist. He had more
experiences in, and knowledge about, science than other elementary teachers. The various
features of the teachers gave me a chance to investigate how different teachers used

MIAIM differently or similarly.

Students

A total of 55 students from the teachers’ classes agreed to provide data for this
study. They were 18 of 25 students from Richard’s class, 16 of 31 from Teresa’s class,
and 21 of 23 from Dan’s class. I observed them during classes, collected their classroom
artifacts, and assessed their motivation and understanding on the unit that each teacher
agreed to incorporate MIAIM into. In addition, I conducted interviews with five to six
students from each class. Based on their judgment on the level of their student’s
motivation to learn science, teachers suggested the students whose levels of motivation

varied between high, medium, and low.

Classroom contexts and typical lessons of the three classes
Richard taught four science lessons a day and the class that I observed was his
first class hour of the day. He wanted me to observe this class because the students
participated in class activities more than those from other classes. Students were on time
and were relatively quiet when he talked to the whole class.
Richard adopted a science curriculum developed by Holt Science and Technology.
His science lesson varied in structure from day to day but included several activities to

address two or three learning goals in one lesson. The activities included students’

52

reading and writing, experiments with scientific materials, reviews of scientific ideas, and
class discussion. Every student had their own book and Richard gave them reading or
writing assignments using concept maps or worksheets. He also gave them opportunities
to do as many experiments as possible. Whenever I observed his teaching on scientific
methods and physical change, his students had time to work with scientific materials
although the time to do experiments was sometimes short (about 10 minutes). He also
reviewed science ideas at the end of every unit and did class discussion.

Teresa taught four science lessons and one social study lesson a day. The
participating students from her class learned science in their first class hour in the fall
semester of 2008 but their fifth class hour in the spring semester of 2009. In addition, a
few students came into the class in November 2008 when there was a schedule change in
the school. Students were quiet when she explained scientific ideas. However, the class
was noisy at the beginning and end because students were not on time, there was a
morning assembly in the fall semester, and she distributed or collected science folders.

Teresa did not adopt one specific curriculum. She used worksheets and activities
from several books and from the intemet. Her typical lesson started with a review of
science ideas that students had learned the day before. Then, she introduced an activity
for the day and shortly described what students would do. There was only one main
activity for a day such as writing, computer investigation, modeling activities, and
teacher explanation. During the main activity, students usually followed the direction of
each activity described on a worksheet and wrote their answers to the questions on it. In
the case of intemet investigations, she and her students followed each question addressed

on the computer or worksheets. They wrote their answers about predictions, patterns, or

53

explanations. At the end of the activity, she did not give students opportunities to read
their answers but rather had students submit their worksheets.

In Dan’s class, there were 23 students, one intern, and one elderly ‘grandfather’ as
well as a teacher, Dan. Dan taught science and the intern watched his teaching. At the end
of the fall semester 2008, the intern taught one or two science lessons, but I did not
observe her teaching. When Dan instructed students in front of the classroom, the intern A
usually sat down in one place but during group activities, she helped individual groups.
Students sat in four groups of five or six students that included both 3rd and 4th graders
and male and female students. During class activities, students in each group worked
together but also individually wrote their answers to Dan’s questions. The grandfather did
not participate in class activities but just sat in one comer of the classroom.

Dan adopted a science curriculum developed by Biological Science Curriculum
Study (BSCS). He used some activities in the books but also designed his own lessons
because “investigating the earth science” by BSCS was originally designed for 3rd graders
and it did not include activities to teach learning goals for 4th graders. His typical science
lesson consisted of his introduction of an activity, a group activity, and individual writing.
When class started, he introduced an activity for the day. He showed how to do the
activity at the front of or in the middle of the classroom where materials were set up.
After describing the activity, he called one student’s name from each group, who then
brought activity materials to his/her group. Then, he talked about who would do what in
the activity and students followed his direction. During group or individual activities, he
and his intern went around the groups and asked students to do their work or helped them.

More than 20 or 30 minutes of a one-hour science lesson were spent performing activities

54

including observing, collecting data, and writing answers. At the end of class, he
sometimes asked students to read what they wrote but other times finished the class

without students’ sharing their writing.

Intervention for professional development

I held two to three meetings with each teacher in his/her classroom to introduce
MIAIM and help them incorporate it into their science units. These meetings occurred
after I observed their science lessons about six to seven times when each teacher almost
finished teaching one or two units. Although there was some variation among teachers,
the meetings consisted primarily of three different types of endeavors: (1) discussing
teachers’ prior teaching approaches and practices to promote students’ understanding of
science ideas, especially though using inquiry and application activities, and students’
motivation to learn science (2) my explaining MIAIM focusing on features of each step
and motivational principles, and (3) helping teachers incorporate MIAIM into their
science lessons.

To understand teachers’ initial teaching approaches and practices, I asked several
questions about their own goals for teaching, instructional practices to achieve the goals,
views of inquiry and applications, and practices to address scientific practices. In addition,
I asked about motivational strategies and how they valued science. I also asked about
their specific teaching strategies to understand what I observed during their science
classes. Talks with teachers helped me find out their views and practices for teaching
science and how their practices might have been similar or different compared with

practices in MIAIM. It is important to clarify teachers’ prior views and practices in order

55

for them to compare theirs with new ones, reorganize or develop their views and
practices, and understand how new ones are plausible and fruitful (Posner, Strike,
Hewson, and Gertzog, 1982).

In addition, I explained MIAIM focusing on features of each step and
motivational principles. To justify the steps of MIAIM, I talked about the nature of
science and definitions of scientific inquiry and application, using the experience-
pattems-explanation (EPE) framework by Anderson (2006). In particular, I discussed the
difference between school science and scientists’ science6 in order to explain the
importance of doing inquiry lessons. For example, I said that traditional school textbooks
include many explanations and theories but provide a few data to support the theories.
Therefore, students learn many explanations without many experiences with phenomena.
However, that is not what science really is. Scientists have constructed explanations
through several experiments. Teachers also said how some of their lessons fit with the
EPE framework. Because the EPE framework is also introduced in Michigan High school
Content Expectation, which teachers should refer to, I explained that MIAIM is
theoretically based on the framework.

I also discussed that EPE framework itself did not provide teachers with specific
guidelines about how to plan and teach science lesson where students can engage in
scientists’ science. I said that to help pre-service teachers to plan these science lessons,
some researchers in MSU designed an instructional model which explain specific step of

lesson that teachers and students need to follow. Then, I explained four steps of MIAIM

 

6 Providing experiences with phenomena before offering explanations and making the patterns in the
experiences explicit distinguishes scientists’ science from traditional school science (Anderson, 2006;
Sharma & Anderson, 2003).

56

(Engage, Explore & Investigate, Explain, and Apply) and functions of each step for
instruction. In particular, I focused on the importance of establishing a central question
for investigation, finding patterns, helping students revise their ideas with scientific ones,
and applications because teachers sometimes did not fiequently do in their science
lessons. In order to help their understandings about MIAIM, I gave documents about EPE
frameworks and description of MIAIM (Table 2.2. & Appendix 1) and example lesson
plans based on MIAIM. (See appendix 2 for one example lesson plan).

Then, I discussed the importance of teachers’ use of valuing motivational
practices. I explained some of valuing motivational principles to help students find
science interesting, relevant, and meaningful (see Appendix 3 & 4) and effects of
motivational practices. For example, I said that providing a rationale of doing some
activities was helpful for undergraduate students to more actively participate in class
activities and that providing examples of using scientific concepts in everyday lives was
helpful for students to more frequently use those concepts (Pugh, 2002). After the
discussion, I provided an example of how the principles are incorporated into inquiry and
application lessons (Appendix 2).

Finally, I helped teachers incorporate MIAIM into their science lessons. I tried to
engage the teachers in cognitive apprenticeship of planning and teaching science lessons
(Collins, Brown, and Newman, 1989). I showed example lesson plans based on MIAIM
to model the use of it in planning and teaching (See Appendix 2 for an example lesson
plan). I used two example lesson plans. One lesson plan about electricity was for a 4th
grade unit and the other lesson plan about the periodic table was for an 8’“ grade unit.

Then, I provided coaching as teachers planed science lessons. I talked with teachers about

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their lesson plans or curriculum materials and how to incorporate MIAIM into their
lessons. For example, I suggested that teachers help students to find patterns in data by
themselves or establish central questions for investigations at the beginning of hands-on
activities. I also suggested specific components or strategies of MIAIM that might seem
to be relevant to their lessons. In the next paragraph, I will give more explanation about
how I interacted with each teacher.

Richard and I talked how to make a lesson about periodic table to be more inquiry
based. I suggested that he help students find patterns in several elements by themselves.
After my suggestions and explanation of the feature of MIAIM, Richard made a new
lesson plan for atoms and the periodic table and asked me whether his lesson plan would
include similar features of MIAIM. Although his lesson plan included activities for
students to find patterns in several elements in the periodic table, it included few
motivational strategies to help students value their learning. To motivate students to learn,
he planned to use games or telling importance of learning science for high school. I
suggested that he relate atoms and the periodic table to students’ everyday life. He
suggested that we do some research about use of elements in our home. Then, he revised
his lesson plan and included several activities to help students frnd relevant to their lives
such as class discussion on the use of elements in our lives and students’ research on
elements in daily home products.

Dan talked about how he had taught an electricity unit for previous years and
showed worksheets that he had used. I talked with him about how the sequence of his
inquiry activities would be better able to match the goal of MIAIM. For example, because

his previous year’s worksheets included only materials, procedures, and some results, I

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suggested that he add a big question for a hands-on activity. I also suggested that he help
students find patterns in data. Based on our discussion, he revised his worksheets.
Regarding motivational practices, he said that he would show some pictures related to
blackout but he did not plan to use other specific motivational strategies. Therefore, I
suggested that he use some pictures of people’s lives without electricity and use a story to
make a context for investigation about electricity. He revised the story to make the story
more specific and interesting to his students. For example, he wrote that his students
would go to Vietnam to find treasure because one of his students was from Vietnam. He
also added some questions at the end of the story to ask students to think about how to
make bulbs light up.

Teresa showed some curriculrnn materials that she used previous years but she did
not talked in detail about how she used them and how she planned to teach during our
meetings for professional development. One of the reasons for it was that she had to
develop new curriculum materials because her focus of teaching topics had changed
based on the changes of objectives in Michigan Grade Level Content Expectation. She
used to teach history of plate tectonics but she did not have to do that anymore and she
just had to teach what happened as the results. In addition, she was required to teach only
clarifications and effects of volcanoes and earthquakes different from her previous years.
Therefore, one week or two days before her teaching, she briefly told the topics of her
lessons and what methods she would use such as intemet investigation, or modeling
activities. I asked her to use specific components or strategies of MIIAM when she taught
specific lessons. For example, I asked her to follow all steps of MIAIM when she said

that she would do her first inquiry-based lesson about earthquakes. I asked her to help

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students frnd patterns in data. Regarding motivational practices, I also asked her to have a
class discussion on why learning some topics such as volcanoes and earthquakes are
important to know.

Finally, I phased out my support. With Richard and Dan, I almost stopped my
scaffolding after the meetings for professional development. However, with Teresa,
because she did not frequently use several aspect of MIAIM in her lessons about plate
tectonics after the meetings for professional development, I asked her to use some
MIAIM practices in brief conversations druing school and over email when she taught
earthquakes and volcanoes. After I asked her to use MIAIM a couple times, however, I

phased out my scaffolding.

Implementation of this study

This study took place during the school year of 2008-2009. Before the
intervention, I collected initial data from each teacher’s classroom to understand their
teaching and obtain background information about their students. It took two to three
months for me to collect the initial data for each teacher. The introduction of MIAIM and
helping teachers to use it took about two weeks. Finally, each teacher taught another
science topic after the intervention and I collected data about teachers and students to
examine any effects of the intervention on teachers and students. It took around two to
three month to collect post-intervention data with each teacher. Table 3.2 summarizes the

time line and teaching topics for the three teachers.

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Table 3.2. Time line and teaching topics for the three teachers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before intervention During After intervention
intervention
Richard Unit Scientific methods & Chemical change
Topic physical change (Atoms, periodic
table, acids and
bases)
Time Sept-Oct. 2008 Oct. 2008 Oct-Dec. 2008
Teresa Unit Genetics & Structure of Plate tectonics (Plate
Topic the earth tectonics,
earthquakes,
volcanoes)
Time Sep.2008-Jan.2009 Jan.2009 Jan.-Mar.2009
Dan Unit Land forms Electricity
Tgic
Time Sep.-Oct.2008 Oct.2008 Nov.2008-Jan.2009

 

Because of different schedules, the topics that they taught and the timeline for the
intervention and data collection were different among the teachers. Richard taught
scientific methods and physical changes for two months before the intervention and
taught chemical change for two months after the intervention. Teresa taught genetics and
structure of the earth for three months before the intervention and taught plate tectonics
for two and a half months after the intervention. Dan taught earth science focusing on
erosion for two months before the intervention and taught electricity for three months
after the intervention.

It took a longer time to collect data from Teresa’s class than from the other two
classes for several reasons. First of all, because of the students’ low participation in my
study and a schedule change which changed members of classes, it took about 6 weeks
for me to get parental consent forms from her class. In addition, she had unexpected
surgery in November, 2008 and I could not observe her teaching for three weeks. Finally,

she had to teach other aspects which were not related to science in her classes. For

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example, in her science class, her students did a test to find out their interests for their
future jobs and sex education for one week before the winter break. During these events,
she did not teach science and therefore, it took roughly three months for her to finish

teaching the first two units.

Data Sources
1 used several data sources to address my research questions including interviews
with teachers and focus students, classroom observations, lesson plans, curriculum
materials, students’ reflection notes, pre- and post-motivation surveys, and pre- and post-
tests to assess student’s understandings of scientific ideas. In the following paragraphs, I

describe data sources for teachers and students.

Data sources for teaching approach and practice

In this study, ‘science teaching approach’ refers to the way that teachers present
science in a class as well as their beliefs and understandings of teaching science. It is
similar to ‘teaching orientation’, used by Grossman (1991) and Magnusson, Krajcik, and
Borko (1999), which means the set of teacher beliefs and knowledge that guides teachers’
goals and methods for teaching science. However, science teaching approach is different
from teaching orientation in that it also includes patterns in teachers’ actual teaching such
as how they organize several activities to accomplish their goals.

‘Teaching practice’ is defined as skills, strategies, or repertoire of classroom

enactment (Hammemess et al., 2005). Among many instructional practices to promote

students participation in scientific inquiry and application practices, I focused on five

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instructional practices, which are important features of MIAIM: (1) ask a question that
provides a sense of purpose to the student’s study in the beginning of units or lessons, (2)
provide experiences with phenomena, (3) make patterns explicit, (4) provide explanations,
and (5) apply scientific knowledge to new situations. In addition, I focused on four
motivational practices or principles to promote student’s valuing of learning science: (1)
make the relevance of a topic to students’ lives explicit, (2) catch and hold students’
situational interests, (3) support students’ autonomy, and (4) know one’s students and use
the knowledge

To address my two research questions about 1) teachers’ initial teaching
approaches and practices before the intervention, and 2) changes in these approaches and
practices after the intervention, I analyzed several data sources including teacher

interviews, classroom observations, and class artifacts.

Interviews. I conducted four interviews with each teacher. I conducted the first three
interviews before introducing MIAIM. When I mention ‘pre-interviews’ in my result
section, it refers to the first three interviews. Then, I conducted a final interview with
each teacher when he/ she finished one unit of teaching after the intervention. I call the
final interview ‘post-interview’ in my result section. Each interview lasted between 30
and 90 minutes. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. I used open-ended
questions and probes as guidelines to invite the teachers to share their experiences and
tell their stories related to teaching science. These semi-structured conversations
illuminated teachers’ goals, experiences, practices, and understandings related to teaching

science.

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The first interview took place at the beginning of the school year before the
teachers participated in the intervention for teacher learning. The purpose of this
interview was to get to know the teachers and to explore ideas about teaching science. I
asked questions about teachers’ experiences of teaching, experiences with professional
development, their schools and goals for teaching science. I talked with them about units
in which they wanted to incorporate a new instructional model for my study.

The second and third interviews took place when each teacher had almost
completed teaching their one or two science units. The purpose of these interviews was to
explore teachers’ initial teaching approaches and practices. The interview questions
examined teachers’ own goals for teaching, instructional practices to achieve the goals,
views of inquiry and applications, and practices related to inquiry and application-based
lessons. In addition, the questions examined teachers’ motivational strategies and how
they value science. I also asked about their specific teaching strategies to understand what
I observed during their science classes.

The final interview took place when each teacher completed teaching another
science unit after they had participated in the intervention. The purpose of the interview
was to explore changes in teachers’ teaching approaches and practices after their
experiences for teacher learning. First, I asked questions similar to those I asked during
their second and third interviews. For example, I asked again about their goals in teaching
science and their definitions of inquiry lessons to find out whether any changes occurred
in their understandings or practices in teaching science. In addition, the final interview
questions asked about specific activities or episodes happened in their classes. I probed

the rationale for including the activities or specific practices that they used. Second, the

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interview protocol included questions to probe teachers’ ideas about how they used
MIIAM and how it worked in their classes. Finally, the interviews ended with teachers’
recommendations to MIAIM in order to be revised and used for other teachers’ learning
such as pre-service teacher education programs. Appendix 5 shows all interview

questions.

Observation. 1 observed each science teachers’ instruction between 12 to 14 times prior
to and after intervention. Before intervention, I made five to seven visits to each teacher’s
classroom approximately once a week. The purpose of these observations was to
document teachers’ instructional and motivational practices and to understand their
teaching approaches. After the intervention, I made six to seven visits to each teacher’s
classroom approximately once or twice a week. The purpose of these observations was to
understand their general teaching approach and their practices. More specifically, I
looked at how their teaching was similar or different compared to MIAIM, how they
incorporated MIAIM into their lessons after the intervention, and how students responded
to teachers’ messages or actions.

Before each observation, I tried to talk with each teacher about class activities of
the lesson. Dan and Richard gave some information about the lessons and what they did
before the lessons. Teresa did not have much time to give this information when I
observed her lessons before intervention but she was able to give it when I observed her
lessons after intervention. During the observation, I made field notes and video—and
audio-taped each teacher using one video camera and two audio recorders. The teacher

carried one audio recorder. I set up the video camera at the back of the classroom to

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capture the teacher as well as students. During small group activities, the video camera
was focused on one group of students. After the observation, I tried to talk with each

teacher about his or her thoughts about the lessons.

Class artifacts. Teachers’ lesson plans and curriculum materials were collected to obtain

information about teachers’ practices.

Data sources for students’ motivation and understanding

‘Motivation to learn’ is defined as an enduring disposition to value learning as a
worthwhile and satisfying activity, and thus to strive for knowledge and mastery in
learning situation (Brophy, 1987). Students who are motivated to learn science value their
learning of science and work hard to understand science knowledge or master scientific
practices because they think that participating in scientific activities is worthwhile and
meaningful. In this study, I hypothesized that changes in a teacher’s instructional and
motivational practices may influence on students’ valuing of learning science as well as
their understanding of science ideas. In addition, I also hypothesized that students’
enhanced valuing of learning science may influence their efforts to learn science. These
efforts may also influence their understanding of science ideas.

I obtained multiple data sources about students including observations, surveys,
interviews, and pre-and post-tests. I used a survey and interviews to measure students’
valuing of science. To measure students’ efforts to learn science I used a survey and
observed their on-task behaviors. Finally, I measured students’ understanding of science

ideas through pre-and post-tests.

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Survey on students’ valuing of science and perceived efforts. The survey to assess
students’ motivation was administrated prior to and after the unit in which teachers
incorporated MIAIM. The survey included questions about how students value science.
The questions measured five specific values of learning science: everyday related utility
value of science, job related utility value, importance of science, personal interest in
science (interest value in science from a personal perspective) and situational interest in
science (interest value in science or science class from a situational perspective). In
addition, the survey also measure students’ perceived efforts to learn science in class.

The survey consisted of Likert-scale items on a 7-point scale and open-ended
questions (See appendix 6 for all questions). Likert-scale items were adapted from
previous studies (Eccles, O’Neill and Wigfield’s, 2005; Mac Iver, Young, and
Washbum’s, 2002; Mitchell’s, 1993). Of total 16 items, there were one item for job
related utility value, two items for everyday related utility value, four items for personal
interest, five items for situational interest, two items for importance of science, and two
items for their efforts during science class. One sample item was, “What I learn in
science class is useful for my life outside of school” and students responded to the item
with 1 indicating “Strongly disagree” and 7 indicating “strongly agree.”

Scores from several items within each scale were inter-correlated and they were
averaged into a single score for each scale. For example, there are four items to measure
students’ personal interests in science. The scores from these four items were inter-
correlated highly enough, they were averaged into a single score for personal interest

(Alpha=.795). For the other scales, the reliability was also generally high (Alpha=.591

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for everyday related utility value; Alpha=.993 for importance of science; Alpha=.910 for
situational interest; and Alpha=.992 for perceived importance. However, regarding the
scale of job related utility value, there was only one item to measure the scale. Because
there was only one item, I could not calculate the reliability though using Alpha, but the
correlation of students’ scores from the pre-and post-survey was high (correlation=.53,
p<.001) and so, the item seemed to be reliable to measure student’s views of how science
is useful for their future jobs.

In addition, the survey included four open-ended questions in order to obtain
qualitative data about students’ valuing of science and their use of scientific knowledge
in their everyday lives. One example was “Do you think science is useful? What parts of
science are useful to you? Why? What parts of science are not useful to you? or why
not?” A post-survey also asked students to respond in writing about their perception of
the changes of their motivation to learn science. Appendix 6 shows all questions used in
the survey.

I collected and analyzed 15 students’ pre- and post-surveys from Richard’s
class, 17 students’ surveys from Dan’s class, and 10 students’ surveys from Teresa’s
class. From Richard’s class, 15 of 18 participating students completed the pre-survey and
18 students did the post-survey. From Dan’s class, 20 students of 21 participating
students completed the pre-survey and 17 students did the post-survey. From Teresa’s
class, 11 of 16 participating students completed the pre-survey and 15 students completed
the post-survey. However, only 10 students completed both pre-and post-surveys in her

class.

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Observations. Before and after the intervention, I observed students’ on-task behaviors in
their science class. While I made field notes on the features of class activities and
teacher’s teaching practices, I checked the number of students who were on—task in class.
Every 10 to 15 minutes or when class activities changed, I scanned the class and noted
what students were doing, determining the proportion of students who were on task. For
example, when students talked with nearby students about something that was not related
to the work or played with experimental materials, I judged them as off-task. I calculated
the percentage of on-task students from every class and then, I calculated the average
percentage of on-task students from each teacher’s class prior to and after the
intervention in order to understand how MIAIM instructions influence students’ efforts to
participate in class activities. In addition, whole class discussions also were recorded to

understand what students said in response to their teachers’ messages in class.

Focus student interviews. I conducted pre-and post-interviews with 17 students from
three classes before and after the unit in which teachers incorporated MIAIM. Six
students were from Richard’s class, five students from Teresa’s class, and six students
from Dan’s class. Each interview lasted 10 to 20 minutes. All interviews were audio
recorded and transcribed. I used open-ended questions and probes as guidelines to invite
the students to share their experiences and tell their stories related to learning science.
These semi-structured conversations elicited students’ ideas about their motivation to
learn science, experiences in science class, and their ideas about good science lessons. I
also asked some questions about their responses to the questions in the survey. The post

interview also included question about their ideas about their changes of motivation to

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learn science, reasons for the changes, and their perception of their teachers’ teaching

approaches. Appendix 7 shows the interview questions.

Pre-andpost-test. The tests to assess students’ understanding of scientific knowledge
were administrated prior to and after the unit in which teachers incorporated MIAIM.
Because teachers incorporated MIAIM into different science units, students from each
class took a different test. Richard’s students took a test on chemical change. The test to
assess student understanding of scientific ideas form Richard’s class included 10
questions about atoms and periodic tables (9 multiple choice questions and one open-
ended question) (See Appendix 8). The test used in Teresa’s class had 6 open-ended
questions about plate tectonics (See Appendix 9). The test used in Dan’s class had 10
open-ended questions about electricity (See Appendix 10). I designed the test items for
this study based on questions from books used in the class or tests that each teacher had
used to assess their students’ understandings of science ideas.

The total test score from each class was obtained by summing the number of
points obtained on each item. Because the maximum scores were different across the
three tests, the scores were reflected as percentage correct, where the number of points
obtained was divided by the number of possible points on the test, and subsequently
multiplied by 100. Therefore, all test scores were reported on a 0% to 100% scale. For
example, the mean score of the pre-test from Dan’s class was 3.8 out of 10. The score
was divided by 10 (the number of questions), and then multiplied by 100. Therefore, the
average score was 38% of correct.

I collected and analyzed both pre- and post-tests of 15 students form Richard’s

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class, 19 students from Dan’s class, and 15 students from Teresa’s class. From Richard’s
class, 17 of 18 participating students took the pre-test and 16 students did the post-test.
From Dan’s class, 21 students of 21 participating students took the pre-test and 19
students did the post-test. From Teresa’s class, 15 of 16 participating students took the

pre-test and 15 students did the post-test.

Data Analysis
Teaching approach and practice

To address my first two research questions about teachers’ teaching approaches
and practices before and after the intervention, I generated and used both emergent and
theoretically-driven coding schemes to analyze several data sets. First, I developed and
used a theoretically-driven coding scheme based on the features of MIAIM to understand
teachers’ teaching practices. This analysis was needed to find out how they used some
aspects of MIAIM in their science classes after the intervention.

MIAIM has several important instructional features. First, science instruction
should include an Engage stage activity that establishes a central question for
investigation (Reiser et al., 2003; Rivet & Krajcik, 2004; E. L. Smith,2001). This activity
should come near the beginning of hands-on activities. Second, in the Explore and
Investigate stage activity, teachers should provide experiences with phenomena, such as
giving students opportunities to collect and analyze data. The experiences should be
appropriate for target learning goals and teachers should help students find patterns in the
data. Providing experiences with phenomena before offering explanations and making the

patterns in the experiences explicit distinguishes scientists’ science from traditional

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school science (Anderson, 2006; Sharma & Anderson, 2003). Third, teachers should
provide students with opportunities to develop their own ideas about patterns, provide
scientific information, and compare student ideas to the scientific ideas introduced.
Finally, teachers’ sequences should engage students in the practices of application
(Anderson, 2006) by providing students with opportunities to use their new
understanding in new contexts (Brown, Collins, Duguid, 1989).

In addition, MIAIM also includes important motivational principles or practices.
First, science instruction should include some activities in the beginning of the unit that
help students understand the relevance of topic to their lives. It helps them understand
how science is useful in their everyday lives and help them perceive the learning activity
as supporting their autonomy. Second, teachers should design some activities that are
able to catch and hold students’ situational interests. Third, a teacher needs to use
classroom management and teaching styles to address students’ needs for autonomy
(Deci & Richard, 2000; Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Deci, 2006). Finally, a teacher should
know their students and use the knowledge about students in their lessons. Table 3.3

shows the analysis focus of this study.

Table 3.3. Teaching practice analysis focus

 

 

Analysis Foci

Instructional Establish a central question

practices Provide experiences with phenomena
Make patterns explicit

Provide explanations
Apply scientific knowledge to new situations

 

Motivational Make the relevance of the topic explicit to students
practices/principles Catch and hold students’ situational interests

Support students’ autonomy

Know one’s students and use knowledge about the students

 

 

 

 

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When I analyzed data from class observations, I looked at class activities to
understand whether and how teachers used practices that met the intent of MIAIM. I
checked the instances of using each practice and compared the differences of the
instances before and after the intervention. In addition, I also compared the features of
using specific practices before and after the intervention.

For example, I analyzed whether teachers asked a central question for a
subsequent laboratory activity. If they did, I looked at how they did, such as whether the
question was too short or difficult for students to understand. I figured out whether the
questions were understandable to students based on what students said after their teacher
asked the questions. If teachers did not pose a central question, I looked at what they did
at the beginning of laboratory activities. Teachers tended to explain procedures or
materials of the activities to help students engage in the activities. I compared the
instances of asking a central question for following investigation activities before and
after the intervention.

As another example, I will also explain how I coded teacher practices during one
science lesson. In the science class, a teacher and students completed chapter review on
physical change. I coded the activity as teacher provided explanations. Next, a teacher
introduced a lab activity such as, “You will make a temperature and time data table.”
Without posing a central question for the lab, he explained procedures of the lab. I
coded the introduction of the lab as a teacher did not establish central question for an
investigation. Then, students measured temperature of ice by minutes and made a data

table. I coded the activity as “a teacher provided experiences with phenomena.”

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Regarding motivational practices, I coded this lesson as using a hands-on investigation
under the category of catch and hold students’ situational interests.

Second, I also developed and used an emergent coding scheme to find out
teacher’s general teaching approaches. While the analysis of data with the lens of MIAIM
was useful to understand the changes in teachers’ practices after the intervention, it had
limitations in showing the big picture of their teaching approach. Therefore, I looked at
data from class observations and interviews from the perspective of teachers rather than a
researcher and tried to understand and made an account about each teacher’s general
teaching approach (Simon & Tzur, 1999). I focused on how they presented science in
class; how their understandings of and goals in science were connected to the way that
they present science; and how instructional and motivational practices that they used
were related to another. I analyzed activities of a lesson, the sequence of the activities,
and their apparent functions in a lesson. Then I tried to find patterns in each teacher’s use
of class activities, and compared the patterns with what they said during interviews.
Throughout the analysis, I tried to understand teachers’ initial teaching approaches and

changes in their approaches after the intervention.

Students’ motivation and understanding

To address my third research question about what effect the intervention had on
students’ motivation and understanding, I analyzed surveys, observations, and interviews
as well as pre-post tests. I used dependent t-tests to analyze the changes in student
responses on their valuing of learning science and their perceived efforts during class

between the pre-and post-survey. The average number of students’ on-task behaviors

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from the three classes prior to and after the intervention was compared. I also developed
an emergent coding scheme to analyze responses on open-ended questions in the survey,
and interviews to examine changes in students’ valuing of learning science and their
reported reasons for the changes.

In addition, I used dependent t-test to understand changes in students
understanding of scientific ideas in the pre-and post-test, finding out how much students
understand scientific explanations on the unit, and what mis-conceptions they had before

and after learning about the unit.

In order to validate findings of this research, I triangulated multiple data sources. I
also checked inter-rater reliability. A second independent researcher coded part of data
for teachers’ teaching practices and for students’ valuing of learning science on the open-
ended questions in surveys. The initial reliability was 82% agreement. We discussed the

discrepancies and the agreement on coding reached almost 100% after the discussion.

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Chapter Four: Findings and discussion 8 About Teachers’ Teaching

Approaches and Practices

Part 1: Teachers’ initial teaching approaches and practices

My first research question asked: What are teachers’ (a) initial teaching
approaches, (b) instructional practices for promoting students’ scientific practices, and (c)
motivational practices for helping students value learning science? To address this
question, I draw on data analyses of class observations and interviews with the teachers.
After describing teachers’ approaches, I describe characteristics of instructional and

motivational practices.

Teaching approaches

Analysis of class observations and interviews indicates that the teachers had
different initial approaches for science teaching. Richard used a combination of didactic
and hands-on approaches for teaching science. He tended to focus on providing scientific
explanations to students rather than helping students develop explanations through
participating in scientific practices. Although he used many hands-on activities, he
seemed to use those activities primarily as motivational and instructional tools to help
students understand scientific ideas. Teresa used a combination of didactic and inquiry
approaches. In some lessons, she lectured on scientific information, but in other lessons,
she gave her students opportunities to develop explanations using data. To motivate

students, she made some efforts to relate science to student’s interests or lives, and used

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models or simulations. Finally, Dan used an inquiry approach for teaching science. He
tried to present science in his class in a way “as scientists do” their research. He tried to
help students both understand scientific explanations and participate in scientific
practices, although his lessons did not include many features of inquiry lessons. Dan used
fiin aspects of class activities to help students learn science. In the following paragraphs, I
will explain the teachers’ approaches in detail. In order to understand each teacher’s
teaching approach, I will also report features of their instructional sequences and

motivational practices used in their lessons.

Richard ’5 teaching approach

He used a combination of didactic and hands-on approaches for teaching science,
which typically consisted of book reading, laboratory activities, lecture, and class
discussion. During pre-interviews, he said that he tended not to give a lecture at the
beginning of teaching a new topic but asked students to read books. However, because
the text book he used included information about scientific explanation, students seemed
to be given scientific information by the books. Then, he gave students chances to do lab
activities to “interact with what they read before” if he could find hands-on activities to
support students’ reading. Because students were already given information through
books, his teaching approach was different fiom an inquiry approach in which students
deve10p scientific explanations through participating in scientific activities such as
collecting and analyzing data. The following interview excerpt illustrates his typical

teaching approach.

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Richard (R): I do very little lecture with notes. Very little. We do a lot of class
discussions, demonstrations. . ..

R: Usually I have them do, like if it’s a typical unit plan, I’ll do some reading, a
lab, some vocabulary and a quiz or test. .........

Interviewer (I): So students read some textbook and then they do some labs?

R: Mmm hmm.

I: The reading gives them some basic information?

R: Right. Then, often times with that information I’ll have them organize a
concept map ....... there’s other text organizers that we use. Basically to get
background information so that when they do the lab they have ............ for it.
I: So after reading books or something, the students do labs. Is the purpose of it
understanding what they read before?

R: Mmm hmm. Understanding what they read before and interacting with what
they read. It’s not interacting at the same exact time, but they do get a better

understanding of what they should have read.

Analysis of his class activities shows that his teaching approach was a

combination of didactic and hands-on activities. Of four topics that he taught before the

intervention, he usually gave explanations first and then helped students understand

knowledge through laboratory activities. For example, when he taught phase change of

matter, he and his students did a class discussion on phase change. He asked several

questions about phase change and how to interpret graphs on the three phases of matter.

After confirming students had some understanding of it, he had his students measure ice

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temperature while boiling it and make a graph about time and temperature as a way of
demonstrating explanations about phase change. The following excerpt was from a class
discussion on graphing, which showed students already understood phase change prior to

the lab activity.

Richard (R): This graph, many of you have seen this graph before, which we will
check ourselves today. What is the boiling point of this substance?

Students: 80 degree

R: What is the melting point?

Students: 20.

R: How do you know from this graph, its boiling point is 80?

Student: because at the 80 it is flat.

R: He said boiling point is flatted up. And why not 20? You are right. But why is
boiling point is not 20?

Student: Because the boiling point is the higher one.

R: So, 20 is once it freezes

R: Which state is present at 30 degree point?

Students:

R: State. Solid, liquid or gas?

S: liquid

Afier describing scientific explanations, Richard provided an opportunity for

students to have an experience with the phenomena of the phase change of water. Table

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4.1 shows the sequence of activities in a lesson about phase change and how it matches
the steps of MIAIM. Although he provided a laboratory activity, this lesson did not fit
MIAIM for several reasons. First, the sequence of providing explanation and experience
was opposite with the sequence of MIAIM. Second, he did not address a central question
of the laboratory activity at the beginning of the lesson and students’ ideas about phase
change of water were not elicited. He introduced the activity by mentioning that students
would make a data table. There was no Engage step in the lesson. Finally, although he
said during class that students would “find pattern of phase change regardless of beaker
size or amount of ice”, he did not give students opportunities to compare results to find
patterns in data from different experiment settings. Instead, he asked students to use
knowledge to make a graph. He said, “when you finish, add phase change, where phase
changes and it lost energy or gain.” In other words, he focused on helping students
understand knowledge by participating in laboratory activities rather than creating

explanations with evidence generated by data collection.

Table 4.1. Sequence of activities on a lesson about phase change from Richard’s class

 

 

Activity Description MIAIM step
Teacher and students corrected chapter review on physical Explain
change.

 

Students did a lab about ice temperature and phase changes. Explore
They measured temperature of ice by minutes and made a

graph.

 

 

 

 

In another lesson about the scientific method, he gave explanations about five
steps of the scientific method and then had students do hands-on investigations that
engaged them in demonstrating those five steps. During the investigation, he had his

students follow each step of the scientific method to investigate a phenomenon of

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interactions of different liquids. The purpose of using the hands-on investigation seemed
to help students reinforce knowledge about the scientific methods. In the curriculum
materials distributed in the class, he wrote, “The colored solution lab is an investigation
in which you will reinforce the use of the scientific method and gain a better
understanding of each of the steps in the method. You will use your flow chart to keep
track of what you did for each step in the method.” Before the class, he also introduced
the lesson to me such as “I had them made flowcharts about scientific methods. They
have to write all steps here and how what they do in this lab would be matched with the
methods.” In order words, he used the hands-on activities as the tool to help students

understand the knowledge about scientific methods that he explained.

Regarding motivational practices to enhance students’ valuing of learning science
in his science class, he had an attitude that it was hard to help students understand why
learning science was worthwhile or important to them. It depended on topics where he
could provide real life examples. He pointed out that it was a challenge to help students
to understand why physical and chemical changes were important to learn. He said,

Physical science, in my opinion, is one of the harder branches of science to try to

incorporate into their ‘why I have to learn it’ attitude. It’s hard to

say ............... you need to understand what the difference is between a physical

and chemical change. It’s hard to get them to say, “Oh yeah, I see why.” So

that’s a challenge. I used to teach seventh grade science, which is more earth
science, a little bit of physical. But some of the earth science, you can really get

into why you need to understand why thunderstorms, tornadoes,

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hurricanes. . . .how it affects our everyday life. But as far as some of the topics of
physical and chemical changes, it’s harder to get them to see that. ....Not

much ...... [It is] sometimes a little bit easier to apply to the real life situations.

To help students view science as worthwhile and to help students participate in
class activities, he seemed to use two kinds of practices. First, he talked about the
importance of studying science for future jobs or from a scientist’s perspective. Second,
he tried to make science activities fun or interesting using games, hands-on activities,
demonstrations, or giving choices in activities.

First of all, he talked about how science was important for their future. During
interviews or class discussions, he showed that he had tendency to persuade students to
study or learn science because the learning would help them get a job or they would use

the knowledge in the future. For example, during the interview, he stated:

Sometimes some of the kids ask why do we need to know this. Well, maybe you
won’t, but maybe you will. So it’s important to learn as much as you can,
because you never know when you’re going to use what you learned. I try to
give the example of my opinions when I was growing up, thinking, “oh, I don’t
have to learn this,” and then further on, actually using what I learned that I

thought I wouldn’t have to know. It doesn’t always get through.

In the interview, he also said that he told students to learn science as much as they

could, because the learning may be helpful in their future although they may not find the

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reasons for studying science in the moment. He gave a similar message to students during
class. In the class, he told to students that they should learn science because science was
related to many jobs and they might get those jobs in the future. The following excerpt is

his class discussion.

Richard (R) : Say, I’m teaching you something that you really don’t want to know
about. ‘Why do I have to learn this? What do we learn this for?’ Well, the
branches of science I had. . .kind of a secondary motivation. This helps you see
that it’s not just earth science. Not just life science, not just physical science.
There’s all these branches off of that. All those branches have jobs, careers.
You know what career you’re going in? You know for sure, 100%, positive,
absolutely? No way it’s going to change? Got it? Trust me, it may change.
It’s great to know what you want to do, but you’re idea might change. I didn’t

know I was going to be a teacher until I was in college.

R: But I didn’t know I wanted to be a teacher. I thought I wanted to be in the
medical field like a radiologist.

Student: Do you ever want to switch to math?

R: Switch to math? No, I like science. I also thought about going into golf pro
management, managing golf courses. Giving golf lessons and things like that.
They have a program for that at Ferris State.

Student: Are you good?

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R: Am I good? I can golf. I can play. I thought about that and my first year I
went in ‘no preference.’ I started taking some college courses. I took a
packaging course. You know what packaging is? Boxes, plastic, making the
bottles — you know you look at these bottles and you see a recycle — LDTE. You
know what LDTE stands for? I started learning about plastics and materials and
finally got interested in core science. I learned all the different types of plastics
in my packaging course and that leads into what branch of science? As I started
taking more courses, I thought about teaching. I thought about lessons and
thought, “oh, I could’ve done that better than so and so.” I kind of thought that
way in school, so I was kind of somewhat already training to be a teacher by
thinking like that. Then I got to college and realized that and that’s why I’m a
teacher. Why am I telling you all this? Because these branches of science —
you say, “why do I have to learn this?” — you never know. You might be in a

branch of science someday in that field working as your career.

In the class, he tried to give the message that science would be meaningful to

students because it could help them to get a job in the future. In addition, as the reason to

study science, he told importance of some activities from a scientist’s perspective. For

example, he told students that measurement in science was important “to communicate

some data”. He also asked students to write down the procedure of their experiments

because “experiments should be duplicated” and “if you don’t have procedures written

down, other scientists cannot believe you.” The following is the excerpt about class

discussion on the reason for writing exact procedures:

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Richard (R): you can write step by step list what you will do [in your experiment].
OK? Why do you do?....

R: You don’t have to that specific such as with right hand, but what you need is to
make sure, experiments should be duplicate. ...you exactly write what you do in
your lab. . .. Why is that important? Anyone know?

Student: If it is published, others can do it.

R: there you go. If it is published, another group of people like scientist... You
have proved something or you have discovered something. . If you don’t have the
procedure written down, other scientists cannot believe you. You cannot do it
again and you cannot prove it. So, you discover it, you have procedure for it for it
can be done again. The importance of the same procedure written down in your

lab. Any other questions?

Second, he tried to make science activities fun and interesting, using games,
hands-on activities, demonstrations, and so on. During my observations, he showed
several demonstrations and had students participate in hands-on activities. Although the
activities sometimes only lasted 10 minutes, students had a chance to work with scientific
materials in every class that I observed. The reason for using demos or hands-on
activities was to make science fun as well as to help students to understand scientific
information. His complaint about his students revealed that he used hands-on activities

for motivational reason. He told me that although he used hands-on activities more than

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any other teacher in his school, his students asked him, ‘Do more fun things like other
teachers.’ In order words, he related fun things to hands-on activities.

In conclusion, Richard used a didactic and hands-on approach to teach science.
He tended to focus on providing scientific explanations rather than helping students
construct the knowledge by themselves through participating in scientific practices. He
provided explanations first and then gave experiences. Although he provided students
with opportunities to do laboratory activities, the purpose of the activities was to better
understand scientific information they had read or heard and to make learning science fun
and interesting. Regarding motivational practices, he had an attitude that it was hard to
help students understand why learning some science topics was worthwhile or important
to them. He tended to focus on using fun activities or telling importance of science for
future jobs. Hands-on activities worked as a motivational and instructional tools to help
students understand scientific ideas, which would help students get jobs in their future

rather than help their every day lives.

Teresa’s teaching approach

Teresa used a combination of didactic and inquiry approaches in her class. First,
her teaching approach had some features similar to traditional school science—
transmitting knowledge and practicing of using the knowledge to prepare for tests. In the
beginning of the school year, she taught her students how to answer questions in MEAP
test. She showed example questions from last year’s MEAP test to demonstrate the
formats and structures of the test. She said, “I had told them that we were going to go

over the questions from last year’s. . .I told them that we would go over it so they would

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get used to the formats and the structure, particularly the essay questions. They
[questions] often confuse them [students] because of the format. They [students] think
they’re going to have to answer one of these and they have to actually do both.”

In addition, she focused on helping students understand scientific terms and
vocabularies. In the first week of the school year, she explained scientific language and
structures, including prefixes and suffixes. She said, “Today we’re working on different
words and prefixes and suffixes. I think a lot of times kids are intimidated when they
see the words .................. like if they see ‘ology’ on the end of a word, it means study
of..” She also had found out definitions of important vocabularies of the units from books.
Students’ works on vocabulary were graded. She used worksheets for student to use the
vocabulary terms such as ‘inherited trait’ and had a review of terms or scientific
explanations at the beginning of each lesson.

In class, she presented science as factual knowledge. She gave scientific
explanations and definitions prior to allowing students to conduct experiments. For
example, when she taught density, she explained that, “density is the ratio of mass over
volume” and wrote its formula on a board. Then, she showed a rock which floated on
water and one object that she could change its volume. The rock was considered less
dense or denser depending on the volume of the water. Finally, she distributed a
worksheet which asked students to calculate densities of four unknown liquids. Masses
and volumes of the liquids were given and students were requested to write formulas as
well as their densities. Then, students determined the order in which the liquids have
settled in a tank. When students calculated densities, she went around and helped students

calculate them and also gave calculators. After finishing the work, students gave her their

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worksheets to be graded. The sequence of this class was ‘presenting information,
showing examples, and practicing using the explanation’ and it was very similar to the
nature of didactic lessons which consists of explanation, possible verification lab, and
students practice (Magnusson et al., 1999)

However, Teresa also used some features of an inquiry approach similar to
reform science teaching methods such as asking a question, analyzing data, and
constructing scientific explanations or model. She defined inquiry as “the starting point
of what happens. And it goes toward the reality.” By reality, she meant “the truth” and
she said she helped students to arrive at the truth by “visualizing, modeling, and
analyzing data.” According the evidence from interviews with her, she used inquiry
lessons as a “hook” to motivate students to learn science and to help students understand
scientific explanations rather than focusing on helping students to participate in scientific
practices. She did not do inquiry lessons frequently. She said that she did inquiry lessons
once or twice a unit and each inquiry lesson was one hour long.

Before the intervention, I observed three inquiry lessons where she used the
terms ‘investigation’ or ‘lab’ when introducing the lessons to students in class. Table 4.2
describes the lessons including sequence of activities from her class. The lessons
included some inquiry-based features such as asking a central question for the
investigation in the beginning of the lesson, observing and analyzing data, and
constructing models or explanations. For example, in a lesson investigating the structure
of the earth, she asked the question, “How do we know about layers of the earth?” In
order to answer the question, she showed computer simulations about the paths of P and

S waves on a model of an earth on web-page. After students observed the paths taken by

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P and S waves through the earth, she asked questions about layers of the earth based on
the evidence of P and S waves. She and her students constructed scientific explanations
on layers of the earth using the evidence of P and S waves and she summarized them.

However, in the three inquiry lessons, students did not have opportunities to
observe first-hand and find patterns in the data. Instead, the lessons were about making
models or interpreting computer simulations to help students understand scientific models
and explanations. In addition, the lessons were highly structured and guided by the
teacher or curriculum materials in that she posed a central question, students followed
scripted procedures provided by the teacher or worksheets, or the teacher showed

computer simulations with one computer.

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Table 4.2. Sequence of activities from three separate lessons from Teresa’s class

 

Lesson Activity description MIAIM steps

 

A modeling Teacher established a central question of why Engage
activity on traits brothers from same parents look different.

 

Students did a modeling activity on traits of three Explore
generations and solved analysis questions in
worksheets.

 

Teacher summarized answers to the analysis Explain
questions

 

Investigation of Teacher established a central question of “How Engage
the structure of do we know about layers of the earth?”

 

the earth Students observed the paths taken by P and S Explore
waves through the earth shown on Internet Web-
page. They analyzed the paths and draw a
model of structure of the earth

 

She and her students constructed scientific Explain
explanations on layers of the earth using the
evidence of P and S waves

 

Astro-adventure Teacher established a central question of“ how Engage
investigation the earth will be different if we change the
geologic features of the earth”

 

Teacher showed computer simulations about the Explore
effects of movements of mantle, crust on earth
environment.

 

Teacher and students talked the effects shown in Explain
the simulation and teacher told what scientists
said about it.

 

 

 

 

 

To motivate students to participate in the lessons, she said that she used two kinds
of practices—relating science to students’ interests or lives, and using models or
visualizing science. First, during the pre-interviews, she stated that she tried to relate
science to their lives, but sometimes it was hard for her to do so because some topics
were abstract. As she said, during my observations, she gave real-world examples to
students. For example, she told how her husband and her brother-in-law looked different
and asked “how brothers from same parents look different?” She also talked about Italian

dressing, in which oil and vinegar were not mixed, and asked students solve problems of

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density. However, her comments on real-world examples were infrequent and short. In
addition, she did not give students opportunities to think about their own experiences
related to the topics.

Second, she said she used visual models to make the learning of science realistic.
She said, “The other thing is try to do as much with visual models as I can. They have a
real hard time reading something and having it make sense. Not only with
comprehension problems, but the fact that we’re talking about spatially is such a large
scale, it’s really abstract to them. It’s hard to make it real.” The three inquiry lessons
from her class were about using models: a modeling activity on traits, making a model of
the structure of the earth, and seeing the cause and effects of a geologic feature of a

model about the earth.

In conclusion, Teresa used a combination of didactic and inquiry approaches to
help students understand scientific explanations and catch students’ interests in science
classes. She sometimes used a traditional didactic approach but other times used an
approach with features of inquiry. Models played a role in her teaching to help students
understand abstract science content and catch their interest. By relating science to
student’s lives and interests, she tried to motivate students to learn science but had

difficulties in doing so in some topics.

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Dan ’s teaching approach.

Dan used an inquiry approach for teaching science. He tried to present science in
his class “as scientists do” their research. He tended to minimize providing basic
information before doing experiments and had students participate in scientific practices
such as making predictions and hands-on data collections and observations. It seemed
that his purpose of using hands-on activities was not to verify scientific information
already given to students, but to help students “explore and try to get some information
from that [the investigation].” He identified his students in class as scientists by saying
“you are scientists” or asking them to do something “as scientists do.” In other words, his
teaching approach of helping students participate in scientific practices had similarities
with the goals of reform-oriented teaching methods.

Analysis of his class activities showed that his general teaching approach was
inquiry. Table 4.3 provides a summary of main activities from his classroom. Of the
seven class periods he taught, the lessons show that students participated in scientific
practices such as data collection, predictions and comparisons in five classes [class #1 , 2,
4, 5, and 6 in the table 4.3]. Students participated in arguing their scientific explanations
in another class [class # 7 in the table], and finally in the other class, his students applied

what they learned into new situations [class #3 in the table].

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Table.4.3. Summary of class activities from Dan’s class

 

Class

Activity number & Name

Activity description

 

l&
2

Tumbler experiment

Students observed stones and made predictions
about what would happen to the water, stones, and
sand after three weeks of continuous tumbling.
Three weeks later, students observed the stones
again and wrote why their stones changed.

 

Magazine activity

Each student cuts out a landform from a magazine
and describes their landform.

 

Globe game

Students tossed a globe to another student and
where their left pinky finger lands, they told what
landform it was on.

 

Sandblaster

Students observed and drew a picture of card A and
B after they had blown through a straw over the
sand gently or strongly. Students wrote their
answers to the questions on differences between the
two cards and what caused the sand get to the glue
on the paper

 

Glacier modeling activity

Teacher and students co-designed an experiment to
make ice glacier move. Students measured the
movements of the ice glacier once an hour about 4
times. On the next day the ice was melt.

 

Stream studies

Students observed each “stream” of water in two
different angles and described it on their paper.
Teacher asked students label the diagram on a
stream where sources, mouth, bank, and channel of
the stream are

 

 

 

Science talk

 

Students argued each other on a question of how
rocks change.

 

His inquiry lessons showed a pattern of providing basic information, data

collection, and construction of scientific explanations although there were some

variations among the lessons. For example, to help students understand the erosive

process, he designed and enacted an experiment with stones and a tumbler (class #1&2 in

the table). After the teacher explained what sedimentary rock was, he asked students to

collect stones and described the features of their stones. Then, he established a central

question of what would happen to the water, stones, and sand afier three weeks of

continuous tumbling. He made students predict the answer to the question. After three

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weeks of tumbling, the teacher showed the stones again and had students write
comparison paragraphs on the 1) water, 2) stones, and 3) sand. This investigation had
several features of inquiry-based lessons including asking a central question of the
investigation, making predictions, observing and analyzing data, and developing
explanations.

In spite of his efforts to help students participate in scientific practices as
scientists do, his lessons did not include some important features of inquiry and
application. Figure 4.1 shows the frequency of using each component of inquiry and
application in the seven classes. While students spent ample time observing what was
happening to sands, rocks, or ices, Dan did not consistently address the central questions
of the experiments prior to their observations. Although he asked students to compare and

contrast results, he did not always focus on making patterns across experiences explicit.

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Frequencies

 

 

  

Central
question
Students

Ideas

Teacher
explanation

Compare
explanations
Application

Experiences

 

 

Figure 4.1. Frequencies of scientific practices used in Dan’s class

To motivate students to participate in his lessons, he used hands-on activities,
games and humor, and authentic materials. In addition, he thought the inquiry approach
itself was motivating to students. He explained that inquiry gives students ownership.
During the pro-interviews he expressed, “It’s something that they take ownership of.
That’s one of the things that I see that is really important for inquiry. Inquiry is students
take ownership of their own work and that’s why it works so well. Because it’s theirs.”
In addition to using inquiry activities, he tried to make the activities fun by using humor
when introducing the activities. Students laughed during class and said, “cool” during

experiments.

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In summary, the teachers had different initial teaching approaches. Richard had a
combination of didactic and hands-on approaches. He focused on providing scientific
explanations rather than helping students construct the knowledge by themselves through
participating in scientific practices. Teresa had a combination of didactic and inquiry
approaches. In some lessons, she gave scientific information directly, but in other lessons,
she gave her students opportunities to develop explanations about data. Finally, Dan used
an inquiry approach. He presented science in his class in a way “as scientists do” their
research. He tried to help students both understand scientific explanations and participate
in scientific practices although his lessons did not always include many features of
inquiry lessons. Regarding motivation, all teachers tended to using hands-on activities to
make science fun and interesting. Although how to use lab activities or investigations
were different among the teachers, they commonly incorporated labs or investigations in
their science lessons. For this reason, their tendency to use labs was a good starting point

for learning to use MIAIM to support student’s scientific practices.

Comparison of teachers ’ instructional practices to MIAIM

In this section, I will report the results from data analysis on class observations
and interviews to understand teachers’ instructional practices to address scientific
practices. In this section, I will compare the teachers’ instructional practices to MIAIM.
The comparison will be focused on five instructional features of MIAIM: (1) establish a

central question, (2) provide experiences with phenomena, (3) make patterns explicit, (4)

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provide explanations, and (5) apply scientific knowledge to new situations. Figure 4.2

shows frequencies of teachers’ use of instructional practice before the intervention.

 

 

 

 

I Richard

ITeresa

I Dan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question Experiences Patterns Explain Apply
Teacher instructional practice before the intervention

 

 

Figure 4.2. Frequencies of teachers’ use of instructional practice before the intervention

Establish a central question. The three teachers did not clearly establish central questions
for lab activities or investigations that gave a sense of purpose to students’ study at the
beginning of their lessons. Richard and Dan did not consistently establish central
questions of lab activities but, instead, focused on telling procedures or materials. Teresa
consistently established central questions, but her questions were sometimes difficult for
students to understand.

Richard’s instructional practices related to establishing a central question were
different among lab activities depending on the purpose. When Richard taught about the
sequence of the scientific method, he had students develop their own questions about four
different liquids at the beginning of an investigation. However, when he used lab

activities to teach about scientific content such as phase change, he did not establish

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central questions, but told students about procedures or importance of the activities in
science. For example, in one lesson, instead of asking a central question, he mentioned
what students would to do during a lab activity, like “You will make a temperature and

time data table”. Then, he described the procedure of the activity.

Procedure of the phase change lab:

Mix a little water with the ice.

Turn on the heat.

Gradually heat the mixture while stirring.

Record the temperature at 1 minutes intervals.

Continue to heat the water and record the temperature until the water has been
boiling for about five minutes.

Turn the heat off before the water has all boiled.

Graph your data.

The next day, he asked students to measure the temperature again and asked
them to graph their data. However, in the lesson, he did not provide a central question but
only explained the importance of making a graph (and how to draw it).

In summary, Richard showed inconsistency in establishing central questions. The
inconsistencies seemed to result from the two different purposes of using laboratory
activities—confirming scientific explanation already introduced and understanding the

scientific method.

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Teresa consistently asked a central question of each investigation at the begimring
of activity. She asked questions like, “How do we know about layers of the earth?” or she
read questions written on curriculum materials such as “your job is to change the
geologic features of Earth and observe the effects. You will also explore how these
features work together to help make a planet habitable to humans.” However, the central
questions in the two of three investigations were too short or difficult for students to
understand. For example, students did not understand a vocabulary word used in her
question such as “geologic.” In addition, they did not know how they were able to
investigate the layers of the earth before she explained that they would use P and S waves
to investigate it. In order words, although questions guided the class investigations, the

questions were not understandable enough to give students a sense of purpose.

Finally, Dan was inconsistent in establishing a central question for an inquiry
activity at the beginning of his lesson. Of his four inquiry lessons, he asked a central
question to students twice. For example, he asked “what do you think will happen to
water, stones, and sand after 3 weeks of continuous humbling?” Students made their own
hypothesis and compared their hypothesis with results from an experiment. In another
lesson, he asked how they knew there was a glacier in Michigan a long time ago.

However, in the other two lessons, he gave names of activities and gave
directions of activities without establishing central questions. Worksheets used in the
lessons did not also include central questions. For example, the following excerpt shows
that Dan only told the name of the activity, materials, and procedures of it without

mentioning the purpose or central question of the activity.

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Today, we will use sand. . .We will do something called, sandblasters.
Sandblasters is a cool activity. ...I’ll show you what will go to happen here. I’ll
demonstrate what you will to do. I’m not say what will happen, you have to
observe. I’ll show what I expect you to do. Look at me. This is what will happen,
we have a box, it has hole in it. It is called sandblaster. This is what will happen, I
have some sand right here, and I will pour it here. This will be a file. Don’t worry.
Sit down. I just put sand right here. OK? And roll it then. . ..

You will have on your own desks, a tray, two cards, one says A and one says B.
you will have tapes, you will have one seizure, two Burger King straws. . .What I
am going to do, I’ll make something here and you will do an experiment with it.
Here’s what you are going to do. It says, ‘draw a picture of card A afier a student
has blown through a straw over the sand Gently’. What does that mean? You have

a card. It’s got either A or B on it. We will start with A.

In summary, Dan also showed inconsistency in addressing a central question of an

investigation.

In conclusion, according to MIAIM, the sequence of inquiry activities should start

with establishing a central question that gives a sense of purpose to an investigation. In

addition, the question should be interesting and relevant for students to be motivated to

participate in the inquiry practice. However, the teachers did not consistently or clearly

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address central questions of lab activities at the beginning of lessons. Instead, they tended
to focus on explaining procedures or materials. Although Teresa asked central questions,
the questions were sometimes too short or difficult for students to understand. The
tendency to not clearly address a central question during classroom activities seemed to
be an ineffective practice for two reasons. First, lack of purpose may not be effective to
hold student attention long enough to construct scientific explanations from the
investigations. It may also lead to students not recognizing the importance of establishing
questions in scientific inquiry and connections between questions and experimental

design.

Provide experiences with phenomena. The teachers provided experiences with
phenomena that were appropriate to help students understand target learning goals. Dan
and Richard gave several opportunities for students to interact with materials. Teresa also
provided experiences using computer simulations and modeling activities.

Richard provided first hand experiences to teach scientific methods and physical
change. These experiences included measuring volume using two different methods,
designing and conducting an experiment on density, and collecting data on the change of
water temperature. While these experiences were appropriate for target learning goals, he
gave only one experiment on each topic and did not relate students’ everyday experiences
to the topic. For example, in order to help students understand the steps of the scientific
method, he had students conduct an experiment while thoroughly following steps he
provided. He had students observe interactions of several liquids and make questions

about the phenomenon. After making questions, he had groups of students discuss a

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hypothesis, discuss and choose methods of testing, make a procedure, and a make data
table. After checking their procedures with him, students did the experiment following
their procedures to find out how each of the color solutions interacted with one another.
They wrote their results about the interactions of the four liquids. Through the experiment
they found that one solution always layered on top while one always layered on bottom.
During class, some of them hypothesized that the solutions probably interacted in that
way because of their different densities. They finally measured the densities of the four
liquids and proved that the interactions of the four liquids resulted from their different
densities. Through this experiment, students had experience of the five steps of the
scientific method including asking a question, researching the question, developing
hypothesis, experiment, and result and conclusion. This experience was appropriate for
learning the scientific method and it was in-depth in that students made their own
questions and procedures and figured out the results and made their explanations for the
results

In another example, to help students understand phase change of matter, he had
students measure ice temperature while boiling the ice. Students put some ice and water
in a beaker, heated the water and ice, and recorded the temperature until the water had
been boiling for about five minutes. Though the experiment, they had experience with the
phase change of water, so that it was appropriate for the learning goal of the lesson.
However, students were not requested to do a high level of thinking; instead, they were
only asked to observe ice temperature.

In summary, Richard provided appropriate experiences with phenomena with

priority to first hand data collection. While he provided an in depth experience to teach

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scientific methods, he provided only one and shallow experience to teach other science

concepts.

Teresa provided experiences with phenomena and prioritized modeling activities.
The experiences were one modeling activity on inherited traits, and computer simulations
on the structure of the earth and cause and effects of the earth’s structure. Although they
were not first-hand experiences, they were appropriate for the learning goals. For
example, to teach the interior of the earth, for which it is not easy to provide first hand
data, she used an intemet investigation to show the structure of the earth. After explaining
what types of material P and S waives pass through, she showed several models of
planets. Students observed the path taken by P and S waves in model planets and
sketched the layers on their diagrams and indicated if there were solid or liquid. Through
this process, they drew a model of the Earth, which had several layers with solid or liquid.
In another example, to teach about inherited traits, she used a modeling activity in where
students tracked different traits (represented by colored pom-poms) though three
generations.

Teresa’s students had fewer opportunities to collect first hand data than Dan’s or
Richard’s class. She was not able to provide first-hand experience probably because of
the features of the contents that she taught. However, when there was a chance to use first
hand data, she did not. For example, when she taught density, she did'not provide any
specific objects for students to find out their densities. Instead, she had students practice
calculating densities of four liquids of which masses and volumes were given in

curriculum materials. This experience is quite different from experiences that Richard’s

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students had when they learned the same topic. Students from Richard’s class measured
mass and volume of liquids, found out the liquid’s densities, and stacked the liquids in
pipettes. However, her students calculated densities of four liquids and drew pictures of
the sequence of the liquids with different colored pencils without having access to the
liquids. In summary, although Teresa provided appropriate experiences with phenomena,

she less used first-hand data compared to Richard.

Finally, Dan provided experiences with phenomena for students to understand
landforms four times in his classes. He prioritized first hand data collection and
observations when providing an opportunity to engage with relevant phenomena. These
experiences included changes of stones after three weeks of tumbling, different amounts
of sands filed on papers caused by winds, different amounts and speeds of sands in
streams of water depending on the angle of the streams, and movement of an ice glacier
on sands in an angled big plate. For example, in the tumbler experiment7, his students had
a chance to compare shapes of stones before and after three weeks of tumbling. Their
stones became smoother and smaller after rolling with water, sand, and mussel shells.
The experience was similar to phenomena that happened on the shoreline in rivers. In
another example, he had students observe different amounts of sand filed on two papers
caused by winds. This experiment was similar to the phenomena of movement of sands
by winds. These examples were appropriate for representing erosive processes. In
summary, Dan provided several opportunities for students to observe, and these

experiences closely related to real-world phenomena.

 

Table 4.3 shows a summary of the experiment.

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In conclusion, according to MIAIM, students should have experiences with
relevant phenomena with a priority to first-hand data collection. Without the experiences,
it is hard for students to understand patterns, rules, models, or explanations related to the
phenomena. In addition, constructing knowledge from data is one of the core practices of
scientific inquiry. The teachers tended to provide appropriate experiences with relevant
phenomena. Dan and Richard focused on first-hand data more than Teresa. Dan’s and
Richard’s students had several opportunities to interact with materials by themselves but

Teresa’s students participated in modeling activities which provided visual experiences.

Make patterns explicit. The teachers tended not to make patterns in observations explicit.
Richard and Teresa gave one experience that was not enough to find patterns or gave
scientific explanations including patterns before providing experiences. While Dan
provided several experiences with phenomena, he was inconsistent in asking students to
analyze data.

Richard did not effectively help students to find patterns by themselves although
he tried to provide experiences. He explained patterns of scientific phenomena before
providing experiences or he gave only one experience, which was not enough to find
patterns. For example, he reviewed an explanation of phase change of matter in class, and
his students were able to interpret graphs about phase change and temperature change.
After the review, be said that students would “find pattern of phase change regardless of
beaker size or amount of ice.” Although the results from an experiment might show a

pattern on the relationship between phase change and changes of water temperature, he

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did not give students chances to compare results from each group to find patterns among

different experiment settings.

Similarly, Teresa tended not to focus on patterns. She provided explanations and
experiences but not had students to attend to patterns in experiences. In addition, she
usually gave only one experience with phenomena, which was not enough for students to

find patterns.

While Dan focused on providing several experiences related to erosion, he
focused less on making patterns in the experiences explicit. During experiments, he asked
students to notice the difference of students’ observations between two different
conditions (two times of seven observations). He asked students to compare results from
the activities, although he did not clearly have students find patterns in their results or
share their ideas about patterns. For example, he had students write how their stones,
shells, and water changed after three weeks of tumbling and why they changed. Through
the writing, students participated in an activity of comparing data, which might help
students to find out patterns or rules.

In other classes, he did not ask students to analyze data but only to write the data.
In addition, he did not ask to students find patterns in several experiences. For example,
he had students observe and draw a picture of each ‘stream’ of water in high and low
angles. Although he asked which stream of water was faster, he did not ask students
compare the results but only asked students describe what the streams looked like. After

the experiment, he had students label their drawings with scientific vocabularies such as

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source, bank, and channel of a stream rather than help students focusing on the
differences of the two streams and the reasons for the difference. In addition, this
observation was not connected with other experiences related to erosion or deposits of
eroded material. Therefore, although some students may find patterns by themselves
through participating in several experiments, neither did he clearly ask students to find

out rules or patterns in several observations nor did he have students share their ideas

about patterns.

In conclusion, the teachers did not make patterns in experiences explicit.
Therefore, students from three classes rarely had chances to participate in a scientific
practice of finding out patterns in data. However, it is important to help students to find
out patterns themselves as MIAIM and Experience-Pattem-Explanation Framework

(Anderson, 2006) insists because scientists make efforts to find patterns or rules beyond

their observations.

Provide explanations. The teachers focused more on telling scientific explanations rather
than giving students’ opportunities to develop their explanations and compare their
explanations with scientific ones. I observed only one time in Dan’s class that students
agreed or disagreed with each other’s scientific explanations. Usually, students did not
have chance to compare their explanations for observed patterns with scientific
explanations introduced, and to revise their ideas when the scientific explanations are

plausible and fruitful (Posner et al., 182). Regarding the sequence of providing

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explanation and experiences, the teachers tended to provide explanations, basic

information, or definitions of vocabularies before providing experiences.

Richard provided scientific information through the students’ individual book
reading or his presentation before providing experiences. Through this sequence, he
intended to help students understand the scientific explanation through doing experiments.
During pre-interviews, he said, “[the purpose of labs are] Understanding what they read
before and interacting with what they read. It’s not interacting at the same exact time,
but they do get a better understanding of what they should have read”. In order words, lab
activities were used as a tool to understand or confirm scientific explanations that were
presented before.

He used class discussion to explain scientific information. While explaining, he
asked closed questions that had correct/incorrect answers such as “What is biology?” or
“What is the boiling point of this substance?” He asked a question, students answered,
and he evaluated the answer and gave the correct answer if the student’s answer was not
correct. Although students might be able to develop their own explanations for the
patterns in experiments and to compare their explanations with scientific explanations
themselves, I heard only scientific explanations discussed in his classroom. In conclusion,
students from his class were treated as receivers of scientific information delivered from

books and teacher explanations rather than developers of information.

Teresa showed two patterns in providing explanations. First, she sometimes

explained scientific information through a presentation before providing experiences.

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Differently from Richard’s class, she rarely had students read books in her class. Second,
after showing simulations, she asked students to describe what they saw in the
simulations and provided scientific explanations about the simulations. For example, she
showed computer simulations on the cause and effects of geologic features of the earth.
After showing the effects of the liquid outer layer of the earth, she asked what happened
if the outer layer of the earth was liquid instead of solid. Students described what they
saw and she summarized students’ description and added what scientists said. Although
students might be able to develop their own explanations on the simulations, she usually
explained scientific information and students wrote what she said. Similarly to Richard’s

class, students from Teresa’s class did not have much of a role in creating or developing

scientific explanations.

Dan helped students to understand scientific explanations three ways. First, he
introduced basic information or definitions of vocabularies before providing experiences.
For example, he gave an explanation of what sedimentary rocks were and how they were
formed before students did an experiment on changes of rocks. He also gave definitions
of vocabulary related to ‘steam’ of water before he had students observe each ‘stream’ of
water in two different angles. During pre-interviews, he also told me that last year he
gave basic definitions about electricity for students “to be able to get them to understand
that there’s a flow that happens.” In other words, he tended to give some basic
information for students to start their investigations.

Second, he asked some questions for students to develop their explanations for

observations (twice). During my observations, he asked students to write answers to

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questions about “why” something happened in the way that they observed. For example,
he had students write their explanations of why they thought that stones, shells, and sand
changed. In addition, he asked students to write their answers to the question, “how could
sand and wind together make rocks change?” after an experiment with sands and wind.
However, in other experiments, he did not ask students to develop explanations. Students
only described what they observed during experiments.

Finally, he gave students an opportunity to share their explanations for the reasons
that rocks change (one time). He called the activity “science talk” and had students share
their ideas and argue with each other. However, in the activity, he did not challenge
students to compare their explanations with scientific ones.

In conclusion, Dan’s practices for providing explanations had some similarities
and differences compared to the goals of MIAIM. Similarly with the intent of MIAIM, he
sometimes gave students opportunities to develop their explanations through writing.
However, he did not do so frequently. Differently from the intent of MIAIM, he did not
give students chances to share their explanations after each experiment. He expressed that
although it would be helpful for students to share their findings, he did not have enough
time to do so due to teaching several other subjects. He added that sharing was sometimes
redundant. Although he had students share their ideas in one class, students only talked

about their explanations without specifically referring to evidence fi'om experiments.
Overall, the teachers focused more on telling scientific explanations rather than

giving students opportunities to develop explanations and compare explanations with

scientific ones. They missed some scientific practices to construct explanations which are

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important in MIAIM. Therefore, students might not have chances to develop their own
explanations because their teachers give the explanations. When teachers provided
experiences before explanations, students might have constructed scientific explanations

by themselves individually.

Provide opportunities for application. The teachers provided few opportunities
for students to apply scientific explanation to new situations. The purpose of application
activities was to understand explanations better rather than relating them to student’s
everyday lives.

When Richard and Teresa, two 8th grade science teachers had students apply
scientific knowledge, the application question was not related to students’ lives but
focused on practicing using knowledge for understanding it better. For example, in
Richard’s class, he used a lab activity to help students understand the sequence of
scientific methods. He described the lab on the curriculum material, “The colored
solution lab is an investigation in which you will reinforce the use of the scientific
method and gain a better understanding of each of the steps in the method”. He also used
a lab activity to help students understand phase changes of matter. When explaining
graphs related to phase changes of matter, he told, “This graph, many of you have seen
this graph before, which we will check ourselves today.” Similarly, Teresa asked
students calculate densities of four unknown liquids after giving the definition and

formula of density.

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Dan did not frequently have students apply scientific knowledge to their everyday
lives. During my observations, he gave students opportunities to apply scientific ideas to
new situations three times. In one case, he showed real-world examples such as rocks or
sandpapers at the end of a class but he gave explanations on the examples by himself
rather than asking students to apply scientific knowledge. In the other two cases, he used
application activities in which students used knowledge of features of the earth to explain

pictures of magazines and to tell what features of the earth were on a globe.

In conclusion, application of scientific ideas is a very important practice in
science as well as inquiry. However, the three teachers did not frequently provide
opportunities for students to apply scientific ideas to new situations. Even when they, did
the focus of application was not using knowledge to understand students’ everyday lives,

but using it to understand the scientific ideas better.

Overall, the teachers used some practices similar to MIAIM but they did not
address other important aspect of MIAIM. First, the teachers did not clearly establish
central questions for lab activities or investigations that gave a sense of purpose to
students’ study at the beginning of their lessons. Richard and Dan did not consistently
establish central questions of lab activities but, instead, focused on telling procedures or
materials Teresa consistently established central questions, but her questions were
sometimes too short or difficult for students to understand. Second, the teachers provided
experiences with phenomena that were appropriate to help students understand target

learning goals. Dan and Richard gave several opportunities for students to interact with

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materials. Teresa also provided experiences using computer simulations and modeling
activities. Third, the teachers tended not to make patterns in observations explicit. While
Dan provided several experiences with phenomena, he was inconsistent in asking
students to analyze data. Richard and Teresa gave one experience that was not enough to
find patterns or gave scientific explanations including patterns before providing
experiences. Fourth, the teachers focused more on telling scientific explanations rather
than giving students’ opportunities to develop their explanations and compare their
explanations with scientific ones. Finally, they provided few opportunities for students to
apply scientific explanation to new situations. The purpose of application activities was

to understand explanations better rather than relating them to student’s everyday lives

Comparison of teachers ’ motivational practices to MIAIM

In this section, I will report the results from data analysis on class observations
and interviews to understand teachers’ practices to help students value learning science. I
will compare the teachers’ motivational practices to MIAIM. The comparison will be
focused on four motivational features of MIAIM: (1) make the relevance of science to
students’ lives explicit, (2) catch and hold student’s interests, (3) support student’s
autonomy, and (4) know one’s students and use knowledge about the students. Figure 4.3

shows frequencies of teachers’ use of motivational practice before the intervention.

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Relevance interest Autonomy Know students
Teacher motivational practice before the intervention

 

 

Figure 4.3. Frequencies of teachers’ use of motivational practice before the intervention

Make relevance of science to students’ lives explicit.

The teachers did not fiequently make efforts to make science relevant to students’
lives. Richard talked about fiiture jobs or importance of scientific practices from a
scientist’s perspective as the reason for learning science but did not explicitly relate
science to their everyday lives. Teresa and Dan sometimes gave real-world examples in
class but their comments on the examples were very short and did not have students talk
about the relevance of topics to their lives.

Richard did not make science relevant to the students’ everyday lives explicit.
During my six observations, he focused on discussing on importance of learning science
for future jobs (two times) or tests (once) or from the perspective of science (3 times)
instead of relating science to students’ lives. Regarding future jobs or tests, he told to

students that they should learn science because science was related to many jobs and they

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might get those jobs in the future. For example, when he taught branches of science, he
asked how many students’ parents worked in the area of science. He said that science had
many jobs and told his story about why he became a science teacher. He added that
although students did not know why they had to learn science now, they had to learn
science because they might work in a branch of science someday.

In addition to future jobs as the reason to study science, he explained the
importance of some activities from a scientist’s perspective. For example, he told
students that measurement in science was important “to communicate some data”. He
also asked students to write down the procedure of their experiments because,
“experiments should be duplicated” and “if you don’t have procedures written down,
other scientists cannot believe you.”

In summary, he did not explicitly relate science to students’ everyday lives to help
them value learning science. Instead, he talked about other reasons for learning science in
general or for participating in some activities. However, the reasons—future jobs, tests,
or scientific importance— may not be attractive to some students who do not care much

about their future jobs or learning in schools.

Teresa tried to relate science to students’ lives by giving real-world examples in
class. However, she did not frequently do so and even when she did so, her comments
were too short for them to understand the relevance of science to their lives. During my
six observations, in two classes she gave a real-world example at the beginning of the
lesson to establish a central question of the lesson. For example, she told how her

husband and her brother in law looked different and gave the question, “how brothers

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from same parents look different?” She also talked about Italian dressing, in which oil
and vinegar were not mixed, and asked students solve problems of density. Although she
tried to make the topic relevant to student’s everyday lives through her examples, her
comments were short (one or two sentences) and she did not ask students to think about

similar examples in their lives.

Dan tried to relate science to student’s lives by giving real-world examples or
relating the topic to Michigan where students lived. During my seven observations, he
gave real-world examples one time and related topics to Michigan once. However, he did
so in the middle or at the end of activities rather than at the beginning of activities and so,
it may not have been easy for students to understand the relevance of the topics to their
everyday lives while they were doing activities. In addition, similar to Teresa, he did not
have students talk about the relevance of the topics to their lives. Similar to Richard, he

gave rationale for doing an activity from a scientist’s perspective.

In summary, teachers did not frequently relate science to students’ everyday lives.
Even when they did, comments on real world examples were short and they tended to

give the examples rather than ask students to find the examples.

Catch and hold students’ interest. The teachers made some efforts to make science

interesting, mostly providing opportunities to engage in hands-on activities or using

games, simulations, humor, or other fun features.

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Richard tried to catch and hold students’ interest by using hands-on activities
(three activities) demonstrations (two times) and cartoons (one time) during my
observation. First, he used hands-on activities. He had enough materials for each student
to find out the interactions and the densities of color solutions for about one week. Even
after some students found out densities of the solutions and told them during class, other
students still wanted to find out densities by themselves. He gave chances for the other
students to find the densities by themselves and was satisfied with his students’
engagement in the activities. During class, he asked me, “Did you notice that they don’t
have to find density but they want to?”

Second, he used demonstrations twice. He put water into a 1000ml beaker and
asked one student to put the water from the 1000ml beaker into a cube beaker. The water
in 1000 ml the beaker was perfectly put into the cube beaker. He asked, “How many of
you are surprised?” and some of his students raised their hands. Even, one of them asked
him to do it backward—to put water in the cube beaker back into to the 1000ml beaker.
In addition, he showed how a heated Coke can change its shape when he put it in cold
water. His students also were surprised at the change of a Coke can’s shape. Third, he
added some cartoons in his curriculum materials to catch the students’ interests. In
conclusion, he used hands-on activities, demonstrations, and cartoons to catch the

students’ interests in class activities.

Teresa tried to catch the students’ interests in class activities by using visual

models or stories. Dming my observations, she provided students opportunities to engage

in a hands-on modeling activity about generations of traits one time and used computer

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simulations two times on the structure of the earth and geologic feature of the earth. In
addition, she used stories to introduce class activities two times during my observations.
The curriculum materials that she used included some stories to introduce activities. She
might have been able to make stories realistic and catch students’ interests through the
stories but she just read the story and asked students to fill out worksheets. One of the
stories was the following:

Congratulations! You just graduated from college and have a job with a doctor as

a medical assistant. Your job is to interview patients and identify if the

information they give you is about an inherited trait or an acquired trait.

In summary, she used modeling activities and stories to catch students’ interest.

Dan tried to catch and hold students interests by using hands-on activities (four
activities), games and humor (three times), and authentic materials (once) during my
observations. His students engaged in hands-on activities with stones, ice, sands, etc.
They played a game with a globe in which students tossed a globe to other students and
wherever their left pinky finger lands, they told what landform it was on. Some of
activity materials were from students’ every day lives such as collecting stones from
school grounds, cutting and pasting pictures of magazines. During activities, Dan used
humor or other fun features such as “you think that this is a magic. It’s not. This is
science” or “you will have two Burger King straws [as materials for class activity]. It’s
important. It should be Burger King straws.”

His practices appeared to be effective to catch the students’ interests in class

activities. Students said, “cool” or wanted to look at some materials closely when he

ll8

introduced some activities or materials. However, when students had to describe and
analyze data after doing something with materials, students’ attentions or interests in

class activities were not held continuously.

In conclusion, the teachers made some efforts to make science interesting, mostly
providing opportunities to engage in hands-on activities or using games, simulations,

humor or other fun features.

Support autonomy. Richard and Dan sometimes used a few practices to support students’
autonomy such as providing choices or solving problems on their own. However, all
three teachers used other practices that may not support autonomy such as using extrinsic
contingencies or having them follow procedures of activities without providing the
rationale for doing them.

Richard used four practices related to supporting students’ autonomy. First, he
gave students choices on what materials or methods they used, how to design an
experiment, and with whom they worked in one experiment. During the experiment, he
gave three options to figure out interactions of liquids, using pipette, slinger, and straw.
Second, he encouraged students to solve problems in their own ways rather than insisting
upon a single method. In the experiment described above, he encouraged students to
make their own procedures to find out the interactions of the solutions. Students made
their own procedures and he checked the procedure of each group of students. Third, he
provided rationales for doing some activities from a scientist’s perspective. For example,

in the experiment he asked students to write their procedures because experiments should

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be duplicated or you might have to do it again later. However, he also used other
practices that might undermine students’ autonomy. He sometimes asked students just to

follow directions of experiments without introducing the purposes of the activities.

Teresa did not frequently use practices to support students’ autonomy. First, she
did not provide choices on students’ activities nor did she encourage students to solve
problems in their own ways. Students were requested to follow directions of experiments
written on worksheets or on the computer screen. Second, she did not provide a
meaningful rationale for the class activities or learning science although she sometimes
gave short real-world examples. Finally, she used contingencies to motivate students’
behavior. When students did not focus on class assignments during experiments, she told
them that the assignments would be homework if they did not finish them rather than

telling how the assignments would be helpful for them.

Dan used some practices to support his students’ autonomy. First, he gave
students choices during two experiments such as collecting their own stones or selecting
one picture from magazines that they liked. He said that inquiry worked well for students
because it gave ‘ownership’ to students. Because they chose, named, and described the
stones, the experiment was theirs. Second, he co-designed one experiment with students
without insisting on a single method. Third, he provided rationales for doing some
activities from a scientist’s perspective. For example, during the experiment with stones,
he asked students describe them in order for them to identify their stones with evidence

as scientists argue with evidence. He said, “I will pile your stones. You will say that it

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will be hard to identify my stone. You may think about your stone, but You cannot prove
it. Write it [describe the features of their stones]. It is what scientists do. Scientists have
evidence. You can use evidence.”

However, he also used other practices that might undermine students’ autonomy.
First, he sometimes asked students to just follow directions of experiments without giving
any choices or rationales, or introducing the purposes of the activities. Second, he used
contingencies to motivate students’ behavior. When students did not focus on class
assignments during experiments, he said that the assignments would be homework if they
did not finish the work or they would “take a number off”. “Taking a number off’ was his
way of “controlling students’ behavior”: students had their own cards which were written
a number of five to one. ‘Five’ means good attendance to class activity. When a student
did not participate in class activity, and he said to him, “take a number off”, the number
of him decreased and he had to write the reason why his number was off and had

disadvantage in participating in a class auction at the end of a month.

In conclusion, the three teachers used some practices that might support students’
autonomy. The practices included providing choices, encouraging students to solve
problems in their own ways rather than insisting n a single method. However, they also

used other strategies that might not support students’ autonomy.

Know one ’s students and use the knowledge about students. The teachers used some

practices to know their student’s prior knowledge, interest, and their backgrounds. To

understand students’ prior knowledge, the teachers did pre-tests on the unit that they

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would teach or they asked students to make KWL charts. In addition, Richard and Dan
asked students to make some products that might introduce themselves. Teresa said
several strategies to find out students’ interests.

Richard used pre-tests and asked students to make KWL charts to know their
prior knowledge. In addition, he asked students to make self-concept. He gave eight
categories that students would choose: Family, My favorites, Science class, Hobbies,
Chores at Home, Summer, Sports and Food. Among them, family and science should be
included and the total would be six categories. In science part, they wrote what they like
or dislike. For example, one described that he liked experiments but disliked taking notes
and homework. Another described that she liked projects, the teacher and experiments
but disliked homework, and huge projects. Richard said that he used the self-concept
maps to know his students but did not use it in science class yet.

Dan made a KWL chart at the beginning of a unit to know prior student
knowledge. He and his students talked about what they know and what they want to
know. He posted the KWL chart on the wall of his class. In addition, he also asked
students to introduce themselves on a paper and asked their parents about what subjects
their children do well in and what their concerns on their children were. These gave him
background information about his students.

Finally, Teresa also did pre-tests to understand her students’ prior knowledge. In
addition, during pre-interviews, she said that she used several strategies to connect her
student’s interests such as incorporating drawing or art into science class, making a box
that students put notes about their questions, or “In the past I’ve discovered that they love

learning about planets and astronomy so if I can remind them that earth is a planet.” I

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observed two classes where she had her students draw models with various colored
pencils. In summary, the teachers made efforts to know student’s prior knowledge and

backgrounds.

Overall, the teachers used some practices similar to MIAIM but they did not
address other important aspect of MIAIM. First, the teachers did not frequently make
efforts to make science relevant to students’ lives. Richard talked about future jobs or
importance of scientific practices from a scientist’s perspective as the reason for learning
science but did not explicitly relate science to their everyday lives. Teresa and Dan
sometimes gave real-world examples in class but their comments on the examples were
very short and did not have students talk about the relevance of topics to their lives.
Second, the teachers made some efforts to make science interesting, mostly providing
opportunities to engage in hands-on activities or using games, simulations, humor, or
other fun features. Third, Richard and Dan sometimes used a few practices to support
students’ autonomy such as providing choices or solving problems on their own.
However, three teachers used other practices that may not support autonomy such as
using extrinsic contingencies or having them follow procedures of activities without
providing the rationale for doing them. Finally, the teachers used some practices to know
their student’s prior knowledge, interest, and their backgrounds. To understand students’
prior knowledge, the teachers did pre-tests on the unit that they would teach or they asked
students to make KWL charts. In addition, Richard and Dan asked students to make some
products that might introduce themselves. Teresa said several strategies to find out

students’ interests.

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In conclusion, the teachers used some instructional and motivational practices that
met the intent of MIAIM but they did not use other practices in the MIAIM. Based on
their initial practices and approaches, I provided professional development experiences
around MIAIM to the three teachers. In the next section, I will introduce how teacher’s

approaches and practices changed after the intervention.

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Part 11: Changes of teaching approaches and practices

My second research question examines what changes in teachers’ teaching
approaches and practices occur after their participation in the intervention. More
specifically, it examines how and what features of MIAIM the teachers used when
teaching science. To address this question, I draw on data analysis fiom classroom
observations, interviews, and curriculum materials. After describing changes in the
individual teachers’ teaching approaches and practices before and after the intervention, I
will report patterns in changes in their instructional and motivational practices compared

to MIAIM practices

Changes in teaching approaches and practices

Richard ’5 teaching approach and practices

For readers, I will explain what happened during the intervention with Richard. I
gave an explanation of MIAIM and showed an example of a lesson plan that fit the intent
of MIAIM. I also gave him an idea of helping students to find patterns in elements of the
periodic table. Richard made a new lesson plan for atoms and the periodic table. I found
out there were few motivational strategies that he planned to use and I encouraged him to
use more motivational strategies, such as relate the topic about atoms to students’
everyday lives. When he taught acids and bases, I phased out my support.

Analysis of class observations and interviews indicate that there was a small

change in Richard’s teaching approach after the intervention, but that he used some

125

MIAIM practices after the intervention. Table 4.4 shows the summary of his teaching

approach and practices before and after the intervention.

Table 4.4. Summary of Richard’s teaching approach and practices before and after the

 

 

 

 

 

 

intervention
Before the intervention After the intervention
Unit Topic Scientific methods & Chemical change (Atoms,
physical change periodic table, acids and
bases)
Teaching Didactic + Hands-on Didactic + Hands-on
approach approach: Information approach: Information was
was presented first and presented first and then
then students participated students participated in
in hands-on activities to hands-on activities to
understand sequence of understand acids and bases.
scientific methods and Inquiry approach: Students
physical change. found patterns in elements
by themselves and teacher
explained scientific
information.
Instructional Establish Inconsistently established Consistently established a
Practices central central questions for central question for
questions hands-on investigations. investigations
Told procedures and the
importance of hands-on
activity from a scientist’s
perspective
Provide Provided hands-on Provided hands-on activities
experiences activities that are that are appropriate for
with appropriate for learning learning goals
phenomena goals
Make Provided information Had students find pattern in
patterns about patterns before elements in the periodic
explicit assigning hands-on table by themselves rather

 

 

 

activities

 

than explained the patterns.
Had students read
information about acid and
bases before doing hands-on
activities.

 

126

 

Table 4.4.Continued

 

Before the intervention

After the intervention

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

self-concept maps

 

Provide Had students read Had students read
explanations textbooks. textbooks.
Gave a lecture. Gave a lecture.
Had students explain their
ideas about patterns
Applications Application questions did Used application activities
not relate to real-life to help students use
situations knowledge to understand to
Had students practice real-life situation
using knowledge to Had students practice using
understand it better knowledge to understand it
better
Motivational Relevance Not related science to Put efforts to make the
practices of science to students’ everyday lives. relevance of the topics to
students Focused on future jobs or students’ every day lives by
lives from a scientist’s doing discussions, giving
perspective examples, and having
students do research
Interest Used hands-on activities, Used hands-on activities
demonstrations and and demonstrations.
cartoons Told a story related to the
topic that students would
learn and allowed them to
project themselves into
situations
Support Provided choices Provided choices
autonomy Encouraged students to Encouraged students to
solve problems in their solve problems in their own
own ways ways
Know my Assessed their prior Assessed their prior
students knowledge by using knowledge by using KWL
KWL and pre-tests and pre-tests
Had students to make

 

Teaching approach. Before the intervention Richard used a combination of didactic and

hands-on approaches to present scientific ideas. Richard tended to focus on providing

scientific explanations rather than helping students construct the knowledge by

themselves through participating in scientific practices. Although he used many hands-on

127

 

activities, he used those activities primarily as motivational and instructional tools to help
students understand scientific ideas. After the intervention, he used an inquiry approach
to teach the periodic table and a combination of didactic and hands-on approaches to

teach other topics.

First, he used an inquiry approach when teaching the periodic table. During the
intervention, he told that he had students do a research about features of elements when
teaching the topic. I suggested the idea of helping students find patterns in the features of
elements that they researched. After the intervention, he designed and enacted lessons
that fit the intent of MIAIM. In particular, the sequence of activities fit MIAIM and he
put emphasis on helping students find patterns in several elements. Table 4.5 shows the
sequence of activities about The Periodic Table Unit from his class. The lesson fit the
sequence of MIAIM, which included all steps of the model. He posed a central question
about The Periodic Table Unit in the Engage step, he had students research features of
elements and present their findings in class. Students had note cards on which they wrote
features of each element. In the Explore step, students found patterns for several elements,
made their own table of elements, and Richard helped students find patterns. In the
Explain step, there were class discussions where students explained patterns that they
found and Richard explained how The Periodic Table is organized. Finally, students
applied their knowledge about patterns in The Periodic Table to predict some features of

elements in the Apply step.

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Table. 4.5. Lesson sequence for the periodic table unit from Richard’s class

 

Lesson title

Activity description

MIAIM step

 

Periodic table

 

Richard established the central question, “How is
the elements of The Periodic table organized?” By
using a story, he had his students pretend as
scientists who competed with Mendeleev to make
a periodic table.

Engage

 

Students did research about their own elements
and present their findings in class. Students had
note cards in which they wrote features of each
element. Students found patterns in several
elements to make their own table of elements.
Richard helped students to find patterns.

Explore

 

Students explained patterns that they found and
Richard explained how The Periodic Table is
organized.

Explain

 

 

Students predicted features of some elements
based on their knowledge about patterns in The
Periodic Table.

 

Apply

 

During the post-interview, he stated that the lessons were helpful for students to

understand the patterns in The Periodic Table. While Richard gave students the

information about the patterns of elements in The Periodic Table in his previous years of

teaching, he tried to help students to find patterns themselves after the intervention. He

said, “I think a lot of the students got the idea that it’s organized in this way because of

this pattern.” He also said:

Most of them had gotten the structure of it pretty well and figured out some of the

patterns. There were three to four main patterns they should have found and a

couple of them at least had - several of them had at least a couple main patterns —

but then there were others that as we were discussing it, you could see them go,

“Oh, now it makes sense.” So we had a whole class discussion after they

individually organized theirs on how it was supposed to be organized and why it

was that way. Then I think they wrote down why they organized it the way they

129

 

did. When they were organizing, a lot of them were discussing why they were

doing it with each other.
In the interview excerpt, he stated that students actively put their efforts forward to figure
out patterns in elements and to understand why The Periodic Table is organized in that
way. In addition, he said that it was easy for his students to understand chemical bonds
because they understood the features of elements through learning about the periodic
table. He also stated that he would use these lesson sequences to teach the periodic table
in the next year. In this year, because students had difficulties in finding patterns in
elements, he would modify the lessons by asking some students to find features of more

than one element in order to fill in more blanks for the periodic table.

Interviewer: So how will you teach periodic table in the next year?

Richard: I ’ll probably try to do the same thing, except I think I’m going to fill in
more blanks for the periodic table next year. Because I had students research
[elements], 24 or 25 of 36 elements were researched [by students]. A couple of
students didn’t come up with much in some of my classes and so that leaves us
with 22, 23 elements out of 36. So there are quite a few holes. And that caused
a little confusion. So I think next year, once I assign them — maybe I’ll assign

some students two or three, the ones that can handle it - and that’ll fill in the holes.

However, when he taught about atoms, and acids and bases, he used a

combination of didactic and hands-on approaches. Before having students to do

experiments, he had students read text books. After reading the books, students did

130

hands-on activities, and he explained scientific ideas. For example, when students learned
about acids and bases, students read about what acid and bases are. Then, they did an
experiment to figure out whether some liquids are acids or bases. Finally, he and his
students talked about the features of acids and bases and results from the experiments.
After the lesson about the acids and bases, I asked him about why he had students
read books before doing hands-on activities. He told me that he did this way to give
students the purpose of hands-on activities. He said that without reading books, it was
hard for students to understand what and why they were doing. It seems that although he
posed a central question for hands-on activities, he still thought that students need to have

background information to do the activities.

Instructional practices. Richard incorporated some practices of MIAIM in his lessons
after the intervention (See table 4.4 for summary). Regarding two practices of providing
experiences with phenomena and providing experiences, he did not change efore and
after the intervention. However, regarding the other three practices, he showed some
changes. First, he consistently included activities establishing a central question for
hands-on investigations after the intervention while he did not before the intervention.
For example, at the beginning of the unit on the periodic table, he provided a central
question, “How is the periodic table of the elements organized?” Similarly, before
students participated in lab activities, he stated that students would find out whether some
materials were acids or bases.

During the post-interview, he explained the importance of posting a central

question for the unit or lessons as an Engage activity. He understood that the steps of the

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scientific method started with asking a question and that the question helped students

focus on what they had to do in class. During the interview, he said:

For science, the engage part, it really goes along pretty well with the scientific
method. And to start off the year using the scientific method, that isn’t terrible
new for them to see a new question or problem. You’re stating the problem.

So that went along with pretty much anything we could do in science

that [Asking a central question] really helps them know what they’re focusing on.
To just say, “Ok, we’re focusing on acids and bases today,” well, what’s that
mean, exactly? But when you ask a question, it gets more specific on exactly

what you’re doing that day.

Second, he had students find patterns in elements in the periodic table by
themselves rather than he explained the patterns. However, in other lessons about acids
and bases he had students read explanations about acid and bases before doing hands-on
activities. In these lessons, although he asked students to find patterns in data about acids
and bases during class, they may read information about features of acids and bases
through text books.

Finally, he included application activities that helped students use their
knowledge into new situations or real-world situations. Although I did not give any
specific comments about application, Richard used some application activities that helped

students use knowledge to understand real-world situations. For example, he asked

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students to apply knowledge of neutralization reactions to understand why acid rain
affects some locations more than others. However, similar to his instruction before the
intervention, some of his application activities focused on helping students understand the
learning goals better. During the post-interview, he said that it is hard for them to “apply
what they’ve learned in the whole unit to other things around them. They’re able to do it,

it’s just a more challenging part.”

Motivational practices. Richard used some motivational practices listed in the MIAIM.
As he did before the intervention, he used hands-on activities, demonstrations, and games
to catch students’ interests, and talked about the importance of learning science for good
grades in high school. However in addition to these practices, he used other practices
after the intervention. First, he gave more effort to make the relevance of science to
students’ lives explicit. During the intervention, I suggested him to think about how to
relate the lessons to students’ everyday lives because his lesson plans did not include any
activities relating science to student’s lives. The lesson plans included using only games
or extrinsic rewards such as receiving a Jolly Rancher candy. However, he revised his
lesson plans and included several activities to make the relevance of science to student’s
.lives explicit including a whole class discussion on atoms’ use in our lives and individual
research about elements used in home products. He also showed real-world examples of
elements used in daily products such as Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, which makes
shampoo sudsy. After the instruction, he said that his students had a better understanding
of how important an atom is. He also expressed that the home product research would be

“an eye-opener” for them to learn about atoms. He said,

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When we got talking about atoms, we watched the Bill Nye and we talked about
how atoms are in everything. A lot of kids seemed to think, “Wow, it’s in
everything.” I think they got a better understanding of how important it is
because of our discussion of how much we rely on products that are made from
elements that we need to understand how the atoms and those element 3 combine
to get the product. I don’t think they fully understood, but maybe they will. It
was a pretty good conversation yesterday about how much we use chemistry in
our everyday lives and we don’t even realize it. So it was a good discussion
yesterday

Later, when he taught acids and bases, he also related the topics to students’ lives.
In class, he talked about why measuring pH and knowing the appropriate pH in water
tanks and swimming pools would be helpful to our lives. He also talked about the effects
of acid rain in our lives.

In addition, he used a story to make a context in which students had to make their
own periodic table (See table 4.6). He had his students pretend that they would be the
people creating a periodic table in the late 18603 when Mendeleev tried to create his
periodic table. Richard used the story in order to introduce an element research project in
which each student should find information about features of one element such as atomic

number and mass, and to establish a central question about The Periodic Table.

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Table 4.6. Story used in element research project from Richard’s class

 

Imagine that you are a scientist during the late 1860’s. And imagine that
you are on a team of scientists (the rest of the class) researching substances that you
call elements. You are researching these elements because you and your team want to
be the first to make an easy to understand organizational chart of all known elements.
At the same time Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian scientist, is also hard at work
organizing the elements. Do you want him to be the first. . .NO. .. You, and each
member of your team, are in charge of finding information about different elements
that you can report back to the team. You will then take this information that you find
and try to organize all of the elements (1-36) and become the first people to make a
table of the elements that will be use by people around the world making important
advancements in chemistry.

 

 

 

In summary, during intervention, I encouraged Richard to help students to find
patterns in elements in the periodic table and use more motivational strategies. After the
intervention, Richard incorporated some features of MIAIM. He taught the periodic table
with an inquiry approach and had students find patterns in data. The sequence of
activities about the periodic table met all steps of MIAIM. When teaching other topics, he
used a combination of didactic and hands-on approaches but he constantly established a
central question for hands-on investigations, and applied scientific explanations to new
situations. Regarding motivation he designed and enacted several activities relate science
to students’ everyday lives. In addition, he used a story to make a context in which

students had to make their own periodic table.

Teresa’s teaching approach and practices

For readers, I will explain what happened during the intervention with Teresa. I
gave an explanation of MIAIM and showed an example of a lesson plan that fit the intent
of MIAIM. But, she did not give written lesson plans to me and did not talk about her

lesson plans in detail. Instead, one week or two days before her teaching, she briefly told

135

the topics of her lessons and what methods she would use such as intemet investigation,
or modeling activities. Before her fist inquiry lesson, I asked her to follow the step of
MIAIM. After that I did not ask again. In the other lessons, I asked her to use more
motivational strategies.

Analysis of class observations and interviews indicate that her general teaching
approach was similar before and after the intervention but that she used a few MIAIM
practices after the intervention. Table 4.7 shows the summary of her teaching approach

and practices before and after the intervention.

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Table 4.7. Summary of Teresa’ teaching approach and practices before and after the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

intervention
Before the intervention After the intervention
Unit Topic Genetics & Structure of the Plate tectonics, earthquakes,
earth volcanoes
Teaching Didactic approach: Didactic approach: Teresa
approach Information about explained information about
definitions and formula plate tectonics.
were presented without Inquiry approach: Students
hands-on experiments found patterns in data about
Inquiry approach: Students earthquakes and volcanoes
were given data to and then, Teresa explained
understand scientific scientific ideas.
explanations.
Instructional Establish Consistently established Consistently established a
practices central central questions for central question for
questions investigations. investigations.
Provide Provided a few experiences Provided a few experiences
experiences with phenomena that are with phenomena that are
with appropriate for learning appropriate for learning
phenomena goals goals
Used modeling activities Used second-hand data and
rather than first-hand data computer simulations rather
collection than first-hand data
collections
Make Explained information Gave students opportunities
patterns about patterns rather than to find patterns in data
explicit had students find patterns
themselves
Provided one experience
with phenomena that was
not enough to find patterns
in data
Provide Gave explanations without Give students opportunities
explanations lab activities to develop their ideas about
Did not give students many explanations of patterns.
chances to create
explanations after seeing
simulations
Applications Gave a few real world Increasingly used

 

 

examples

Had students use knowledge
to practice formulas or
scientific terms

 

application activities related
to real-world situations

 

137

 

Table. 4.7. Continued

 

Before the intervention

After the intervention

 

 

Motivational
practices

 

 

 

 

Relevance Gave a few real world Asked students to talk about
of science to examples the importance of topics to
students Not give other reasons for them.
lives learning science.

Did not ask students to talk

about the relevance of

topics to their lives
Interest Using visual models and Use visual models & hands-

stories. on activity.

Used drawing in science

class
Support Not provided choices on Provided choices on
autonomy Students’ activities students’ activities

Not encouraged students to Encouraged students to

solve problems in their own solve problems in their own

ways. ways.

Used contingencies to
motivate students.

Know my Assessed student’s prior Assessed student’s prior
students and knowledge by using pre- knowledge by using pre-
use tests tests.
knowledge Used several strategies to Had students do a hands-on
about my connect her student’s activity about volcanoes
students interests such as because her students wanted

 

incorporating drawing or art
into science class.

 

to do.

 

Teaching approach. Teresa’s general teaching approach was similar before and after the

intervention. As she did before the intervention, she sometimes used a didactic approach

after the intervention. She presented scientific information without giving students

opportunities to do experiments and had students practice using the knowledge to get

good grades. For example, when she taught the three types of boundaries of plate

tectonics, she drew the structures of the boundaries and explained definitions, examples,

and effects of the boundaries. Students took notes on what she explained and drew the

structures. After the class, she told me that she wanted to provide as much as information

138

 

possible at the beginning of the unit of plate tectonics because she wanted her students to
do their projects, in which students had to show what they understood about plate
tectonics to get good grades. The projects that students had to do included activities such
as coloring each plate tectonic or labeling each plate with the correct name.

During the post-interview she stated that an inquiry approach was good to develop
student’s high-level thinking skills, but she pointed out that it was hard to develop “an
investigation around a subject you’re [students are] not that familiar with.” She also
mentioned that whether she could do an inquiry-based lesson was not only related to her
educational theory but also related to other “practical situations” such as her schedule or
availability of necessary materials. For example, because she was the director of the
science department of the school and she sometimes did not teach science due to doing
other work, she had to design class activities to meet her schedule, which influenced the
sequence of activities in class, and sometimes gave explanations first before assigning
experiments.

However, in other classes, she used an inquiry approach as she did before the
intervention. Although she used the same approach before and after the intervention, after
the intervention she used some MIAIM practices more than she did before. After the
intervention, she taught three inquiry lessons about earthquakes and volcanoes. Table 4.8
shows the summary of the lessons and how they fit the sequence of MIAIM. In the
Engage step, she posed a central question for the following inquiry activity and students
made predictions based on questions. In the Explore step, she provided real-world data,
requested students to find patterns in data, and asked some questions to help students

develop their explanations. In the Explain step, she gave explanations about the patterns

139

during the class or she corrected students’ misconceptions after she assessed students’
understandings of scientific explanations. Finally, in the Apply step, one lesson included
an application activity, which asked students to use scientific knowledge to a new

situation.

Table 4.8. Sequence of activities on three separate lessons from Teresa’s class
Lesson Activity description MIAIM steps
Where on earth? The teacher established a central question, Engage
“Where do you think most earthquakes and
volcanoes in the world occur?” Students
made predictions.

Students mapped out some of the recent Explore
volcanoes and earthquakes activities that
have occurred across the world. They
compare their maps with another map that
shows plate tectonics, and found patterns
between the maps.

Students shared their ideas about the patterns Explain
and the teacher explained the patterns.
Some Go “POp,” The teacher introduced an activity and asked Engage
some do not students to find patterns in maps about
volcanoes.

Students located three types of volcanoes on Explore &
a map and analyzed the locations of different Explain
types of volcanoes. They had chances to
develop their explanations about
relationships between the locations of
different types of volcanoes and the
composition of the crust under the continents
where volcanic activities occurred.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How are The teacher asked students to predict where Engage
earthquakes most earthquakes would occur.

related to plate The teacher showed computer simulations Explore
tectonics? about locations of earthquakes and students

found patterns of earthquake locations

compared to the locations of plate

boundaries.

Students wrote explanations about types of Explain
late tectonics and earthquakes.

Students predicted which cities are likely to Apply

be affected by earthquake activity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

140

For example, in a lesson about plate tectonics and earthquakes, in the Engage step,
she asked students at the beginning of the lesson to predict where most earthquakes
would occur. Then, in the Explore step, she showed computer simulations about locations
of earthquake and students found patterns of earthquake location compared to the
location of plate boundaries. In the Explain step, Students wrote their explanations about
types of plate boundaries and earthquakes. At the end of the lesson, in the Apply step,
students applied their knowledge about earthquakes and plate tectonics to predict which
cities were likely to be affected by earthquake activity. In this lesson, activities were
sequenced in the order of Engage-Explore-Explain-Apply steps.

Based on her sayings during post-interview, MIAIM seemed to be a role to her to
support her existing teaching approach. During the post-interview, she said, “It’s
[MIAIM is] really similar to the model that I use.” However, she also stated that MIAIM
helped her make sure whether she presented activities in a way that is similar to inquiry-
based lessons. In particular, she said that it was helpful for her to think about setting up
problems or situations at the beginning of lessons. The following is the interview excerpt.

It made me more accountable to making sure that - with inquiry it’s not only

about what you’re presenting. I could do the same assignment and present it in

different ways, but I have to make sure I’m approaching it with the students fi'om

the angle of inquiry so that when I’m doing this it keeps me more aware of why I

chose the assignments I chose and how I need to introduce them to make them

most effective. Because anybody could come in and go to my files and photocopy

stuff, but they’re not going to present it in the same way. You can even take

141

inquiry lessons and not introduce them in the right fashion so they end up not

being an inquiry lesson. It just made me more aware.

Particularly the beginning — setting up the problem. Setting up the situation.
Getting them to look beyond find an answer to thinking about how — being able to
explain their choices. . .Trying to get them to that sort of thinking and not just

looking for the answer to get done. A lot of that comes with the setting up.

Instructional practices. She showed a small change in her use of MIAIM instructional
practices after the intervention (See table 4.7 for summary). Regarding three practices of
posing a central question for investigation, providing experiences with phenomena and
providing explanation, she did not show big differences before and after the intervention.
However, she put efforts to helped student to find patterns in data and used application
activities after the intervention more than she did before the intervention. First, after the
intervention, she gave students chances to find patterns in data about earthquakes and
volcanoes and develop their explanations about the patterns while she did not before the
intervention. Before the intervention, in her inquiry lessons, she put her focus on helping
students understand scientific explanations or models rather than helping students find
patterns in data. When I asked her to make patterns in data explicit through class
discussion, she had students to find patterns and share their ideas of patterns. When I
phased out my support, she continued to have students to find patterns in data but did not

ask students share their ideas of patterns.

142

Teresa also increasingly used application activities related to real-world situations
after the intervention. In addition to adding application activities at the end of classes, she
had three application-based lessons, where students used their knowledge about
earthquakes and volcanoes to understand real-world situations or do an experiment about
volcanoes. Two of the three application lessons focused on applying scientific knowledge
to real-world situations. For example, in one lesson, students conducted research about
the effects of volcanoes on the communities near the volcanoes. Although some students
expressed that it was hard for them to find information about specific volcanoes though
the Internet, students had an opportunity to read other people’s experiences relating to
volcanoes and about what positive and negative effects volcanoes had on the people’s

lives.

Motivational practices. She did not show a big difference in her use of MIAIM
motivational practices before and after the intervention (See table 4.7 for summary).
However, she made more efforts to make science relevant to students’ lives explicitly
after the intervention compared to before the intervention. In particular, she had three
discussions on why it is important to learn about some science topics. Although
earthquakes and volcanoes are phenomena that students have heard about, and that they
have had great influence on human lives, they did not state during class discussions that
learning about these topics was important to their lives. Part of the reason seemed to be
the fact that there are seldom earthquakes or no volcanoes in Michigan and, therefore,
Michigan is seen as a safe place to live. They said that they had to learn these topics “for

high school”, “[for a] test”, or because “teacher [she] should teach it” rather than because

143

these topics relate to their lives. Teresa finished the discussion with short comments such
as “you don’t want to decide to live close to volcanoes.”

During the post-interview, she reflected on her using of the motivational practices
and said that students are too immature to understand why learning specific topics are

important. The following is her interview excerpt.

Because I don’t t think they do, but it’s a level of maturity. If I tell them, in fact
I do tell them, it’s good for them to practice this sort of thinking skills because
they’re applicable when you go to math, when you go to college. That’s too far
ahead; they’re just looking towards tomorrow. ...So I think it’s important that
we understand the value, but I’m not sure that they will.

...Grades [are important to students]— [students think]‘I need good grades for
college, for scholarships, I need to pass so I can be on sports teams.’ Sports teams
are the big motivation. But for individual topics, they couldn’t necessarily tell you
why it’s important to have math or even reading. I think that comes back to

maturity levels.

In the interview, she expressed that although the valuing of learning science is important,
it is not easy for students to understand why individual topics in science are important to
them because of their level of maturity.

In conclusion, during intervention with Teresa, I explained MIAIM and before her
teaching, I sometimes asked to use some practices of MIAIM. After the intervention,

Teresa’s teaching approach did not change substantially. She used a didactic approach to

144

teach plate tectonics. In other classes, she used an inquiry approach and her lessons fit all
steps of MIAIM. She consistently posted central questions for investigations, asked
students to find patterns in data, and used many application activities. She also made

more efforts to make science relevant to students’ lives explicitly after the intervention.

Dan ’s teaching approach and practices

For readers, I will explain what happened during the intervention with Dan. I gave
an explanation of MIAIM and showed an example of a lesson plan that fit the intent of
MIAIM. Dan talked about how he had taught an electricity unit for previous years and
showed worksheets that he had used. I suggested that he include a central questions for
investigations and questions about finding patterns in data on his worksheets. I also asked
him to use more motivational strategies such as relate science to their everyday lives and
use stories to catch students’ interest in hands-on investigation.

Analysis of class observations and interviews indicate that Dan’s teaching
approach was similar before and after the intervention but that he incorporated many
aspects of MIAIM after the intervention. Table 4.9 shows the summary of his teaching

approach and practices before and after the intervention.

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Table 4.9. Summary of Dan’s teaching approach and practices before and after the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

intervention
Before the intervention After the intervention
Unimic Land forms Electricity
Teaching Inquiry approach: Dan Inquiry approach: Dan had
approach had students collect and students figure out how
analyze data related to electricity work.
land forms.
Instructional Establish Inconsistently Consistently established
Practices central established central central questions for
questions questions for investigations
investigations.
Told procedures,
materials, and names of
the activity instead of
establishing central
questions of the
activities
Provide Provided experiences Provided experiences with
experiences with phenomena with phenomena with priority of
with priority of first hand first hand data collection and
phenomena data collection and experiment
observation
Make Did not make patterns Focused on help students find
patterns in the experiences patterns in data
explicit explicit.
Provide Provided basic Provided basic information.
explanations information. Gave students opportunities to
Gave students develop their explanations for
opportunities to develop observed patterns.
their explanations for Had students share their
observed patterns. explanations
Had students share their
explanations
Applications Gave a few real world Gave opportunities for

 

 

 

examples.

Not asked students to
apply scientific
knowledge to real
world situations

 

students to apply knowledge to
real world situations

 

146

 

Table. 4.9. Continued

 

Before the intervention

After the intervention

 

Motivational
practices

 

Relevance of

Give a few real world

Gave real world examples

 

 

 

 

science to examples. Had students write essay about
students Did not ask students to their experiences related to a
lives talk about the relevance blackout
of topics to their lives Asked students to talk about
the relevance of topics to their
lives
Interest Used hands-on Used hands-on activities,
activities, games, games, humor.
humor, and authentic Told a story related to the
materials. topic that students would learn
and allowed them to project
themselves into situations
Support Gave students choices Have students solve problems
autonomy Encouraged students to in their own ways
solve problems in their Encouraged students to solve
own ways. problems in their own ways.
Know my Assessed their prior Assessed their prior
students knowledge by using knowledge by using KWL.
KWL.

 

Had students introduce
themselves and asked
students’ parents about
their child

 

 

Teaching approach and instructional practices. Dan used an inquiry approach for

teaching science before and after the intervention. However, after the intervention, he

used many aspects of MIAIM in his inquiry lessons, expressed the importance of finding

patterns in data in science class and expanded his goals in teaching science.

First, I will explain how his lessons fit the intent of MIAIM. I observed his seven

classes after the intervention. Of seven classes, there were four inquiry lessons whose

sequences of activities of the lessons fit the steps of MIAIM quite well. Table 4.10 shows

the description of each lesson and how the activities in the class met the sequence of

147

 

MIAIM. In the Engage step, the lessons included activities of posing a central question
and giving students chances to make predictions in response to the questions in the
beginning of lessons. In the Explore and Explain step, the lessons also included activities
for students to collect and analyze data, find patterns in data, and develop their ideas
about patterns and explanations in the middle of the lessons. His students participated in
experiments before he gave scientific explanations. Finally, in the Apply step, one class

included an application activity at the end of class.

Table 4.10. Sequence of activities on four separate lessons from Dan’s class

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson title Activity description MIAIM step
Static Students made predictions of what might happen Engage
Electricity when some materials are close to each other
Students had experiments with wood, balloon, Explore and
thread, and so on. Students found patterns in the Explain
data and developed their explanation.
Light it up! The teacher asked a central question and students Engage
made predictions on whether they could make a
bulb light up with some materials.
Students made their design to make bulbs light and Explore
test their predictions. They found patterns in the
data.
The teacher explained circuits Explain
Motors The teacher asked a central question, “how do Engage
motors work?”
Students connected several ways to make motors Explore and
work and draw their results. They developed their Explain
explanations about the results
Conductor and Students made predictions about whether some Engage
insulator materials listed in worksheets such as chalk, nail,
penny, and rubber band were conductors or
insulators
They observed whether they were open or closed Explore &
circuits. They found patterns in data and wrote Explain
their explanations about the results.
The teacher asked an application question and Apply
students wrote their answers.

 

148

 

For example, in a lesson about making a bulb light, whose title is ‘light it up!’ in table
4.10, at the beginning of the lesson, Dan established a central question, “how does
electricity work?” He stated, “We will do something to try to figure out how electricity
work. Remember what you did. You had your ship wrecked. You tried to make a bulb
work... You had great ideas. We will investigate that. You can pretend that you are on the
shipwrecked island. We will give you some materials for you to try to make a bulb
work.” Students made predictions on whether they could make a bulb light up with some
materials. This is an Engage step. Second, in an Explore step, students tried to make
bulbs lights in the three experimental conditions—one bulb and one battery; one bulb,
one battery, and one wire; and one bulb, one battery and two wires. They wrote their
results and he asked students to write their answers on the following two questions:
“What patterns do you notice? What do you notice MUST happen in order for the bulb to
light?” Finally, in an Explain step, Dan explained circuits and showed other bulbs to
explain the flow of electricity in bulbs. This is an Explain step. In summary, this lesson
included Engage-Explore-Explain steps of MIAIM.

These lessons sequences of his four inquiry lessons differed from those of his last
year’s inquiry lessons. Based on the evidence from his last year’s worksheets used in his
class, and interviews with him, this year Dan put more efforts into establishing central
questions for hands-on activities, added an activity for students to find patterns in data,
and focused more on doing application activities compared to his previous teaching on
the same topic.

In addition, the worksheets used in the four inquiry lessons perfectly matched the

sequence of activities in the classes. It included title, a central question, and places for

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students to write their hypothesis, results, and conclusions. While his previous year’s
worksheets included only materials, procedures, and some results, this year’s worksheets
included a big question, questions about patterns or applications. Regarding the new
format of the worksheet, he explained that it is more scientific and he would use this
format in the next year when teaching electricity He said,
They [worksheets] are going to stay like this because this is a great way to engage
them. And the data, basically it’s following the — this would be your introduction
and this would be your materials and your data. And your results are right here
and your conclusions. So it basically is following a science format that I really

believe in. You should know!

In the other three of seven lessons, at first he assessed students’ prior knowledge
at the beginning of the unit. It was necessary for him to know what students knew and
what they wanted to know. In another lesson, he had students play a game with electricity
as an application activity after students participated in some inquiry lessons. Finally, at
the end of the unit, he had students argue with each other about their explanation of how
electricity works. It would qualify as an Explain step of MIAIM.

In addition to using several aspects of MIAIM, he seemed to have a more
sophisticated understanding about scientific inquiry. During the post-interview he
expressed the importance of finding patterns in data in the inquiry process. He regarded it

,9 6‘

as important in science because it can “make a stronger argument, make a conclusion
or correlation better,” and “apply better,” and it is a “repetitive nature of

experimentation.” He also added that he would continue to help students to find patterns

150

in data. The following excerpt shows how important he thought finding patterns in data in

science class was.

Dan: I have included in there a piece about patterns and I will continue to use that
because I think it’s a very important piece for them to look at. Always looking for
patterns that they’re seeing. I hadn’t ever looked at it that way in the past, but I
think it’s a very important piece to look at.

Interviewer: Why do you think it’s important to look at?

Dan: That’s one way that you can tease out differences in your data. To be able to
look at things and be able to identify — this is a pattern and this is a different
pattern and this is another pattern. Look at all those and which one of these is
going to be important? I just want them to look at the patterns. It is also tying in
with math and you can tie it in with social studies and you can tie it in with
literacy. No reason not to tie it in here and he’s very specific about it. Because
truly, in science, you look for patterns. And repetitive nature of experimentation,
it has to be replicable. So you have to look for a pattern that happens and that’s an
extremely important piece for science. So I did want to include that and I will

continue to include that in whatever I’m looking at.

In addition, during the post-interview, Dan clearly expressed his desire to help
students to apply scientific knowledge to their lives. According to his pre-interview data,
his goals had been helping students understand scientific explanations and experience

scientific knowledge through participating in hands-on activities or field trips. During the

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post-interview, he still expressed that these goals were important. However, he added one
more goal, helping students to use the knowledge in their everyday lives. He said, “I
really want the kids to be able to apply the science that they’re learning to their everyday
life — to make it applicable. So that they can understand it and be able to use it.”
I: You say your goal is to apply science to their lives. What do you mean by ‘use
the science’ that they learned in their everyday life?
Dan: If they learn something about electricity, say, that they can go out and they
can see that this is what they’re learning about and this is why, say, a switch
works, or why if a certain area of the house is dark, they know there’s a broken
circuit...
Just for them to be able to look at the world in a new way and understand that
there’s more to the world than just that it’s been there. . . .Things they’re learning
about can help them understand how things work. . .. Make connection with their
everyday life. What they’re learning in class, they can connect it and therefore
make it important”
In interview, he was very specific that he wanted his students to use their knowledge to
see the world in a new way and that the application of scientific knowledge makes the
learning of science important. Finally, to accomplish his goal, he said, “I’m going to be
more specific in asking for application to their own lives. I’ve done that in the past, but

I’m going to be probably a little bit more noticeable in asking questions like that.”

Motivational practices. Regarding motivation, he put more effort to relate science to

students’ everyday lives and modified class activities to catch students’ interest when

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addressing MIAIM. For example, before doing any inquiry lessons, he designed two
activities to make science relevant and interesting to the students. In the first activity, he
displayed several pictures which showed peoples’ lives without electricity a long time
ago. Then, he showed a PowerPoint presentation about electricity usage all over the
world and a picture about a blackout in the eastern part of the USA. Finally, he asked
students to remember a time they were in a blackout and what they couldn’t do because
of there was no electricity. He asked students to write about their experiences during the
blackout. He asked questions, “What did you do differently? What couldn’t you do
anymore? [and] How did you have to change?” While he showed the blackout picture in
his previous years’ teaching, he added the questions to relate electricity to students lives
in this year’s teaching. The purpose of showing the pictures and remembering their
experiences in a blackout was for students to understand the need for electricity in their
lives.

Next, he introduced a story about being ‘shipwrecked without electricity’ to
make the need for learning about electricity realistic (see Table 4.11. for the story). The
story created a situation in which students had to make an electric light to send an SOS
signal to the other ship to save them. The story said that their class left for Viet Nam by
ship to find treasure but along the way, they ran into a huge storm that caused all their
electric motors to break, and their ship was marooned on a small island. On the island,
there were no people, there were no houses, and there was no electricity. They were
hungry the next day but there was no electricity to cook any food. That night, they saw a
ship passing the island and wanted to contact it. They had no radio and no lights from the

ship because there was no electricity. Fortunately, from their ship they found some

153

materials that might be used to light a bulb and decided to make an electric light to send
an SOS. After telling the story, he asked students to write their answers to questions,
“How can we make the bulb light? What materials are appropriate for making the bulb
light?” Then, students had an investigation about it. Although he used the story because
of my suggestion, during the post-interview, he stated three benefits of using the story: it
was engaging; and it provided students with a reading and writing format; and it could be
used as a pre-assessment (assessing students’ ideas about how to make bulbs light up and

what materials are needed).

Table 4.11. Story of shipwreck without electricity from Dan’s class

 

Our class left for Viet Nam by ship to find treasure but along the way, we ran
into a huge storm that caused all our electric motors on our ship to beak. As a result,
our ship was marooned on a small island.

We were lucky because we were alive in spite of the big storm. We searched for
people in the island. But, there was no people, no houses, and no electricity. He had to
survive there. At night, it was very dark and cold. There were sounds of wild animals.
We were afraid, and tired. We slept in a large, damp and dark cave.

The next morning, we searched for ways to escape from the island. But there
seemed no way off. In addition, we were hungry. However, there was no electricity on
the island to cook any food. We ate crackers and drank water. That was it.

That night, fortunately we saw a ship passing the island. We were excited and wanted
to contact it somehow. We had not radio or lights from the ship because there was no
electricity. Fortunately, from our ship, we found some materials that might be used to
light a bulb. So we decided to make an electric light to send an SOS, a signal to the
other ship to save us.

 

 

 

In the middle of the unit, he used similar practices to motivate students to learn
science as he did before the intervention. The practices included using hands-on activities,
games and humor. Finally, at the end of the unit, he discussed the relevance of the topic
to students’ lives to help them understand the importance of learning about electricity. He

asked the question, “Is electricity important to know about?” and the students had a

154

discussion. His use of motivational practices met the intent of MIAIM. As MIAIM
describes, he helped students understand the relevance of the topic to students’ lives and
caught students’ interest. He also used hands-on activities to catch and hold students’
interest in the inquiry lessons. Finally, as MIAIM places emphasis on understanding the
role of science at the Apply step or at the end of lessons or units, he asked students to

discuss on the importance of learning electricity.

In conclusion, during intervention with Dan, I explained MIAIM, commented on
his worksheets used in previous years, and asked to use more motivational practices.
After the intervention, Dan used an inquiry approach for teaching science and used many
aspects of MIAIM in his inquiry lessons. He consistently established central question for
investigations, helped students find patterns in data, and asked students to apply scientific
ideas to new situations. In addition to doing these practices, he talked about the
importance of finding patterns in science and helping students apply scientific ideas to
their lives. He also revised his worksheets used in his lessons. Regarding motivational
practices, he used practices to relate science to students’ lives. He also used a story to
make a context for hands-on investigations and after using the story, he elaborated the

benefits of using the story to student’s learning and motivation.

Changes in teaching practices compared to MIAIM
Patterns in changes of teaching practices
In this section, I will report patterns in changes in the teachers’ instructional and

motivational practices after they participated in the intervention. In analyzing data related

155

to teaching practices, I found evidence that teachers used several practices similar to
features of MIAIM when they taught science after the intervention. Figures 4.4, 4.5, and
4.6 show the frequencies of using practices that met the intention of MIAIM. Patterns
across teachers indicate an increase in focus after the intervention on four practices. They
are establishing a central question, finding patterns explicit, providing opportunities for
applications, and making the relevance of the topic to students’ lives explicit. Finally,
although there was no increase in frequencies of using practices to catch and hold
students’ interests, two of the teachers used different kinds of practices to make science
interesting to students after the intervention. In the following paragraphs, I will explain

how teachers used these practices and then describe the other practices that did not

increase or change.

 

a Before
intervention

lAtter
intervention

 

 

 

Frequencies

 

Pattern
Explain
Apply
Relevance
Interest
Autonomy
Know
students

1:

o 8

a s

to -:

8 0
Q
x
llJ

 

Figure 4.4. Frequencies of using MIAIM practices from Richard’s class

156

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12
10
” 8
,9 6 BBefore
4 intervention
2 IAfter
,1- 0 intervention
:5 8 g a is e a
25 5 :z — 0- d, a o o
:3 iv 0- LU 0 E O ...
O G- E ’5 or
at o: < 2
O
{2
Figure 4.5. Frequencies of using MIAIM practices from Teresa’s class
U!
9 10
8 IBetore
6 intervention
3 4
fl- 2
0 lAtter
intervention

 

 

 

Pattern
Explain
Apply

.5
‘65
e
3
0

Experience
Relevance
Interest
Autonomy
Know
students

 

 

Figure 4.6. Frequencies of using MIAIM practices from Dan’s class

Establish a central question

The three teachers posed central questions for hands-on investigations that gave
the purpose of the investigations to students at the beginning of class activities. In
particular, Richard and Dan more clearly and more consistently established a central
question after the intervention. Teresa consistently posed central questions for
investigation before and after the intervention.

Richard attended to central questions for investigations in class after the
intervention more than he did before the intervention. Before the intervention, he
established a central question in one of three lab activities although during pre-interviews,

he stated, “Usually we start out with a scientific method, asking a question. . .some kind

157

of problem they’re figuring out.” Without establishing the central questions, he
sometimes explained only procedures or the importance of the experiment when students
did not engage in the experiments. However, after the interventions, he spent his efforts
to establish central questions for investigations about the periodic table, and acids and
bases. to motivate students to do projects on atoms and on The Periodic Table. For
example, in his lesson plan, he wrote a central question for a Periodic Table inquiry
lesson, “How is the periodic table of the elements organized?” In order to make the
question understandable and interesting, he said, “You are researching these elements
because you and your team want to be the first to make an easy to understand
organizational chart of all known elements...you find and try to organize all of the
elements (1-36) and become the first people to make a table of the elements that will be
use by people around the world making important advancements in chemistry.”

Dan consistently established a central question for investigation in class after the
intervention. Before the intervention, he sometimes focused on explaining materials and
procedures instead of posing central questions (2 of 4 investigations). Even when he
asked a central question, he did during the activity rather than at the beginning of the
activity (1 of 4 investigations). His curriculum materials that were distributed to students
also did not include the central questions. However, after the intervention, he clearly
asked a central question for investigation at the beginning of the lesson (4 of 4
investigations) and gave students chances to make predictions in response to the
questions. For example, in a class about making a bulb light, he said, “We will do
something to try to figure out how electricity work. Remember what you did. You had

your ship wrecked. You tried to make a bulb work... You had great ideas. We will

158

investigate that. You can pretend that you are on the shipwrecked island. We will give
you some materials for you to try to make a bulb work.”

In addition, different from the worksheets on the electricity unit used in his class
in previous years, the revised worksheets after the intervention had central questions at
the top of them. In his four inquiry activities, 4 of 4 worksheets included central
questions, while none of them included central questions in the previous years’
worksheets. For example, in the investigation of how to makes a motor work, he included
on a worksheet the question, “How can you get a motor spin using a battery, motor, and
wires”. In addition, he added the question, “Can electricity travel through all materials?”
on a worksheet about conductors and insulators. Regarding the change of including a
central question for investigation on worksheet, he expressed during the post-interview
that posing a central question is a great way to engage students and it is introduction of
the lessons. In summary, Dan consistently established a central question for investigation
after the intervention and had an understanding of the need for posing a central question

at the beginning of an inquiry lesson.

Overall, after the intervention, two teachers showed increased efforts in
establishing a central question for an investigation. They more consistently and clearly

addressed central questions at the beginning of activities.

Make patterns explicit

The three teachers focused on helping students finding patterns in data by

themselves after the intervention more than they did before the intervention. Richard and

159

Dan, especially, increasingly spent their effort to help students find patterns during class.
They also reported during post-interviews that helping students find patterns was useful
for students’ understanding or that finding patterns is one of the important scientific
practices.

Richard spent time on helping students find patterns in data or information by
themselves after the intervention more than he did so before the intervention. Before the
intervention, he used the term, ‘pattern’, in class but he did not effectively help students
to find patterns by themselves because he gave explanations including patterns before
having them conduct experiments. After the intervention, Richard helped students find
patterns by themselves when he taught The Periodic Table. Especially when he taught
The Periodic Table, he spent several days for students to find patterns. He gave students
chances to find patterns among 24 elements and construct a periodic table by themselves.
Because students had difficulties in finding patterns among different elements based on
some information on each element’s properties, he had to do a lot of coaching. However,
many students finally understood patterns among elements and why the periodic table
was organized in that way.

Helping students to find patterns in several elements by themselves was a new
teaching approach for him. He told me that he directly gave information on the patterns
of elements in the periodic table in the last year. During the post-interview, he reported
that this new teaching approach was useful to help students understand the periodic table.

I think a lot of the students got the idea that it’s organized in this way because of

this pattern. Originally, it was atomic mass, now we do it by atomic number. I

think they really got that pattern. And because of that, they saw the numbers start

160

over from the right and back to the left. And then they figured out the way that the
atom’s structured, why it did that. So I think using the patterns, looking for those
in the periodic table gave them a much better understanding than my students in
the past.
In summary, Richard helped students to find patterns in elements in the periodic
table by themselves and also talked about the benefit of the teaching practice to help

students understand the patterns.

Teresa also gave students opportunities to find patterns in data by themselves after
the intervention more than before the intervention. Before the intervention, she explained
scientific explanations before assigning experiments. Even when she taught inquiry-based
lessons, the purposes of her three inquiry lessons were about to help students understand
scientific explanations or models rather than to help students find patterns in data. After
the intervention, she gave students chances to find patterns in data about earthquakes and
volcanoes (3 of 3 investigations) and develop their explanations about the patterns. She
asked students find relationships between locations of volcanoes and plate tectonics, three
types of volcanoes and their locations, and the locations of earthquake and plate tectonics.
During one of the three investigations, she asked students to share their ideas of pattems.

In summary, Teresa had students find and share patterns in data after the interventions.

Finally, Dan intentionally helped students to find patterns in data after the

intervention more than before the intervention. Before the intervention, he did not use the

term ‘pattern’ in class and he was inconsistent in asking students to analyze data. He only

161

asked students to find differences in experiment conditions in two of four inquiry lessons.
However, after the intervention, he used the term ‘pattern’ in class and asked students to
find patterns in data in 3 of 4 inquiry lessons. For example, after students tried to make
bulbs lights in the three experimental conditions—one bulb and one battery; one bulb,
one battery, and one wire; and one bulb, battery and two wire—he asked students to write
their answers on the following two questions: “What patterns do you notice? What do
you notice MUST happen in order for the bulb to light?” These two questions were newly
added to this year’s curriculum materials.

During the post-interview, he stated the importance of finding patterns in science:
“I hadn’t really put the pattern piece in and I’m seeing that that’s an extremely important
thing.” He added that it is important to find patterns in data because it can “make a

’9 ‘6

make [a] conclusion or correlation better , apply better”, and it is a

3’ 6‘

stronger argument ,
“repetitive nature of experimentation.” In summary, Dan developed his practice of
helping students find patterns in data and he understood the importance of finding

patterns in scientific practices after the intervention.

Overall, the three teachers focused on making patterns explicit after the
intervention more than before the intervention. They asked students to find patterns
themselves and to share their ideas about patterns. In addition, two of them clearly talked
about the importance or benefits of making patterns explicit in science or science

teaching.

Provide opportunities for applications

The three teachers focused on helping students apply scientific knowledge to new
situations after the interventions more than before the intervention. In addition, the
application activities related more to real-world situations.

Richard showed a moderate change in using the practice of providing
opportunities for application after the intervention. He used application questions related
to real-world situations after the intervention. He asked students to apply what they
learned in the acid and bases unit to understand phenomena related to their everyday lives
or real-world situations. For example, he asked students to apply knowledge of
neutralization reactions to new phenomena.

However, some of his application activities still seemed to focus on helping
students understand the school’s learning goals rather than using the knowledge in their
lives. In his class, he wanted students to use what they learned to understand the
knowledge better or understand another science topic. For example, he had students make
three-dimensional model of an element in order to understand the atomic structure better.
In addition, he also said that "using the periodic table in the next unit with chemical
changes. They were able to apply what they learned and that made understanding [of
chemical change] a lot easier.” Overall, while Richard still had big concerns in helping
students understand school learning goals, he used some activities to help students apply
science ideas to real-world situations after the intervention.

Teresa increasingly used application activities related to real-world situations
after the intervention (2 times before in intervention to 5 times after the intervention).

Before the intervention, there were two application activities whose functions were to

163

help students use knowledge to understand the knowledge better. For example, students
were required to calculate densities of four unknown liquids. However, after the
intervention, especially when she taught about volcano and earthquakes, she provided
students with Opportunities for application of knowledge to real-world situations. For
example, students used knowledge of relationships between the location of earthquakes
and plate tectonics to predict which cities in the world are likely to be affected by
earthquake activities. They also had to research the effects of specific volcanoes on the
communities near the volcanoes. In summary, Teresa increasingly used application
activities after the intervention and the application activities related to real-world
situations.

In Dan’s class, the number of application activities in class before and after the
intervention was the same. However, he put focus on helping students apply scientific
ideas to their everyday lives after the intervention more than he did before. Before the
intervention, there were three application activities. Two of them were about practicing
their scientific knowledge in a new situation, such as pictures from magazines not
necessarily related to students’ everyday lives. In the other lesson, he focused on showing
real-world examples, but gave some explanations rather than have students apply
scientific explanations. However, after the intervention, application activities or questions
were closely related to their lives. For example, after students found patterns between
conductors and insulators, he asked students to write their answers to the question,
“Would you use a conductor or an insulator to protect you from a shock? Explain.” In

other examples, he gave some students materials to make their own flashlights and he had

164

all students to make a game using a bulb, a battery, and wires, where the bulb gave off
light if students correctly connected questions about Michigan history and the answers.
During the post-interview, he stated his desire to help students apply scientific
knowledge to their lives as the goal of his science teaching while during pre-interviews
he did not talk about it as the goal of science teaching. During post-interview, he said, “I
really want the kids to be able to apply the science that they’re learning to their everyday
life - to make it applicable. So that they can understand it and be able to use it.” He also
added that he wants students look at the world in a new way and application of scientific
knowledge make the learning of it [science] important.
Interviewer: You say your goal is to apply science to their lives. What do you
mean by ‘use the science’ that they learned in their everyday life?
Dan: If they learn something about electricity, say, that they can go out and they
can see that this is what they’re learning about and this is why, say, a switch
works, or why if a certain area of the house is dark, they know there’s a broken
circuit
Just for them to be able to look at the world in a new way and understand that
there’s more to the world than just that it’s been there. . ..Things they’re learning
about can help them understand how things work. . .. Make [a] connection with
their everyday life. What they’re learning in class, they can connect it and

therefore make it important.”

In other words, Dan not only helped students apply scientific knowledge to their

everyday lives, but also expressed the importance of the practice for students’ learning.

165

Overall, the teachers focused on helping students apply scientific knowledge to
new situations after the interventions more than they did before the intervention. In
addition, the application activities related more to real-world situations. While Dan talked
about the importance of helping students apply scientific knowledge to their everyday
lives, Richard still focused on applying science knowledge to new situations to

understand it better.

Make the relevance of the topic to students ’ lives explicit

The teachers explicitly related science to students’ everyday lives, especially at
the beginning and end of their units after the intervention. Rather than explaining the
importance of learning science from a scientist’s perspective or for students’ future jobs,
they discussed the relevance of the topics to student’s lives and gave several real-world
examples.

Richard made several efforts to make the relevance of the topics to students’
everyday lives explicit after the intervention. Before the intervention, he did not focus on
relevance of science topics to students’ everyday lives to motivate students to learn the
topics. Instead, he talked about the importance of learning science for future jobs or tests
or the importance of scientific practices from a scientist’s perspective. After the
intervention, he designed and implemented several activities to make the relevance of the
topics about chemical change to students’ lives explicit. At the beginning of a unit
covering atoms and The Periodic Table, he discussed how atoms are useful in our daily

lives and how an understanding of atoms is important. He also showed real-world

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examples of elements used in daily products such as Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, which
makes shampoo sudsy. Finally, he asked students to bring products used in their homes to
class, to do research about elements in them, and explain how the products make their
lives better and how understanding atoms is important.

After those efforts to establish the relevance of atoms to students’ lives, he talked
about the effect of those efforts on students. After the discussion on how atoms are used
in our daily lives, he stated that his students had a better understanding of how important
an atom is. He also expressed that the home product research would be “an eye-opener”

for them to learn about atoms.

We watched the Bill Nye and we talked about how atoms are in everything. A lot
of kids seemed to think, “Wow, it’s in everything.” I think they got a better
understanding of how important it is because of our discussion of how much we
rely on products that are made from elements that we need to understand how the
atoms and those element 5 combine to get the product. I don’t think they fully
understood, but maybe they will. It was a pretty good conversation yesterday
about how much we use chemistry in our everyday lives and we don’t even
realize it. So it was a good discussion yesterday. (Interview on the day afier the

discussion on atoms)

Many students seemed to get the idea of the elements combining to form

compounds and this helped engage them in finding out more about what the other

ingredients did. However, it seemed that some students didn’t really care about

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what the ingredients did. But, for the most part, students began to see that
elements were all around us and used in everything they brought in I think that
many students could see the point of the assignment and began to understand that
understanding elements and how they combined to make useful products was
important. But, with limited knowledge about elements and compounds, I don’t
think they fully grasped the true relevance of elements. However, it was at least a

start. (Post interview with Richard)

It is worthwhile to note that during the pre-interviews, Richard expressed
reservations about making the relevance of the topics of chemical change to students’
lives explicit. He said, it is hard to “incorporate into their why I have to learn it [chemical
change] attitude” and "I don’t know if it’s very motivating!" During the intervention for
teacher development, he brought his lesson plan to teach atoms and the periodic table.
After I suggested that he think about how to relate the lessons to students’ everyday lives,
he included several activities such as whole class discussion on atoms’ use in our lives
and individual research about elements used in home products.

When he taught about acids and bases, he also made efforts to relate science to
students’ lives. For example, in class he talked about why measuring pH and knowing the
appropriate pH in water tanks and swimming pools would be helpful to our lives. He also
talked about the effects of acid rain in our lives.

In summary, after the intervention, Richard more explicitly related science to
students’ everyday lives by discussing the relevance of the topics to student’s everyday

lives, giving real world examples, and having students find real world examples. During

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the post-interview, He also said that the practices were helpful for his students to

understand the relevance of topics to their everyday lives.

Teresa increasingly gave students chances to think about reasons for learning
about science after the intervention whereas she did not discuss the relevance of science
to students’ lives before the intervention. She did this three times after the intervention.
For example, she asked “why is it important to know about earthquakes?” or “Why do we
do it [an activity on volcanoes] today?. Students answers were “for high school”, “[for a]
test”, or “teacher should teach it” rather than relating the topic to their lives. After
listening to the students’ answers, she ended the discussion with short comments such as
“you don’t want to decide to live close to volcanoes” or “to determine where to live”.
Regarding students’ negative responses to her questions, she told me that it was hard for
students to understand the importance of science to their lives because they were young.
In summary, she tried to discuss the relevance of the topics to students’ lives after the
intervention, but during the discussion, her students did not seem to relate science to their

everyday lives.

Finally, Dan explicitly discussed the relevance of the topic to student’s everyday
lives after the intervention. Before the intervention, although there were some cases for
which he gave real-world examples on erosion, he did not have students think about the
relevance of the topic to their everyday lives. However, after the intervention, he made
several activities for students to think about the relevance of science to their lives. For

example, he began the electricity unit, having students remember a time where they were

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in a blackout and what they couldn’t do because there was no electricity. He asked
students to write about their experiences during the blackout. He asked the questions,
“What did you do differently? What couldn’t you do anymore? [and] How did you have
to change?” In addition, he used a story about a shipwreck to make the need for learning
about electricity realistic. At the end of the unit, he did a class discussion on a question,
“is electricity important to know about?”. Students said electricity was important because
they used electrical materials and that they could use their knowledge about electricity
when they were in a blackout. The following is an excerpt from a class discussion.
Dan: We do a lot of things in science and I want to know what do you think about
it, Is electricity (E-) important to know about. Raise your hand if you think yes,
(most students raised their hands). Raise your hand if you don’t think that E- is
very important to know about.(2 students raised their hands). So, Most you think
E- is important to know about. Let’s think about it just a second. Why is it

important for us to be able to know about E-?

Student 1: because in winter it is very cold, E- makes heat

Dan: E-makes heat and we need it and it is important to know about that. OK.
That’s interesting. All right.

Student 2: ..(Sound was not clear)

Dan: we need fan to cool down. And you use E-.

Student 3: it’s good to know about it because when it blackout something, you

may know make a E-.

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Dan: that’s something that I think really important. If we have a blackout, and we
didn’t have regular electricity, we now know how to make E- because you guise
know about it. Good. Good idea.

Student 4:... some people don’t know about E-, and we know how to make E-,
and. .

Dan: we can help out financially, you can earn money, If people forget how to
make E-, and you can remember, you will build up.

Student 5: I was blackout yesterday in the basement. All the upstairs run but, in
the basement it was not because heating things were hotter and all the E- were
gone.

Dan: so, they went out in the basement. So, what did you do, you learned
something about E-, Did you tell about what happened your mom?

Student 5: she was totally wrong.

Dan: she was scared?

Student 5: she just hacked and

Dan: OK, so, why is it important to know about E- then? It’s a great story. But
why is it important?

Student 5: There were wires in the last time. . . .(sound was not clear)

Dan: So the wires came apart? So, was what kind of circuit?

Student 5: um,, open circuit.

Dan: so you put down together it can be,

Student 5: closer

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Dan: so, do you have that complete circuit. So, you knew what happen when

plugged up, you don’t have complete circuit. Cool!

In the class discussion, Dan asked students to explain their reasons for why they
thought learning about electricity was important. When one student (Student 5 in the
excerpt) shared his experience on broken circuits in his basement, Dan asked why it was
important to know about electricity and helped the student use scientific languages such
as ‘open circuit’ to explain his experience at home. In summary, primarily at the
beginning and end of the unit, he tried to help students understand and talk about how

learning about electricity was important to their lives.

In conclusion, teachers made several efforts to make science relevant to students’
everyday lives. In some classes, students seemed to understand the relevance of science
to their lives, but in other classes, it was hard for the teacher to help students relate

science to their lives.

Catch and hold students interest

Richard and Dan used a different kind of practice to catch and hold students’
interest after the intervention. Before the intervention, they made some efforts to make
science interesting, mostly providing opportunities to engage in hands-on activities or
using games, simulations, humor or other fun features. After the intervention, in addition
to doing these things, they modified the design of learning activities to include features

that would enhance the appeal of the activities. Especially, they told interesting stories

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related to the topics that they would learn and allowed students to project themselves into
situations. Through the stories, the teachers established questions for following inquiry
activities or projects.

Richard created a context for his students to be motivated to participate in
learning activities in the unit of atoms and the periodic table. Before teaching The
Periodic Table, he introduced a story to make a context in which students had to make
their own periodic table (See table 4.7 for the story). He had his students pretend that they
would be the people to make a periodic table before Dmitri Mendeleev.

During the intervention, he said that he would use stories to “give them more
purpose of the research” because using a story may be better than just stating, “Here is a
research project and you need to find it.” However, when he introduced the research
project with the story, he had a challenge that his students were not interested in the story
because the periodic table has already been done. Therefore, he elaborated upon the story
with the history of science, explaining that many scientists tried to develop their own
periodic table in the late 18603, but Mendeleev got credit because he made predictions on
elements based on his organization of elements and the predictions actually turned out to
be true. In summary, Richard also used a story to make science interesting and motivate
students to participate in class activities. However, he had a challenge in using a story in
science class, and he solved the problem using his background knowledge of history of

science.

In Dan’s class, at the beginning of the electricity unit, he told a story about being

‘shipwrecked without electricity’ to make a situation in which students had to make an

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electric light to send an SOS, a signal to the other ship to save them (See table 4.11 for
the story). This story has many features to catch students’ interests such as going to Viet
Nam (one of the students from his class were from Viet Nam), finding treasure, or having
no delicious foods to eat, and making an SOS signal. In addition, he turned off lights and
had them write about their answers to the questions about electricity by the overhead
projector illumination in order for it to be more realistic.

This story was told to students after they wrote about their experiences where
they did not have any electricity in the spring of 2008. After students understood the
relevance of electricity to their lives through remembering experiences in a blackout, the
story created a context for them to make bulbs light. After telling this story to students, he
asked two questions, “How can we make the bulb light? What materials are appropriate
for making the bulb light?” The next day, he and his students did an investigation of
making bulbs lights up with a battery, a bulb, and wires. At the beginning of the
investigation, he reminded students of the shipwreck story in order to motivate students
to participate in the investigation.

He did not use these kinds of stories in his science class before the intervention.
During the intervention, when I told him that we might use stories to catch students’
interests in scientific activities, he stated that the investigation of making bulbs light up
was itself interesting, but a story could make a context for the investigation. In class,
when he told the story and had students write answers to the two questions related to
electricity, his students were very engaged in writing their answers and each student
wrote almost one-page answers. During the post-interview, he stated three benefits of

using the story: it was engaging; it provided students with a reading and writing format

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and it could be used as a pre-assessment (He assessed students’ ideas about how to make
bulbs light up and what materials are needed). Beyond the benefits of motivating students
to participate in scientific activities, he found another two benefits as an elementary
teacher who needed to find out students’ prior knowledge and to teach literature as well
as science.

In summary, Dan tried to use a new motivational practice to make science
interesting. He used a story to allow students to project themselves into a new situation
where they had to make bulbs light up. Students liked the story and thought about various
ways to make bulbs light up. He found several benefits of using stories in science class.

In conclusion, after the intervention, two teachers modified the design of learning
activities to include features that would enhance the activities’ appeal. In particular, they
told interesting stories related to the topics that they would learn and allowed students to
project themselves into hypothetical situations. Through the stories, the teachers

established questions for following inquiry activities or projects.

Other practices that did not increase or change

There was no substantial change in teachers’ use of four practices: providing
experiences with phenomena, provide explanations, support students’ autonomy, and
know students and use knowledge about students. First, after the intervention teacher
provided experiences that are appropriate for learning goals, as teachers did before the
intervention. Richards and Dan continued to provide experiences with phenomena after
the intervention. Teresa provided second-hand data for helping students understand

volcanoes and earthquakes.

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Second, teachers provided explanations through a lecture format or students’ book
reading but they still did not explicitly give students chances to compare and revise their
ideas with scientific ones after the intervention. Although Dan asked students to share
their ideas after several inquiry lessons about electricity, he did not challenge students
with scientific ideas during the class.

Three, regarding motivational practices of supporting students’ autonomy, the
fiequency of using the practices increased in two classes but it did not seem to be a big
enough change to be counted as a pattern across teachers. Dan gave students more
opportunities to solve problems in their own ways rather than insisting on a single
method after the intervention. For example, he had his students figure out how to make
bulbs light up or motors spin. Teresa used some practices that support students’
autonomy. For example, she gave students an opportunity to solve problems in their own
way. She had students research about the effects of volcanoes on communities near the
volcanoes. She also gave students choices about what project they would do. However,
she also used other practices that might undermine their autonomy after the intervention.
She talked more about grades in her class, which might lead students to focus on
performance rather than learning of science.

Finally, after the intervention, teachers continued to assess students’ prior
knowledge. They also tried to relate science to students’ everyday lives and there were a
couple instances that teachers considered students interests when designing and enacting
their lessons. For example, Teresa said that she enacted a lesson about volcano using
some chemicals such as vinegar in order to model volcanoes’ eruptions because her

students were interested in the modeling activity. However, I did not notice any

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substantial change in how they use knowledge about their students to enhance students’

valuing of learning science.

Summary and Discussion
Summary

There was a modest change in teachers’ teaching approaches thought teachers
used several features of MIAIM in their science lessons. During intervention, I
encouraged Richard to help students to find patterns in elements in the periodic table and
use mere motivational strategies as well as I explained MIAIM. After the intervention,
Richard incorporated some features of MIAIM. He taught the periodic table with an
inquiry approach and had students find patterns in data. The sequence of activities about
the periodic table met all steps of MIAIM. When teaching other topics, he used a
combination of didactic and hands-on approaches but he constantly established a central
question for hands-on investigations, and applied scientific explanations to new situations.
Regarding motivation he designed and enacted several activities relating science to
students’ everyday lives. In addition, he used a story to make a context in which students
had to make their own periodic table.

During intervention with Teresa, I explained MIAIM and before her teaching, I
sometimes asked to use some practices of MIAIM. After the intervention, Teresa’s
teaching approach did not change substantially. She used a didactic approach to teach
plate tectonics. However, she had more inquiry and application lessons that fit the intent
of MIAIM after the intervention than she did before the intervention. She consistently

posted central questions for investigations, asked students to find patterns in data, and

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used many application activities. She also made more efforts to make science relevant to
students’ lives explicitly after the intervention.

During intervention with Dan, I explained MIAIM, commented on his worksheets
used in previous years, and asked him to use more motivational practices. After the
intervention, Dan used an inquiry approach for teaching science and used many aspects
of MIAIM in his inquiry lessons. He consistently established central question for
investigations, helped students find patterns in data, and asked students to apply scientific
ideas to new situations. In addition to doing these practices, he talked about the
importance of finding patterns in science and helping students apply scientific ideas to
their lives. He also revised his worksheets used in his lessons. Regarding motivational
practices, he used practices to relate science to students’ lives. He also used a story to
make a context for hands-on investigations and after using the story, he elaborated the
benefits of using the story to student’s learning and motivation.

Overall, the intervention using MIAIM seemed to help teachers use some
practices such as posing central questions for investigations, finding patterns in data,
applying scientific ideas to new situations and relating science to students’ lives.
However, there was no substantial change in teachers’ use of some practices such as

supporting students’ autonomy, knowing students, and using knowledge about students.

Discussion
The results from this study showed that after professional development
intervention using MIAIM teachers used some MIAIM practices to help students

participate in scientific practices including inquiry and application, and to help students

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be more motivated to learn science. There are three important points related to findings
about changes in teaching approaches and practices: teachers’ learning and MIAIM,
reasons for individual differences among teacher’s use of MIAIM, interpretation about

practices that did not change after the intervention.

Teacher learning and MIAIM The results show that MIAIM can be used as a tool to help
teachers use some teaching practices for scientific inquiry, application, and motivation
with the support of professional development. In chapter two about literature review of
this study, I introduced a model of teacher learning useful for understanding outcome of
this study. In the model showed components of teacher learning over three different time
intervals. At time 1, teachers interpret new knowledge and practices through their
existing knowledge and practices and learn new ideas and skills by participating in
professional development (PD) activities. The PD activities influence what teachers learn,
but what teachers already know and do influences the interaction with teacher educators
during the PD activities. In this study, during the PD activities using MIAIM, I tried to
help teachers synthesize ideas about reform-based science instruction and value aspects
of motivation by discussing important components of scientific inquiry, application, and
motivation. I also commented teachers’ curriculum materials or activities that fit the
intent of MIAIM. Teachers might interpret MIAIM and my comments based on their
existing knowledge and practices.

At Time 2, teachers enact the curriculum materials or class activities talked about
during PD activities. In this study, teachers practiced planning and teaching science

lessons that fit the intent of MIAIM. They established central questions for investigation,

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and provided experiences with phenomena, helped students to find patterns in data by
themselves. They also explicitly related science to students’ everyday lives and some of
them used stories to make contexts for scientific investigations. Two of the three teachers
said that they would continue to use some MIAIM practices. For example, Richard
expressed that he would use similar lesson plans to teach the periodic table focusing on
finding patterns in elements in the next year. Dan also expressed that this year’s
worksheet format was more scientific that those of his previous years’ worksheet and
would use them later. In other words, teachers incorporated some aspects of MIAIM in
their science lessons.

At time 3, teachers transfer their new knowledge and practices to teach different
curriculum materials. The application of the knowledge and practices is also influenced
by the features of the curriculum materials, their students, and other contexts. In this
study, when I phased out my support and teachers taught different topics and lessons,
they still used some of MIAIM practices. For example, when Richard taught other topics,
he used a combination of didactic and hands-on approaches but he continued to establish
a central question for hands-on investigations, helped students apply scientific
explanations to new situations and related science to students’ everyday lives. Teresa
enacted inquiry lessons that fit the steps of MIAIM. Finally, Dan designed a new
worksheet when teaching about motor, and the lesson fit the first three steps of MIAIM.
These result shows that teachers had been learning to teach science lessons that fit the
intent of MIAIM whose goals are to help students participate in scientific practices and

enhance students’ valuing of learning science.

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Reasons for individual diflerences among teacher’s use of MIAIM. The result shows that
some teachers use more aspects of MIAIM than the other. Several factors might have
influenced their use of MIAIM: teacher’s initial goal and teaching approaches;
experiences with using MIAIM in their class; the content area; and school contexts. In
the next paragraph, I will explain each factor with evidence from the results.

First, teachers’ initial goals, teaching approaches, and practices seemed to
influence their use of MIAIM in their lessons. In this study, depending on their initial
teaching approach and practices, the teachers embraced either many or some aspects of
MIAIM. Dan’s initial teaching approach and goals in teaching science were most similar
to the goals of MIAIM. Before the intervention he used an inquiry approach and tried to
teach science ‘as scientists do’ their research. He also worked as a research scientist.
However, for the other teachers, scientist’s science was not of primary concern. They
tended to focus on teaching scientific explanations rather than helping students
participate in scientific practices. After the intervention, Dan incorporated more aspects
of MIAIM than the others. More than the other two teachers, the sequence of his lessons
consistently fit the intent of MIAIM.

J ust as children’s learning occurs within the ‘zone of proximal development’
(Vygotsky, 1978), teachers seemed to have their zone of proximal development in their
learning to use MIAIM to teach science. Knowledge and practices presented by MIAIM
is domain specific. Some teachers, who have similar goals and approaches to those of
reform-based science teaching and want to help students appreciate their learning, may
use MIAIM to design class activities more frequently than others. Steps and descriptions

in MIAIM may give them guidelines for accomplishing their goals for teaching science.

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However, teachers whose goals for teaching science are somewhat different from those of
MIAIM may not see the affordances of using MIAIM and not frequently refer to it when
planning and teaching.

Second, teachers’ experiences with using some features of MIAIM might have
influenced their judgment of the utility of MIAIM and their next trial of the practices.
There is some evidence supporting this theory from teacher interviews and class
observations. For example, both Richard and Dan used stories to make contexts for their
following class activities. Richard used a story to give students the purpose of an element
research project. He had his students pretend that they were scientists to organize a
periodic table. However, his students seemed not to be interested in a story and he had to
explain the history of science related to the development of the periodic table. Dan also
used a story about being shipwrecked to make a context for students to make a bulb light
up. His students were very engaged in the story and wrote their answers to questions
about what materials they need to make a bulb light up. Afier implementing lessons using
stories, Dan expressed his idea about the benefits of using stories in science class to
students’ learning and motivation, and used the story again at the end of the electricity
unit as a post-assessment. However, Richard did not explain the benefits of using stories
and did not use the story again like Dan.

In another example, all three teachers had class discussions about why learning
science topics is important or relevant to their lives. In class discussions, Richard and
Dan seemed to find evidence that students understood the relevance of the topics to their
everyday lives and satisfied with the class discussion regarding the relevance, but Teresa

did not. After class discussion, Richard told me that his students seemed to understand

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how atoms are related to their lives. He said, ““Many students seemed to get the idea of
the elements combining to form compounds and this helped engage them in finding out
more about what the other ingredients did. . .For the most part, students began to see that
elements were all around us and used in everything they brought in.” In Dan’s class, his
students explained why learning about electricity is important to their lives and they gave
specific examples for the reasons such as using their knowledge when they were in a
blackout. However, in Teresa’s class, students did not relate the topics of volcanoes and
earthquakes to their lives. Richard talked about the effects of class discussion on
students’ understanding of relevance of the topics to their lives and he had this kinds of
discussion when teaching about acids and bases. However, Teresa expressed it was hard
for students to understand why individual science topics were important to their lives
because of their level of maturity".

In other example, Richard helped students find patterns in elements and make
their own periodic tables. He found that students easily understood the explanations of
atomic bonds because they understood the properties and patterns of elements in The
Periodic Table. He said, “Like with sodium and chlorine, they [students] were able to
identify right away because of the groups they [the elements] were in, how many
electrons they have in their outside shell, and that helped them figure out much faster
why those two combined in a reaction form. So I think they [students] were able to apply
what they learned about the patterns and identify quickly the number of electrons and

figure out why those two come together.” During the post-interview, he also said that he

 

The findmgs regarding students’ valuing of scrence support thlS claim, too. Richard’s and Dan 5 students
became more appreciative why learning science is relevant or important to their lives and Teresa’s students
(See chapter five for more results).

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would use this kind of lesson in the next year again while he would revise it some for
students to be able to find easily patterns in elements.

All these examples show that if students reacted positively to the teachers’ new
instructional and motivational practices in terms of their participation in class activities or
understanding of scientific ideas, teachers tended to judge that new practices were useful
in their teaching and they used or wanted to use these practices later. The relationship
between teachers’ learning of teaching practices and knowledge, and their student’s
reactions to new teaching practices is also supported by Marx, Best, and Tal’s (2003)
model of teacher learning. In their model, teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes are
formed interactively with class enactment and each can influence the other. Student
performance also influences teacher knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes, mediated through
enactment. As they teach, teachers intuitively look to their students for feedback about
the instruction. This information forms a key component of the feedback loop that shapes
teachers’ beliefs about their students and their own teaching (Richardson, 1996). .

Third, the features of the science content area that teachers had to teach seemed to
influence teacher’s use of MIAIM. The features of the content area seemed to include the
amount of or difficulty in scientific explanations that students have to understand,
availability of hands-on activities for students to participate in, or easiness in relating
science to students’ lives. First, Richard and Teresa expressed the relationships between
doing inquiry lessons and features of scientific explanations. For example, during pre-
interviews, Richard showed reservation about doing inquiry lessons about physical and
chemical change by saying that there is too much ‘technical’ information that students

had to acquire. He said that using an inquiry approach to teach these topics might be

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possible but it would not be easy. Teresa also said, “it's hard to develop an investigation
around a subject students are not familiar with.” Teachers’ these judgments about
scientific topics might have influenced their decision to doing MIAIM based lessons or
not.

It also seemed to be easier for teachers to incorporate hands-on investigation into
some contents rather than other contents. After the intervention, Richard used more
hands-on activities when he taught acids and bases than when he taught about atoms. He
also said "when I was looking at thinking of doing something for nuclear, there was a real
lack of student’ hands-on activities where they could explore and investigate.”
Similarly, Teresa used several hands-on activities when teaching volcanoes and
earthquakes. She was able to access real data about volcanoes and earthquakes for
students to find patterns. In addition, it seemed to be easier for teachers to relate science
to students lives in some contents rather than other contents. For example, during pre-
interviews, Richard said that it is easier to relate topics of earth science such as
thunderstorms or tornadoes to students’ lives than the topics about chemical and physical
changes. Actually, his lesson plan about chemical change did not include any
motivational strategies to relate science to students’ lives. After my suggestions, he
designed some activities to make the relevance of topics to students’ lives. Similarly,
Teresa said that some topics such as severe weather are easier to connect to students’
lives rather than others such as properties of matters. Overall, the features of science
content seemed to influence teacher’s use of inquiry or other motivational practices.

Finally, school and classroom contexts including features of students seemed to

influence teachers’ use of MIAIM. In the study, Teresa showed less change in her using

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of MIAIM practices than the other two teachers. When this study was conducted, her
school was less stable compared to the other two teacher’s schools. There were two
school-wide schedule changes during semesters, one of which changed members of
students in her class. In addition, she had less time to teach science than the other two
teachers. She was busy due to her administrative work related to the school-wide
schedule changes and the school’s request of doing something not related to teaching
science in her class. Instead of her, another teacher sometimes taught science in her class
while she was doing administrative work. In this context, it seemed not to be easy to try
new teaching practices. In addition, her students seemed to differ from the other two
teachers’ students in terms of their level of poverty, academic scores, stable school
environment and so on. For example, the percentage of eligible students for fee or
reduced lunch from Teresa’s school was highest among the three schools (71% from
Teresa’s school compared to 25% from Richard’s school and 54% fiom Dan’s school)
(http://www.greatschools.net). In addition, based on its state test result, Teresa’s school
received a GreatSchools rating of 3 out of 10 while Richard’s school received a rating of
7 out of 10. In other words, students from Teresa’s school receive poorer scores at MEAP
test compared to the students from Richard’s school. These different features of students
might have influenced interactions of them and their teachers, and might also have

influenced the teachers’ judgment of the utility of MIAIM practices.

Interpretation about practices that did not change. The result shows that there is no

change in teachers’ use of some practices. In this section, I will discuss about each

practice that did not change.

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Regarding practices of providing experiences with phenomena, teachers already
tended to use hands-on activities before the intervention. Richard and Dan continued to
provide experiences with phenomena that are appropriate for learning goals. Therefore, it
is not surprising that they continued to provide experiences with phenomena after they
participated in the intervention that intended to help teachers to use hands-on
investigation.

In addition, after the intervention, teacher continued telling scientific information.
However, they did not give students opportunities to compare their ideas with scientific
ones. I speculate that teachers might not use the practices because they might think that it
is not necessary to have class discussion to compare students ideas and scientific ones if
they told the information and assigned experiments. In addition, they might not just have
time for class discussion to compare students’ ideas with scientific ones. During the
intervention, Dan said that that the discussion might be helpful but he had a challenge for
doing hands-on activities because he had to teach other topics such as math and literacy.
His saying might support the hypothesis.

Regarding supporting students autonomy, teachers did not use practices to
support students’ autonomy after the intervention. Other practices such as providing
central questions or helping students find patterns in data seemed to be easy to do or
easily understandable to teachers. However, the practices related to supporting students’
autonomy seemed to be related to teachers’ general teaching style or classroom norms.

Teachers might be afraid of giving many choices to students in their classes or having

them solve problems in their own.

187

Finally, there was no increase in teachers’ use of their knowledge about their
students. While MIAIM specifically explains about other three motivational practices
including relevance of science to students’ lives, making science interesting, or
supporting students’ autonomy, it does not give specific strategies for teachers to use
their knowledge about students. In MIAIM, the motivational principle of knowing
students and use knowledge about students is underlying principles for helping students
value their learning of science. Therefore, teachers might not focus on the motivational

principles when they looked at explanations about motivational practices of MLAIM.

188

Chapter Five: Findings and Discussions About Students’ Valuing of

Science, Efforts to Learn, and Understanding of Science Ideas

This chapter addresses my last research question which asked: What effect does
an instruction based on MIAIM have on students’ valuing of learning science, efforts to
learn, and understanding of scientific ideas? Additionally, what features of the instruction
may have played a role in these outcomes? I asked the question to determine whether and
how the professional development experiences around MIAIM influenced students’
motivation and their learning. I hypothesized that changes in teaching practices would
influence students’ motivation, especially, their valuing of learning science and their
understanding of scientific ideas. I also hypothesized that changes in teaching practices
and students’ valuing of science would influence their effort in participating in class
activities. To address my last research question, I draw on data analyses of surveys, class

observations, and pre-and post-tests.

Valuing of learning science
In order to understand the influence of MIAIM-based lessons on student’s valuing
of science, I analyzed students’ pre-and post-surveys. The analysis of the surveys shows
that students who received the MIAIM lessons became more interested in science and
better understood how science is related or important to their everyday lives. After
reporting results about the students’ overall changes in their motivation to learn science, I
will report changes in students’ views of whether they think science is useful, important,

and interesting to them. Because two teachers used more aspects of MIAIM in their

189

science lessons than the other, I will report the result by each class.

Overall change in students’ motivation to learn science

At the end of the post-survey, I asked whether students thought their motivation
for learning science had changed or not changed after the MIAIM-based lessons and why.
The analysis of the students’ responses to the open-ended question indicates that
students’ attitudes toward science had changed in a positive direction with some
differences in results from different teachers’ classes.

In Richard’s class, 27% of students (4 of 15 students) reported that that their
motivation to learn science has positively changed. The most frequent reason was that
they understood how science is related to their lives (three students gave the reason). For
example, one student wrote, “Yes, [it changed] I thought science really couldn't be used
for everyday life, but now I know it can be.” Another student wrote, “Yes, [it changed]
because two months ago, I thought science was boring and if it had nothing to do with
being a vet [veterinary]. I didn't care and didn't pay attention but now I realized all
science can be interesting and should pay attention because it could help me with
everyday situations.” Another reason for positive change in their attitudes towards
science was using hands-on activity in science class. One student wrote, “I feel better
about science, but not because of what I learned, because of how I learned. This year in
science we do more hands-on learning than reading out of a book learning. I feel that I
learn better with hands-on things because it is more interesting.” However, 53% of
students’ attitudes towards science did not change because 33% of them already liked

science and 20% of them still did not like science. In summary, in Richard’s class, there

190

was a moderate change in students’ interest in science. The students whose attitudes
toward science changed attributed their change to their understanding of the relevance of
science to their everyday lives and the use of hands-on activities in class.

From Teresa’s class, 50% of students (5 of 10 students) reported that they
became more interested in science. The most frequent reasons for the change were using
hands-on activities and learning interesting topics. For example, one student wrote, “I
learned interesting stuff this year and it was fun doing the experiments. Because my
teacher made it a bit more fun to learn science. I especially liked to do the volcanic lab, it
was fun watching the bubbles foam out.” Another student wrote, “Yes, because now that
we are learning about more interesting things, class is more interesting.” However, 30%
of students (3 of 10 students) reported that they became less interested in science because
topics such as plate tectonics, earthquakes and volcanoes, “have gotten duller” and that
they didn’t think that the topics were necessary to learn.

In Dan’s class, 65% of students (11 of 17 students) reported that they became
more interested in science and that science was now more important to them. The most
frequent reasons for the change was that learning about electricity and doing experiments
about electricity was interesting, and that learning about electricity was important for
their everyday life (Six of the eleven students responded this way). For example, one
student wrote, “It [science] is more interesting because we made our own flashlight.”
Another student wrote, “Science is important and I am more interested in it because if
you know about electricity, it can help you during you life. Like if there an open circuit.”
A third student wrote, “I find science more important now that I learned electricity. It has

because I think electricity is important for everyday life.” Only 25 % of students’ (4 of

191

17) attitudes did not changed. One student said that her attitudes did not change because
she already liked science. Overall, after students learned about electricity from Dan’s

class, many of them valued science more than before.

In summary, students from all classes reported positive changes in their valuing
of learning science. There was a moderate change in students’ understanding of the
relevance of science to students’ lives from Richard’s class. There was also a moderate
change in students’ interests in science from Teresa’s class. There was a substantial
change in the students’ interests or understanding of the importance of science in Dan’s
class. Across the three classes, Richard’s and Dan’s students became more appreciative
of how science or electricity is useful to their everyday lives than Teresa’s students. In
addition, there was biggest change in Dan’s students’ motivation to learn science among
three classes’ students. Some of students from the three classes attributed their change to
their teacher’s teaching practices, such as using hands-on activities or labs, their learning
about new topics such as electricity, or their understanding of the relevance of science to
their lives. In the next section, I will report frndings from the analysis of the survey about

each value of learning science--utility, importance, and interest.

Utility value

The analysis of the students’ responses to questions about the utility value of
learning science is consistent with the results concerning the overall change in their
motivation to learn science. Students from Richard’s and Dan’s classes showed an

increase on their agreement to the idea of the relevance of science to their lives more than

192

students’ from Teresa’s class. Alter describing results from the analysis of Likert scale
items about everyday-related and job-related utility values of learning science, I will

report the results from the analysis of students’ responses to open-ended questions that
asked, “Do you think science is usefirl? What parts of science are useful to you? Why?

What parts of science are not useful to you? or why not?”

Likert scale items. Likert-scale items were on a 7-point scale with 1 indicating “Strongly
disagree” and 7 indicating “strongly agree.” The analysis of student responses indicates
that there was a significant increase in student agreement with the idea of everyday-
related utility value of science between the pre-and post—survey in Richard’s class while
there was no change from Dan’s and Teresa’s class. Figure 5.1 shows the mean score of
students’ agreement with the idea of everyday related utility value of science from the

three classes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

6

5 IPre-
§ 4 ‘ survey
0
m 3 -
5 IPost-
g 2 - survey

1 -

0 .

 

Richard Teresa Dan

 

 

Figure 5.1. Students' valuing of learning science from a perspective of everyday related
utility value

In the pre-survey, Richard’s students were fairly neutral with the idea of the

everyday—related utility value of science (M=4.05, SD=1.44) but significantly increased

193

their valuing in the post-survey (M=4.7, SD=1.10) (t15=2.270, p <0.05, 6 = .59). This
shows that students became somewhat more appreciative of how science is useful in their
everyday lives. However, in other classes, there was no significant change in students’
responses between the pre- and post-surveys. Teresa’s students slightly disagreed with
the idea that science is useful to their everyday lives in the pre-and the post-survey. Dan’s

students agreed with the idea in the pre-and post-surveys.

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

7

6

5 - lPre—
§ 4 - survey
0 ,
m 3 ‘
C 2 _
3 IPost-
5 3 - swvey

 

 

 

Richard Teresa Dan

 

Figure 5.2. Students’ valuing of learning science from a perspective of job related utility
value

Regarding the idea of job-related utility value, students from each class slightly
agreed with the idea that science is useful to their future jobs. Figure 5.2 shows the mean
score of student agreement with the idea of the job-related utility value of science from
each class. They showed no significant difference between the pre-and post-surveys. The
result indicates that average students somewhat understood the job-related utility value of

learning science and they did not change their views after MIAIM based lessons.

Open-ended questions. The pre/post survey asked open-ended questions about student’s

valuing of learning science from the utility value perspective. Data analysis of the

194

students’ answers to the question showed several results.

First, both in the pre-and post-surveys, students expressed that science is useful
them for various reasons such as ‘useful for everyday life’, ‘job’, ‘fun’, ‘learning [new
ideas]’ (See Table 5.1. for students’ reasons why learning science is useful to them).
Second, in Richard’s class, there was no change in the reason why science is useful or not
useful to them. However, fewer students described ‘not useful’ parts of science to them in
the post-survey (60% of students in the pre-survey compared to 40% of students in the
post-survey) and more students described useful parts of science in the post-survey (73%
of students in the pre-survey compared to 86% students in the post-survey). Third, in
Teresa’s class, there was no change between the pre-and the post-tests on the number of
students who wrote useful parts of science and/or un-useful parts of science. However, as
the reason for the utility or inutility, more students described everyday-related utility
value (20% of students in the pre-survey compared to 40% of students in the post-survey)
and fewer students described job related utility value in the post-survey (60% of students
in the pre-survey compared to 10% of students in the post-survey). Finally, students’
from Dan’s class increasingly reported that science is usefirl in their everyday lives (12%
students in the pre-survey compared to 29 % of students in the post-survey). For example,
in the post-survey, one student wrote, “All of it [science] is useful because it helps you in
your everyday life.” Another student wrote, “They are most all usefirl to you because you

can have a blackout and use the stuff you learned to make electricity.”

195

Table 5.1. Students’ reasons for why learning science is useful or not useful

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard’s class Teresa’s class Dan’s class
% (n=15) % (n=10L % (n=17)
Pre- Post- Pre- Post- Pre- Post-
survey survey survey survey survey survey

Useful for every day life 26 26 20 40 12 29
Job 13 26 60 10 0 0
Fun, like, or love 6.7 0 0 10 18 12
Test, grade 0 0 0 O 5.9 0
Use them in the future 0 6.7 0 0 12 0
Learn scientific ideas 13 6.7 10 10 12 0
Waste of time/already learn 6.7 6.7 0 10 0 0
No reason described 20 26 O 20 29 18
Other (Ambiguous answers) 20 6.7 0 10 0 0

 

In conclusion, data analysis of students’ responses to Likert type items and open-

ended questions shows that students from Richard’s and Dan’s class understood why

science is related to their lives more than Teresa’s class after they learned science

MIAIM-based lessons. This result is similar to students’ reporting about their overall

changes in their motivation to learn science. Students from Richard and Dan’s classes

attributed positive changes in their attitudes towards science to their understanding of

how science is related to their everyday lives but Teresa’s students did not. This may

show that Richard’s and Dan’s frequent and in-depth use of practices of relating science

to student’s everyday lives influenced students’ understanding of the role of science to

their lives.

Importance of science

The analysis of students’ responses to questions about the importance of learning

science is consistent with the result from the analysis of students’ overall change in their

196

 

motivation to learn science. Of the three classes, Dan’s students showed a significant
increase on their agreement with the idea of the importance of science. After describing
results from the analysis of Likert scale items, I will report the results from the analysis

of students’ responses to an open-ended question.

Likert scale items. The analysis of student’s answers to Likert scale items indicates that
students from Richard’s class agreed with the importance of science and students’ from
Teresa’s class slightly agreed with it in the pre-test. There was no significant change
between the pre-and the post-survey from each of the two classes. Finally, Dan’s students
in the pre-survey agreed with importance of science (M=5.79, SD=1.28) and significantly
increased their agreement with it in the post-survey (M=6.29, SD=0.64) (t16=2.287, p
<05, 6 = .55). This shows that students became more appreciative of how science is
important to them as a result of the instruction based on MIAIM. Figure 5.3 show the

mean score of students’ agreement with the importance of science from each class.

197

 

 

 

I3 Pre-
survey

Mean score

I Post-
survey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Teresa Dan

 

 

Figure 5.3 Students’ agreement with the idea of importance of science

Open-ended questions. Data analysis of students’ responses to open-ended questions
about the importance of science shows three results. First, regarding the fields of science
that students think important, in Richard’s and Teresa’s classes, there was no change in
students’ reporting on the field of science that they thought was important. From
Richard’s class, in the pre-survey no students mentioned that learning about the periodic
table was important. In the post-survey one student wrote that learning about the periodic
table was important to learn, but another student wrote that it was not important.
Similarly, from Teresa’s class, no students expressed that learning about plate tectonics is
important in the pre-survey. In the post-survey one student wrote that learning about plate
tectonics was important, but another student wrote that it was not important. However,
Dan’s students increasingly reported in the post-survey that learning about electricity was

important (0% to 47 % students). For example, they wrote that “The most important thing

198

about science. . .is that when you grew up and you want to make electricity, you can
because you know how.”

Second, the most frequent reason for why science is important was related to
their future ‘j ob’, everyday-life related utility, or understanding of the world and how
things work. Between the pre-and the post-survey, there was no difference on students’
reasons form Richard’s and Teresa’s class. However, Dan’s students increasingly
reported that some parts of science are important to them because it was related to their
lives (6% of students in the pre-survey compared to 29% of students in the post-survey).
For example, one student wrote, “If your light go[es] out, you could fix it then.” (See

table 5.2 for the summary of data analysis)

Table 5.2. Students’ reasons for why learning science is important or not important

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard’s class Teresa’s class Dan’s class
% (n=15) % (n=10) % (n=17)
Pre- Post- Pre- Post- Pre- Post-
survey survey survey survey survey survey
.Usefi’l for every 20 7 2o 20 6 29
day life

Job 33 47 30 20 6
Fun, like, love 0 0 18 12
Learn new ideas 7 13 40 10

 

In conclusion, students from Dan’s class understood the importance of learning

science, especially electricity, after Dan taught science lessons embracing many aspects

of MIAIM. The MIAIM-based lessons seemed to positively influence their views about

why learning science is important and what part of science is important. However, there

was no big difference in students’ understanding of the importance of learning science in

Richard’s and Teresa’s classes, who taught science lessons using fewer aspects of

199

 

MIAIM than Dan did.
Interest value

The analysis of students’ responses to questions about student interest in science
weakly supports the result from the analysis of students’ overall change in their
motivation to learn science. After describing the results from the analysis of the Likert
scale items about students’ situational interest in science class and their general interest in
science, I will report the results fiom the analysis of students’ responses to an open-ended

question.

Likert scale items. The analysis of the Likert scale items about students’ situational
interest in science class shows no differences in students’ responses between the pre-and
the post-survey from Richard’s and Teresa’s class. While Richard’s students slightly
agreed with it, Teresa’s students slightly disagreed with it. However, there was a
marginal increase on student’s situational interests in science from Dan’s class (M=5.48,
SD=O.98 for the pre-survey compared to M= 5.79, SD=0.66 for the post-survey).
Although the increase in students’ situation interest in science did not reach statistical
significance (t16=2.09, p=.053>.05), the direction of the increase is consistent with the
results concerning the overall change in their motivation to learn science. Figure 5.4

shows the result.

200

 

 

 

 

 

B Pre-
survey

Meanscore
oanwammu

I Post-
survey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Teresa Dan

 

 

Figure 5.4. Students’ situational interest in science class

In addition, the analysis of Likert scale items about student’s general interest in
science show that there was no increase in students’ general interest in science between
the pre—and post-surveys from each class. Richard’s and Teresa’s students were generally
neutral with the items about individual interest in science in the pre-surveys. Dan’s
students agreed with the items about individual interest in science in the pre survey.
There was no significant difference in their responses between the pre-and the post-

survey in each class. Figure 5.5 shows the result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7
6
5
o
3 4 IPre—
3 survey
C 3
a
o
E 2 IPost-
1 survey
0

 

Richard Teresa Dan

 

 

Figure 5.5. Student’s general interest in science

201

Open-ended questions. Data analysis of student responses to open-ended questions about
their interest shows three results. First, regarding the fields of science in which students
are interested, in Richard’s and Teresa’s classes, there was no change in students’
reporting on field of science that they liked. In Richard’s class, 7% of students in the pre-
and the post-surveys reported that they liked learning about atoms and the periodic table
that he used some aspects of MIAIM to teach. In Teresa’s class, none of her students
made comments about plate tectonics in the pre-survey, and 10% of students in the post-
surveys from Teresa’s class reported that they disliked learning about plate tectonics after
loosely based MIAIM lessons. However, Dan’s students increasingly reported in the
post-survey that they liked electricity that be incorporated several aspects of MIAIM to
teach (0% of students in the pre-survey compared to 29 % students in the post-survey).

Second, regarding ways of learning science, many students from each class
reported that they liked doing experiments (See table 5.3 for result). There was no change
between the pre-and post-survey from all classes (60 % to 73 % of students from
Richard’s class, 40 % to 50 % of students from Teresa’s class, and 24 % to 24 % of
students from Dan’s class). However, students disliked ‘reading books’ and ‘filling out
worksheets.’ It is worthwhile to note that Richard’s students did not mention that they
disliked the readings or worksheets in their post survey (20% of students in the pre-
survey compared to 0% of students in the post-survey).

Finally, the most frequently cited reason for their interest in science was that
science was ‘ftm’ and they liked science. They also reported that they like experiments in
class because they do something rather than just listening. The most frequent reason for

their disinterest was ‘boring.’ There was no change between the pre-and post survey

202

regardless of classes.

Table 5.3. Student’s reports for the interesting or not interesting parts in science and their
reasons for interest or the lack of the interest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard’s Teresa’s Dan’s class %
class % (n=15) class %(n=10) (n=17)
Pre- Post- Pre- Post- Pre- Post-
survey survey survey survey survey survey
Frequently reported parts that students were interested or not interested in
Experiment (interested) 60 7O 40 50 24 24
. Reading books (not 27 20 10 20 09 0
interested)
Writing (not interested) 20 0 10 2O 18 6
Reason for interest or no-interest
Fun, love 13 27 0 20 12 18
Doing something (see
reactions, hands-on, easy to 13 27 30 4O 6 0
learn)
Boring 7 33 20 40 6 0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In conclusion, the data analysis of Likert scale items and open-ended questions
about students’ interest does not show any change in student’s general interests in science
and their situational interests in science class. There was only marginal increase in
students’ situational interests in Dan’s science class and in their interest in learning about
electricity. Overall, this shows that students from Dan’s class became more interested in
science after Dan taught science lessons embracing many aspects of MIAIM. However,
there was no difference in students’ interests in science or science classes from Richard’s
and Teresa’s class, who taught science lessons using fewer aspects of MIAIM than Dan
did.

Discussion

 

9 One student from Dan’s class reported that she liked reading science books in the pre-survey.

203

There are important points resulting fiom the findings about changes in students’
valuing of learning science: somewhat different results about increases in students’
interests in science from Likert scale items and students’ responses about overall change
in their motivation to learn science, and relationship between teachers’ use of MIAIM

practices and students’ changes in their valuing of learning science.

Interpretation about the results about students ’ interests. While students wrote in open-
ended questions that their motivation to learn science had changed, and they became
more interested in science, results from Likert scale items did not show significant
increase in their situational interests and personal interests in science. There are several
explanations about the differences of the result. First, there may be a ceiling effect in
measuring the changes of students’ interests in science when using Likert scale items. For
example, the scores of 4 of 17 Dan’s students about situational interests from Likert scale
items were more than 6.5 out of 7. This may influence the small change in students’
interests by the measurement of Likert scale items. Second, although students were more
interested in their science class or specific topics such as electricity, there should be more
help for students to substantially develop their individual interest in science. Literature on
interest development support this explanation in that in order for students to develop their
individual interests, their situational interests need to be triggered and sustained through

several experiences (Hidi & Renninger, 2006).

Relationship between teacher practices and students’ valuing. Students’ changes in their

valuing of learning science seemed to be closely associated with what kinds of practices

204

of MIAIM teachers used and how frequently they used the practices. The patterns in the
teachers’ uses of practices and their students’ changes support this pattern.

Richard used some aspects of MIAIM. Although his lesson on the periodic table
followed the steps of MIAIM, the lessons did not significantly influence students’
changes in their interests or views on the importance of science. However, he put forward
efforts to help students understand how learning of atoms is important and atoms are
related to their everyday lives. In addition, the survey results show that his students
became significantly more aware of how science relates to their lives after learning about
atoms and the periodic table.

Teresa used the sequences of MIAIM in her inquiry lessons and she tried to
communicate the relevance or importance of leaning science to students’ lives. However,
her comments during class discussion were short and she did not do so as frequently as
Dan or Richard. Her students did not seem to change their views on the relevance and
importance of science to them after her instruction. Regarding student interest in science,
there was a small change in her students’ interest in science class. According to the
students’ writing on their overall change in their motivation to learn science, 50% of
student wrote their attitudes toward science have changed. However, 30 of students wrote
their changes were small. They wrote words such as “a little [changed]” or “kind of
[changed].” And 20% of students wrote that they liked one experiment of making a
model of eruption of volcanoes. Although she followed the sequence of MIAIM, she did
not usually use hands-on experiments but used second-hand data about volcanoes and
earthquakes.

Dan consistently followed the sequence of MIAIM, used hands-on experiments,

205

and related science to the students’ lives. In particular, he gave students many chances of
doing experiments with a battery, a bulb, and wires, and he related the topic of electricity
to students’ lives by having them remembering their experiences in a blackout. These
practices seemed to influence students’ interests in science, especially electricity, and
their understanding of the importance and the relevance of the electricity to their lives.
Throughout the students’ responses on the post-survey, the students pointed out that they
liked experiments with a battery, a bulb, and wires, in their classes. In addition, they

wrote that science is useful because they can make a closed circuit if there was a blackout,
and so science is important.

However, across the classes, there was no significant increase in student’s views
about how science is useful for their future jobs, between the pre-and post-surveys. The
no difference seems to be resulted from the fact that while MIAIM focus on the relevance
of science to student’s lives rather than job related utility value.

In summary, MIAIM-based lessons influenced students’ valuing of learning
science. In particular, this study provides evidence for the claim that changes in a
teacher’s instructional and motivational practices influence students’ valuing of learning
science. Students whose teachers used several inquiry lessons using hands-on activities
tended to be more interested in science. In addition, students whose teacher made the
relevance of science to their lives explicit seemed to become more aware of how science

is related to or important to their lives.

206

Effort: Student’s on-task and their perceived eflort
In this section, I will report findings on the question of whether changes in
teaching practices influence their students’ level of participation in class activities. I
hypothesized that changes of teacher’s instructional and motivational practices might
influence a student’s level of participation in activities in science class. In order to
understand the influence of MIAIM-based lessons on students’ efforts to learn science, I
draw on the analysis of the numbers of students who were on-task in class activities and

survey about students’ perceived effort to learn science in their class.

On-task students. The analysis of percentage of the numbers of students10 who
participated in class activities shows that students from Richard’s and Dan’s classes
participated more in class activities when their teachers taught science MIAIM-based
lessons. Figure 5.6. shows the percentage of the number of on-task students from each
class before and after the intervention for teacher development. In Richard’s class, the
mean percentage of the number of on-task students increased from 66 % before the
intervention to 77 % after the intervention. There was no increase in Teresa’s class before
and after the intervention. Finally, in Dan’s class, the mean percentage of the number of
on-task students increased from 74 % before the intervention to 80 % after the

intervention.

 

10 In the Chapter three: Method, I explained how I measure the number of students who participated in
class activity. For the readers, I summarize the way that I measured student’s on-task. In order to measure
the level of students’ participation in science class, I checked the number of students who were on-task in
class. Every 10 to 15 minutes or when class activities changed, I scanned the class and noted what students
were doing, determining the proportion of students who were on task. I calculated the percentage of on-task
students from every class and then, I calculated the averages percentage of on-task students from each
teacher’s class prior to and after the intervention in order to understand how MIAIM instructions influence
students’ efforts to participate in class activities.

207

 

 

 

60-

 

a Before

40 - intervention

IAfler
intervention

 

 

 

Mean % of students who were err-task in class
activities

 

 

 

Richard Teresa Dan

 

Figure 5.6. Mean percentage of the number of on-task students from each class

Perceived effort. In addition to measuring the on-task behavior of students, I analyzed
Likert scale items related to students’ perceived efforts in class activities. Likert-scale
items were on a 7-point scale with 1 indicating “Strongly disagree” and 7 indicating
“strongly agree.” That analysis shows no significant difference between the pre-survey
and the post-survey from each class. Students from Richard’s and Dan’s classes agreed
with their active participation in class activities, and students form Teresa’ class slightly

agreed with it. Figure 5.7 shows the result.

208

 

 

 

 

(3

§

0’ Pre— ,

5 survey ;

g I Post-
survey

 

 

 

O‘NU'fimaN

 

 

 

Richard Teresa Dan

 

Figure. 5.7. Level of students’ perceived efforts in science class

Discussion

The results from the analysis of the number of student’s on-task show the
possible relationship between MIAIM-based lessons and students’ level of participation
in class activities. More students from Richard’s and Dan’s classes participated in class
activities when their teachers taught MIAIM-based lessons. There was no difference in
the students’ level of participation from Teresa’s class before and after the intervention.
I propose two explanations about the no differences in students’ level of participation in
Teresa’ class. First, because Teresa used practices of MIAIM less compared to other
teachers, her students did not show any change in their participation in classes while
students from other classes more participated in class activities during MIAIM based
lessons. This explanation support my hypothesis of my study that MIAIM based lessons
have positive influence on student’s level of participation. Second, although she used
some aspects like the other teachers, students’ participation was influenced by other
factors. One possibility was related to the change of the students’ class hour. Before the

intervention, the students from her class learned science in their first hour. At those

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periods, they tended to be quiet and participated in class activities. However, after the
intervention, there was a schedule change in her school and her students learned science
in their fifth hour after their lunch. They tended to be less focused on studying than
before. Teresa’s comments during class supports this hypothesis. When students did not
study in class after the schedule change, she told the students in class that her expectation
to them did not change even after they learned science in their fifth hour. In summary,
although there was no significant change related to students’ level of participation in
class activities from Teresa’s class, the results from the other classes support some
positive influence of the MIAIM-based lessons on students’ level of participation in class
activities.

Results from the survey did not show any changes in students’ perceived effort in
science classes between before and alter their teachers’ participation in the intervention
for teacher development. There is one possible explanation for the result. The Likert scale
items, measurement on students’ perceived efforts to participate in class activity, may not
have been good enough to measure students’ behavioral efforts to participate in class
activities. Even though students more participated in class activities, students did not
perceive their changes.

In conclusion, although the results form Likert scale items, measurement on
students’ perceived efforts to participate in class activity, did not support my hypothesis
for this study that changes in instructional and motivational practices might affect
students’ efforts to learn science. However, the results from the measurement on on-task
behavior supports the hypothesis that MIAIM bases lessons have positive influence on

students’ effort to participate in science activities. I think that behavioral measurement

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would be better than perceived measurement to assess students’ actual participation in
class activities because what teachers look to as the feedback for their new instructional
and motivational strategies seems to be students’ behavior engagement in the class

activities rather than students’ perceived reports about their efforts.

Understanding of scientific ideas
My third research question regarding students asked how an instruction based on
MIAIM affected students’ understanding of scientific ideas. This question is important
because teachers should help students learn scientific ideas, as well as be motivated for
learning science. To answer the question, I drew on the analysis of the pre- and post- tests
to assess student’s understanding of scientific ideas. Because the teachers taught different
topics, the test to assess student’s understanding differed. In this section, I will report

findings from data analysis of the pre-and the post-tests in each class.

Richard’s class

The test to assess student understanding of scientific ideas form Richard’s class
included 10 questions about atoms and periodic tables (9 multiple choice questions and
one open-ended question). In addition, in the post-test, there was one essay question
asking students to write about how the organization of the periodic table helped them
understand the elements. The analysis of 19 students from Richard’s class indicated that
students showed a gain in their knowledge about atoms and the periodic table with an

average pre-test score of 26 % correct compared to a post-test score of 74.6% correct (t14

=5.833 , p <01, 0 = 1.52). After the MIAIM-based lessons, they learned scientific

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explanations about atoms and the periodic table. In the next paragraph, I will report

findings about each test topic. Results on each test topic are given in table 5.4.

Table 5.4. Mean percentage correct for each test topic on atoms and the periodic table
from Richard’s class (n=19)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test Topic (Total ten questions) Pre-test (%) Post-test (%)
Definition of Atom (One question) 40* 80*
Structure of Atom (Four questions) 35** 72**

Atom drawing (One question) 0** 86**

Feature of the periodic table 23" 90**

(Two questions)

Interpretation of the periodic table 17** 60"

(Two questions)

 

"p <.01; *p <.05 : These report the significance of the difference based on t-tests.

The analysis of individual test topics indicated that after instruction based on
MIAIM, students more understood what atoms are (an average pre-test score of 40 %
correct compared to a post-test score of 80% correct) and the structures of the atoms (an
average pre-test score of 35 % correct compared to a post-test score of 72 % correct).
They understood that atom is the smallest particle into which an element can be divided
and still be the same substance. They also understood what neutron, electron, proton, and
nucleus are. In addition, more students drew the structure of one element when they were
given the atomic number of the element (an average pre-test score of 0 % correct
compared to a post-test score of 86 % correct).

The analysis also indicated that after the instruction based on MIAIM, students
understood the features of the periodic table better (an average pre-test score of 23 %
correct compared to a post-test score of 90 % correct) and interpreted the periodic table

correctly (an average pre-test score of 17 % correct compared to a post-test score of 60 %

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correct). More students understood that the elements of the periodic table are arranged in
order of atomic mass, and the number on the periodic table explains how many electron
energy levels are in the atom. In addition, using the periodic table, they found out which
elements were metals or nonmetals.

Finally, the analysis of student responses to one open-ended question in the post-
test shows that students understood the meaning of the periodic table. All students wrote
that the organization of the periodic table helped them understand the elements in the
table. Of them, six students expressed that the table helped them understand the
properties of elements such as how they are alike or different. Another six students wrote
that the periodic table gives information about atoms such as electron level, atomic
number, and mass, and that they can read the periodic table. Another three students wrote
that through the table, they can understand what elements can react with which elements.
For example, one student wrote,

It [the periodic table] shows you how the atoms are alike and different from each

other. It also shows what atoms would react together, and how a lot of the atoms

that are near each other have similar properties.

In summary, students from Richard’s class gained understanding about atoms
and the periodic table alter instruction based on MIAIM. In addition, they were able to
explain that the periodic table gives them information about elements such as atomic

mass, properties, and atomic bonding.

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Teresa’s class

The test used in Teresa’s class had 6 open-ended questions about plate tectonics.
Overall, the analysis of 15 students fi'om her class indicated that students showed some
improvement in their knowledge about plate movement, earthquakes, and volcanoes with
an average pre-test score of 33 % correct compared to a post-test score of 67% correct

(t14 =5.123 , p <01, 0 = 1.32). Results on each test topic are given in table 5.5. In the

following paragraphs, I will explain the results on each test topic.

Table 5.5. Mean percentage correct for each test item on plate tectonics from Teresa’s
class (n=15)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test Topic (Total Six questions) Pre-test (%) Post-test (%)
Cause of plate movement (One questiorg 0* 40*

Effect of Plate movement (One question) 77 9O
Earthquakes and plate boundary 13** 66**

(One question)

Effects of Earthquakes(One question) 53*"‘ 83**

Effects of Volcanoes(One question) 57 80

Types of Volcanoes(One question) 0* 40*

 

**p<.01; *p<.05 :These report the significance of the difference based on t—tests.

Plate movement. Students gained knowledge about the cause of the plate movement (an
average pre-test score of 0 % correct compared to a post-test score of 40% correct).

In the pre-test, students did not know what caused the plate to move although they
learned the movement of the plates when they were in 6th grades. The most frequent
incorrect explanations for the plate movement were ‘earthquake’ (5 students) and
‘rotation of the earth’ (2 students). They had misconceptions that earthquakes, which
were the result from the plate movement, caused the plates to move. In the post-test, 40%
of students had correct explanations. For example, they wrote “the convection currents in

the mantle causes movement of the plates.” However, 60% of students still did not write

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correct explanations and some of them still had similar misconceptions that they had
before. They wrote that some phenomena, such as earthquakes or sea-floor spreading,
which are resulted from the plate movement, caused the plates to move.

There was no significant gain in student understanding of the effects of the plate
movement in the post-test (an average pre-test score of 77 % correct compared to a post-
test score of 90% correct). In the pre-test, many students wrote correct answers to the
question of the effects of plate movement. The most frequent answers were earthquake
(10 students) and volcanoes (3 students). In the post-test, students listed several effects of
plate movements more than in the pre-test. Their answers included earthquakes,
volcanoes, tsunamis, seduction zones, mountain ranges, and so on. However, there was

no significant change between the pre-test and the post-test.

Earthquakes. More students understood the relationship between plate tectonics and the
locations of earthquakes in the post test (an average pre-test score of 13 % correct
compared to a post-test score of 66 % correct) On the pre-test, most of students did not
have a correct scientific explanation of why some places are more likely to experience an
earthquake than others. One frequent incorrect explanation was related to physical
features of lands such as location, weather, or flatness of the lands. However, after the
instruction based on MIAIM, 66 % of students mentioned the relationship between plate
boundaries and the locations of earthquakes. For example, one student wrote, “earthquake
usually occurs on plate boundaries.”

More students gained knowledge about the effects of earthquakes on Earth after

the instruction based on MIAIM (an average pre-test score of 13 % correct compared to a

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post-test score of 66 % correct in the post-test). In the pre-test, students’ answers about
the effects of earthquakes focused on focused on damages to houses, cars, or people.
However, in the post-test, students wrote several effects of earthquakes such as

liquefaction, volcanoes, tsunamis, and aftershocks.

Volcanoes. There was no significant gain in students’ knowledge of the effects of
volcanoes. In the pre-test, students had naive conceptions about the effects of volcanoes
on the atmosphere and weather. For example, they wrote, “it [volcanic eruption] can
create pollution. it can be more polluted so harder to breathe” In the post-test, students’
answers were more sophisticated. Their answers included comments such as gases or
dusts which are emitted from volcano activities, and decrease of temperature by blocking
sunlight. However, there was no significant change between the pre-and the post-test.
More students understood how volcanoes were characterized after the instruction
based on MIAIM (an average pre-test score of 0 % correct compared to a post-test score
of 40% correct). In the pre-test, most of students had no ideas about how volcanoes are
characterized. However, after the instruction, more students pointed out volcanoes are

categorized by ‘size and shape’ or ‘how they are formed.’

In summary, Teresa’s students gained understanding about plate tectonics after
her instruction. They understood about causes of plate movement, earthquakes and plate
boundaries, effects of earthquakes, and types of volcanoes more after her instruction.
However, although there was improvement in students’ understanding of the four topics,

the percentage mean score for each topic except the effects of earthquake was not high. In

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particular, 60% of students still did not understand the cause of plate movement and types

of volcanoes.

Dan ’s class

The test used in Dan’s class had 10 questions about electricity. Overall, the
analysis of 19 students from his class indicated that students showed an improvement in
their knowledge about electricity, especially, open and close circuit, and conductor and
insulator, with an average pre-test score of 38 % correct compared to a post-test score of

84 % correct(t13 =10.076, p <01, 0' = 2.31). In the pre-test, most students did not know
what materials were needed to make a light bulb, how to connect a bulb, a battery, and
wires to make a complete circuit, and why the bulb would light. However, in the post-test,
most of students gained understanding of the scientific ideas. In the following paragraphs,
I will explain these findings. Results on each test topic are given in table 5.6.

Table 5.6. Mean percentage correct for each test item on electricity from Dan’s class
(n=19)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test Topic (Total Ten questions) Pre-test (%) Post-test (%)
Choose proper materials to make a light 26** 95’”
bulb (One question)

Draw a diagram of materials to make a 0** 89**
light bulb (One question)

Explain about how the bulb light 5** 89’”
(One question)

Explain the role of battery in making a 47** 84“
light bulb (One question)

Would a bulb in a diagram light? 50** 80'”
(Six questions)

 

 

 

 

**p<.01; *p<.05: These report the significance of the difference based on t-tests.

First, many more students chose the proper materials to make a light bulb in the

post-test than in the pre-test (26% of students in the pre-test to 95% of students in the

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post test) when they were asked to chose some among several items. In the pre-test, 74%
students chose insulators to make a light bulb. They circled that they needed a rubber
band, plastic ruler, and thread in the pre-test. In the post-test, only 5% of students (1 of 19
students) chose those materials.

Second, more students drew a correct arrangement of the materials to make a
light bulb in the post-test (0% of students in the pre-test to 90% of students in the post-
test). In the pre-test, students drew the wrong pictures to make a light bulb. For example,
in one drawing, a bulb was connected to only one side of a battery rather than both sides
of a battery. In another example, a battery was connected only the bottom of a bulb rather
than both the middle and bottom of a bulb. In other example, a bulb and a light were not
connected at all. However, in the post-test, students drew the right connections between a
bulb, a light, and wires.

Third, in the post-test more students wrote scientific explanations for the reason
why a bulb would light. In the pre-test, they did not have any ideas or some of them
wrote that because battery had energy, the bulb would light. However, in the post test,
89% of students (17 of 19 students) described that electricity or energy would flow
through the wire into the bulb, or that they made right connection among a battery, a bulb,
and wires. For example, one student wrote, “it will work because the battery has
electricity in it. So, if you put the wires in the right place it will wor ”

Finally, the students’ mean score on the Yes and No questions about open and
closed circuits on the post-test was significantly higher than that on the pre-test. I asked
whether a bulb would light or not in each of six diagrams. Figure 5.8 shows example

diagrams. The analysis of the questions show that they gained their understanding of

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open and close circuit with an average pretest score of 50 % correct compared to an

average post test score of 80 % correct after Dan’s instruction (t1 3 =4.303 , p=0 < .01 ,

0 =0.987 ). In addition, many students explained that a bulb in the diagram would light
because it is a closed or open circuit.

Figure 5.8. Example test item about open and close circuit

For each drawing, circle YES or NO to show if you think the bulb will light or not and

explain why.
1) Will the bulb light? YES NO 2) Will the bulb light? YES NO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In summary, Dan’s students showed an improvement in their knowledge about
electricity after the instruction based on MIAIM. Most of students understood what
materials were needed to make a light bulb, how to connect a bulb, a battery, and wires to

make a complete circuit, and why the bulb would light.

Discussion

Students from the three classes generally improved their understanding of
scientific ideas on the topics when their teachers taught MIAIM-based science lessons. It
is not easy to compare students’ gains in their understanding of scientific ideas from each
class because the science content and test from each class differed. However, when
comparing gains in their understanding across the three classes with supporting evidence

with classroom observations and teacher interviews, I could find some relationship

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between teachers’ use of MIAIM and students’ learning outcome.

There are some differences in student’s learning outcomes from three classes.
The effect size from each class was 1.52 from Richard’s class, 1.32 from Teresa’s class,
and 2.31 from Dan’s class. Most of students from Dan’s class showed overall
improvement in their understanding of electricity. Most students from Richard’s class
also showed improvement in their understanding of atoms and the periodic table.
Students from Teresa’s class gained understanding of plate tectonics, earthquakes, and
volcanoes. However, although there was significant increase on students’ understanding
of the cause of plate tectonics and types of volcanoes between in the pre-and the post-
tests, many students still did not understand the topics well. The average post-test score
about cause of plate tectonics and types of volcanoes was low (only 40%) while the
average post-test score about science topics from other classes were always more than
65%. In addition, there was no significant change in their understanding of the effects of
plate movement and volcanoes. In other words, Teresa’s students did not make similar
gains in understanding scientific ideas compared to students’ from other classes.

There are possible explanations about the differences in students’ understanding
of scientific ides. Again, this might be caused by the fact that her topic was difficult for
students to understand than the other topics from two classes. However, Dan told that
electricity is not an easy topic for students to understand, and his class included both 3rd
and 4th grade students while the electricity was content area for 4th graders. He used many
aspects of MIAIM to help students to understand scientific ideas about electricity.
Compared to him, after the pre-test from Teresa’s class, she said that she was surprised at

the test result showing that students did not know the cause of plate movement. She put

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her efforts to help students understand it. However, she used didactic approach when
teaching plate movement and the teaching approach did not seem to be effective in
helping students understand scientific knowledge about the topics. The differences
among the three classes seemed to show the relationship between teaching approach and
students’ understating of science ideas. While MIAIM-based lessons were effective in
helping students to learn electricity from Dan’s class, lessons loosely based on MIAIM

were not as effective in helping students to learn plate movement from Teresa’s class.

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Chapter Six: Conclusion

Summary of findings and discussion
In this section, I summarize the findings and discussions in this dissertation. After
summarizing and discussing changes in the teachers’ approaches and practices, I will

summarize and discuss students’ changes.

Summary and discussion about findings related to teachers

Findings. Analysis of the data indicates that after the teachers participated in professional
development activities about MIAIM, there was a modest change in teachers’ teaching
approaches thought teachers used several features of MIAIM in their science lessons.
Regarding teaching approaches, before the intervention, Richard used a combination of
didactic and hands-on approaches for teaching science. It appeared that he was using
laboratory activities for reinforcing scientific ideas rather than helping students
participate in scientific inquiry practices. During intervention, I suggested that Richard
help students to find patterns in elements in the periodic table as well as I explained
MIAIM. After the intervention, Richard incorporated some features of MIAIM. He taught
the periodic table with an inquiry approach and had students find patterns in data. The
sequence of activities about the periodic table met all steps of MIAIM. When teaching
other topics, he used a combination of didactic and hands-on approaches but he
constantly established a central question for hands-on investigations, and applied

scientific explanations to new situations.

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Another teacher, Teresa, used a combination of didactic and inquiry approaches
before the intervention, In some lessons, she lectured on scientific information, but in
other lessons, she gave her students opportunities to develop explanations using data.
During intervention with Teresa, I explained MIAIM and, after meeting for professional
development, I sometimes asked to use some practices of MIAIM. After the intervention,
Teresa’s teaching approach did not change substantially. She used a didactic approach to
teach plate tectonics. In other classes, she used an inquiry approach and her lessons fit all
steps of MIAIM. She consistently posted central questions for investigations, asked
students to find patterns in data, and used many application activities.

The third teacher, Dan, used an inquiry approach for teaching science before the
intervention. He tended to present science in his class “as scientists do” their research.
Although he tried to help students both understand scientific explanations and participate
in scientific practices, his lessons did not include many features of inquiry lessons.
During intervention with Dan, I explained MIAIM and commented some of his
worksheets used in previous years. After the intervention, Dan used an inquiry approach
for teaching science and used many aspects of MIAIM in his inquiry lessons. He
consistently established central question for investigations, helped students find patterns
in data, and asked students to apply scientific ideas to new situations.

Regarding specific instructional practices, after the intervention, teachers
commonly used three instructional practices listed in the MIAIM that they did not
frequently use before the intervention. First of all, the three teachers tended to
consistently pose central questions for investigation at the beginning of class activities. In

particular, after the intervention, Dan and Richard more clearly and more consistently

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established a central question. Teresa consistently posed central questions for
investigation before and after the intervention. In addition, the three teachers focused on
making patterns explicit more after the intervention than before the intervention. They
asked students to find patterns by themselves rather than they explained the pattern. In
addition, during the post-interviews, Dan and Richard expressed the importance or
benefits of making patterns explicit in science or science teaching. Finally, the teachers
focused more on helping students apply scientific knowledge to new situations after the
interventions than they did before the intervention. In addition, the application activities
related more to real-world situations.

However, there was no substantial change in teachers’ use of two instructional
practices. For example, after the intervention, teacher provided experiences that are
appropriate for learning goals, as teachers did before the intervention. Richards and Dan
continued to provide experiences with phenomena after the intervention. Teresa provided
second-hand data for helping students understand volcanoes and earthquakes. In addition,
teachers provided explanations through a lecture format or students’ book reading but
they still did not explicitly give students chances to compare and revise their ideas with
scientific ones after the intervention.

Regarding motivational practices, after the intervention, the teachers put more
effort towards making science relevant and interesting to students than they did before
the intervention. For example, the teachers explicitly related science to students’
everyday lives, especially at the beginning and end of their units after the intervention.
Before the intervention, Dan and Richard tended to explain the importance of learning

science from a scientist’s perspective or for students’ firture jobs. However, after the

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intervention, they discussed the relevance of the topics to students’ everyday lives and
gave several real-world examples. Teresa also more frequently tried to relate science to
students’ lives after the intervention. In addition, Dan and Richard used a different kind
of practices to catch and hold students’ interest after the intervention. Before the
intervention, they made some effort to making science interesting, mostly through
providing opportunities to engage in hands-on activities or by using games, simulations,
humor or other fun features. After the intervention, in addition to doing these things, they
modified the design of their learning activities to include features that would enhance the
appeal of the activities. Specifically, they told interesting stories related to the topics
students would learn about and allowed students to project themselves into situations. By
using the stories, the teachers established questions for following inquiry activities or
projects.

There was no substantial change in teachers’ use of two motivational practices.
Regarding the practice of supporting student’s autonomy, teachers increasingly used
practices in two classes after the intervention, but they also used other practices that
might undermine student’s autonomy. Regarding practices of knowing students and using
knowledge about students, after the intervention, teachers continued to assess students’
prior knowledge. They also tried to relate science to students’ everyday lives and there
were a couple instances that teachers considered students interests when designing and
enacting their lessons. However, I did not notice any substantial change in how they used

knowledge about their students to enhance students’ valuing of learning science.

Discussion. There are important points resulting from the findings about the teachers’

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changes in teaching practices after the intervention. First, the results show that MIAIM
can be used as a tool to help teachers use teaching practices for scientific inquiry,
application, and motivation. In chapter two about literature review of this study, I
introduced a model of teacher learning useful for understanding outcome of this study. In
the model showed components of teacher learning over three different time intervals. At
time 1, teachers interpret new knowledge and practices through their existing knowledge
and practices and learn new ideas and skills by participating in professional development
(PD) activities. The PD activities influence what teachers learn, but what teachers already
know and do influences the interaction with teacher educators during the PD activities. In
this study, during the PD activities using MIAIM, I tried to help teachers synthesize ideas
about reform-based science instruction and value aspects of motivation by discussing
important components of inquiry, application, and motivation described in the model. I
also commented teachers’ curriculum materials or activities. Teachers might interpret
MIAIM and my comments based on their existing knowledge and practices.

At Time 2, teachers enact the curriculum materials or class activities talked about
during PD activities. In this study, teachers practiced planning and teaching science
lessons that fit the intent of MIAIM. They established central questions for investigation,
and provided experiences with phenomena, helped students to find patterns in data by
themselves. They also explicitly related science to students’ everyday lives and some of
them used stories to make contexts for scientific investigations. Two of the three teachers
said that they would continue to use some MIAIM practices. For example, Richard
expressed that he would use similar lesson plans to teach the periodic table focusing on

finding patterns in elements in the next year. Dan also expressed that this year’s

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worksheet format was more scientific that those of his previous years’ worksheet and
would use them later. In other words, teachers incorporated some aspects of MIAIM in
their science lessons.

At time 3, teachers transfer their new knowledge and practices to teach different
curriculum materials. The application of the knowledge and practices is also influenced
by the features of the curriculum materials, their students, and other contexts. In this
study, when I phased out my support and teachers taught different topics and lessons,
they still used some of MIAIM practices. For example, when Richard taught other topics,
he used a combination of didactic and hands-on approaches but he constantly established
a central question for hands-on investigations, helped students apply scientific
explanations to new situations and related science to students’ everyday lives. Teresa
enacted inquiry lessons that fit the steps of MIAIM. Finally, Dan designed a new
worksheet when teaching about motor, and the lesson fit the first three steps of MIAIM.
These result shows that teachers had been learning to teach science lessons fit the intent
of MIAIM whose goals are to help students participate in scientific practices and enhance
students’ valuing of learning science.

Second, the amount and kinds of changes in the teachers’ teaching practices
seemed to depend on several factors: teachers’ initial teaching approaches and practices,
experiences with using MIAIM in their class, features of the scientific topics, and school
contexts. First of all, teachers’ initial teaching approach and practices influenced their use
of MIAIM. In this study, depending on their initial teaching approach and practices, the
teachers embraced either many or some aspects of MIAIM. Of the three teachers, Dan’s

initial teaching approach and goals in teaching science were most similar to the goals of

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MIAIM, and after the intervention, he used many aspects of MIAIM more consistently
than the other two teachers. Just as children’s learning occurs within the ‘zone of
proximal development’ (V ygotsky, 1978), teachers seemed to have their zone of
proximal development in their learning to use MIAIM to teach science. Knowledge and
practices presented by MIAIM is domain specific. Some teachers, who have similar goals
and approaches to those of reform-based science teaching and want to help students
appreciate their learning, may use MIAIM to design class activities more frequently than
others. Steps and descriptions in MIAIM may give them guidelines for accomplishing
their goals for teaching science. However, teachers whose goals for teaching science are
somewhat different fiom those of MIAIM may not see the affordances of using MIAIM
and not frequently refer to it when planning and teaching.

In addition, teachers’ experiences with using some features of MIAIM in class
might have influenced their judgment of the utility of MIAIM and their next trial of the
practices. There is some evidence supporting this theory from teacher interviews and
class observations. In this study, when students reacted positively to the teachers’ new
instructional and motivational practices in terms of their participation in class activities or
understanding of scientific ideas, teachers tended to judge that new practices were useful
in their teaching and they used or wanted to use these practices later. The relationship
between students’ responses during instruction and teacher learning is also supported by
other researchers saying that teachers intuitively look to their students for feedback about
the instruction and that student performance influences what teachers learn (F ishman,
Marx, Best, & Tal 2003; Richardson, 1996).

The features of the science content area might also have influenced teacher’s use

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of MIAIM. The features of the content area seemed to include the amount of or difficulty
in scientific explanations that students have to understand, availability of hands-on
activities for students to participate in, or easiness in relating science to Students’ lives. It
seemed to be easier for teachers to make inquiry lessons and relate science to students’
lives in some contexts than other contexts.

Finally, school and classroom contexts including features of students seemed to
influence teachers’ use of MIAIM. In the study, Teresa showed less change in her using
of MIAIM practices than the other two teachers. When this study was conducted,
Teresa’s school was less stable and she had less time to teach science compared to the
other two teachers. In this context, it may not have been easy for her to try new teaching
practices. In addition, her students seemed to differ fiom the other two teachers’ students
in terms of their level of poverty, academic scores, stable school environment and so on.
These different features of students might have influenced interactions among the
students and between the students and their teachers, and may have influenced the

teachers’ judgment of the utility of MIAIM practice

Summary and discussion about findings related to students
Findings. Analysis of data shows several important results about student’s valuing of
learning science, their levels of participation in class activities, and understanding of
scientific ideas after students learn science after MIAIM based instructions.

First, there were some positive changes in students’ valuing of learning science
from all three classes. In Richard’s class, there was a moderate change in students’

understanding of the relevance of science to students’ lives after his MIAIM based

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lessons. His students became more appreciative of how science is related to their lives. In
Teresa’s class, there was a small increase in students’ interests in science. Five of 10
students reported that they were more interested in science or science class. Finally,
Dan’s students showed the biggest change among the three classes’ students. After Dan
taught electricity based on MIAIM, 66% of students reported that they were more
interested in science and understand why learning electricity is important or relevant to
them. From the three classes, some students attributed their change in their valuing of
learning science to their teacher’s teaching practices, such as using hands-on activities or
labs, their learning of new topics such as electricity, or their understanding of the
relevance of science to their lives. However, from all classes, there was no change in their
understanding of how science is useful for their future jobs. In addition, the analysis of
Likert scale items did not show any significant change in students’ general and situational
interests in science although some of students from each class reported, in their answers
to open-ended questions, that they were more interested in science.

There was also change in the students’ level of participation in class activities
from two classes. Students from Richard’s and Dan’s classes participated more in class
activities when their teachers taught science lessons based on MIAIM. However, there
was no change in students’ level of participation in Teresa’s class. In addition, from three
classes, there was no significant change in students’ perceived efforts to learn science
between the pre- and post-surveys.

Finally, students from the three classes generally improved their understanding
of scientific ideas on the topics when their teachers taught science lessons based on

MIAIM. However, there was also a difference in students’ gains among the three classes.

230

Most of students from Dan’s class showed overall improvement in their understanding of
electricity. Most students fiom Richard’s class also showed improvement in their
understanding of atoms and of The Periodic Table. Students from Teresa’s class gained
understanding of plate tectonics, earthquakes, and volcanoes. However, although there
was a significant increase on the students’ understanding of the cause of plate tectonics
and the types of volcanoes between the pre-and the post-tests, more than half of the

students still did not understand the topics well.

Discussion. The lessons based on MIAHVI seemed to have positive influence on students’
valuing of learning science, their participation in class activities, and their understanding
of scientific ideas. First, science lessons based on MIAIM are effective in motivating
some students to learn science. In this study, there was some increase in students’
understanding of how science is useful or important to their everyday lives, and students’
interest in science. The changes seemed to be closely associated with what kinds of
practices of MIAIM teachers used and how frequently they used the practices. The
patterns in the teachers’ uses of practices and their students’ changes support this pattern.
For example, in this study, Dan and Richard put their efforts into relating science to
student lives more than Teresa did. The two teachers gave concrete examples to show
how atoms or electricity is related to students’ everyday lives. They also gave students
opportunities to think about the relevance of science to their everyday lives. Although
Teresa had class discussions about how volcanoes and earthquakes are important to their
lives, she did not give students concrete examples or opportunities to think about the

relevance of the topics to their lives. As there were differences in how teachers related

231

science to students’ lives, students from Dan and Richard’s class reported that they
understood that science is relevant or important to their lives more than Teresa’s students
did. In addition, students whose teachers used several inquiry lessons using hands-on
activities tended to be more interested in science. Of the three classes, Dan used the most
hands-on activities more than the other two teachers and his students reported that they
are more interested in learning science.

Second, changes in teachers’ instructional and motivational practices influenced
students’ level of participation in class activities. In this study, students from Dan’s and
Richard’s classes participated in their class activities during the lessons based on MIAIM
more than they did before. There are two explanations for this change. First, students
participated in the lesson more actively than before because the lessons based on MIAIM
were more interesting or understandable to them. Teachers’ use of instructional practices
addressing central questions for investigation or having students find patterns by
themselves may help students understand the purpose of the lessons or make the lessons
interesting. Second, because students gained their understanding of how electricity or
atoms are relevant to their lives though their teachers’ messages in class, their motivation
to learn science increased, and therefore, they participated in the activities during science
class.

However, results from the survey did not show any changes in students’ perceived
effort in science classes between before and after their teachers’ participation in the
intervention for teacher development. There is one possible explanations for the result.
The Likert scale items, measurement on students’ perceived efforts to participate in class

activity, may not have been good enough to measure students’ behavioral efforts to

232

participate in class activities. Even though students participated more in class activities,
students did not perceive those changes.

Finally, science lessons based on MIAIM are effective for helping most students
understand scientific ideas. In this study, students from the three classes generally
improved their understanding of scientific ideas on the topics when their teachers taught
science lessons based on MIAIM. While lessons based on MIAIM were effective in
helping students to learn electricity in Dan’s class, lessons loosely based on MIAIM were

not effective in helping students to learn plate tectonics in Teresa’s class.

Implication of the study

It is essential to help teachers learn to teach science in a way that supports
students’ scientific practices and their valuing of learning science. When teachers teach
science in class, such knowledge and practices will enable them to sequence class
activities and interact with students effectively support to student learning and motivation.
This study has focused on the use of a motivation-based inquiry and application
instructional model as a tool to scaffold development of instructional and motivational
practices in elementary and secondary science teachers. Although the sample size of this
study was small (three teachers and their classrooms), this study showed that teachers can
help students participate in scientific practices, learn important ideas, and value learning
science with the help of MIAIM as a conceptual tool and contextualized support from
professional development activities and curriculum materials such as worksheets and
lesson plans. This study is meaningfirl because it shows that teachers can use some

instructional and motivational strategies to support students’ scientific practices and their

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valuing of science in their science classes. With the support from MIAIM, PD activities,
and curriculum materials, teachers can easily use some practices such as helping finding
patterns in data or making the relevance of the topics explicit to students.

However, individual teacher development differs depending on the teacher’s
current teaching approach and practices, experiences with using the tool (MIAIM) in
class, science content, and school contexts. Therefore, while instructional models such as
MIAIM can provide a ‘structure’ of a science lesson, professional development
facilitators should leverage a teacher’s existing views and practices, and support the
teacher in having success in using the tool in their classes. For this, it is important to have
cooperation between the PD facilitators and teachers. Then, teachers may find the
benefits of using the tool in supporting their teaching and develop their teaching practices.

Finally, this study provides the empirical evidence for the influence of teacher
development on students’ motivation and leaming. Changes in teacher practices influence
students’ valuing of science and their learning. Teachers’ messages and practices related
to how science is important, relevant, or interesting to students influences how students
think about science and their level of participation in class activities. Not only improving
teacher’s instructional practices, but also developing teacher’s motivational practices, is

important in order to enhance students’ valuing of learning science and to learn science.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research
While this study shows the influences of professional development activities
around a motivation based instructional model on teacher development and student’s

learning, and shows the possibility of using motivational and instructional practices to

234

support students’ scientific practices and their valuing of learning science, there are
several important limitations to this work. These limitations involve understanding
contexts that may influence teacher development, lack of control groups to compare the
influence of teacher development on students, a short period of professional development

intervention, and a small number of participants.

Understanding contexts that may influence teacher development

While this study focuses on the teaching approaches and practices of individual
teachers, it focuses less on their school or classroom contexts or communities that may
influence teachers’ use of MIAIM and their development. Because learning is situated in
contexts, teachers’ use or each of use of some aspects of MIAIM may be influenced by
other factors such as classroom situations, cultural norms of the students in her school,
school policies, or available curriculum materials. In particular, in this study, it was hard
for me to collect data in Teresa’s class, an urban middle-school science classroom. For
example, although I eventually had meetings with her to introduce the model and support
her use of the model, she was very busy due to her administrative work and a school-
wide schedule change during a semester, and due to the school’s request of doing
something not related to teaching science in her class. In addition, I could not get any
parental permission for this study from one class at first and had to change the classroom
that I observed. Although these are specific examples, it shows that her school contexts
and features of students are different from features of schools and students from the other
two teachers. Therefore, her use of MIAIM less frequently may be related to other

contexts as well as her own teaching approach or practices to leverage for her students in

235

an urban school. There should be research on considering contexts that might influence a

teacher’s use of MIAIM and their development.

Lack of control groups to compare the influence of teacher development on students

Another limitation of this study is the lack of comparison classes that could show
the influence of teacher development on students’ motivation and learning. This study
provides evidence for the influence of teacher development on students’ changes in their
motivation and understanding by comparing the relationships between patterns in
teachers’ use of MIAIM and changes in their students’ motivation and understanding.
Because after the intervention Teresa showed less changes in her use of MIAIM than the
other two teachers, I was able to find some relationships between teacher practices and
students’ outcomes. However, students’ changes in their motivation or understanding
may also be influenced by the features of science contents that they learn as well as by
the teacher’s use of specific motivational or instructional practices. Therefore, if there
was a comparison class where a teacher taught on the same topic, but did not participate
in the professional development activities, it may provide stronger evidence for the

relationship between teacher development and students’ learning and motivation.

Short period of professional development intervention

Two weeks of intervention and interaction throughout the units was a brief time
for introducing and supporting all the features of MIAIM and help the teachers
incorporate MIAIM into their specific lessons. Although I introduced big ideas of

MIAIM, such as the sequence of MIAIM and motivational principles, I was not able to

236

provide enough examples for all motivational and instructional practices. Therefore, I had
to focus on a few practices that seemed to be important to individual teachers. Patterns in
changes in teacher practices may show the accessibility of some practices of MIAIM to
their classroom. However, they may also be related to the focus of discussions with
teachers during the intervention. Therefore, there should be continuous effort to develop
ways to introduce MIAIM to teachers effectively, and there is need for research as to why
teachers use specific practices but not other practices and how to support teachers using

other practices.

A small number of participants

In this study, I designed and used MIAIM to support teachers’ teaching practices
and examine the influence of professional development on students. Although this study
shows several positive influences of professional development activities using MIAIM on
teachers and students, the sample size of this study was small (three teachers and their
students) and the three teachers were not necessarily representative of teachers as a whole.
Two of the three teachers were 8th grade teachers and the other was 4th grade elementary
teachers. There are many different teachers in the world who teach different grade levels
and science content areas, work at different schools, and have different teaching
orientations and practices. In addition, only 52% of students (16 of 31 students) from
Teresa’s class participated in the study to provide data for the effects of the professional
development on student’s learning and motivation although 72% of Richard’s students
(18 of 25 students) and 91% of Dan’s students (21 of 23 students) participated in this

study. Therefore, it was not easy to generalize the results for all teachers and students.

237

However, it demonstrated the potential of using instructional models for teacher
development and students’ learning. Therefore, there should be more research with many
teachers and their students in order to understand how to support teacher learning with
instructional models such as MIAIM and what effects teacher development have on

students.

Conclusion

Teachers have difficulty helping students participate in scientific practices and
they do not frequently communicate why learning science is worthwhile. However, it is
important to enhance students’ valuing of learning science, learn scientific ideas, and
participate in scientific practices. This study shows that a motivation-based instructional
approach along with the accompanying model such as MIAIM can be useful for
scaffolding the development of instructional and motivational practices in elementary and
secondary science teachers. In addition, it explains that teachers’ use of the approach/tool
is influenced by several factors including their current teaching approach and practices,
their experiences with using the model in the class, features of science contents and
school contexts. It also provides the empirical evidence for the influence of the teacher
development on students’ motivation and learning, and suggests a new teaching approach
based on both current motivational research and teacher learning. In particular, it
advances the knowledge about value aspects of motivation, especially in the field of
science because there has not been much research on value aspects of motivation theories
in elementary and secondary science learning. In the future, more research is needed

about the effects of professional development experiences surrounding instructional

238

models such as MIAIM on various teachers and students, that consider the features of
schools and classroom contexts in order to develop knowledge about teachers’ learning
and the effects of teacher development on student learning and motivation. Such efforts
will improve science education by helping teachers effectively use instructional and
motivation practices to help students become scientifically literate citizen who participate

productively in scientific practices and value their learning of science.

239

Appendix 1. Teacher actions/strategies for instruction in MIAIM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Model Activity Teacher Actions/ Strategies
Stage Functions
for
instruction
Establish a o Pique students’ curiosity by creating new experiences or
Problem/ drawing on prior experiences to pose a problem.
Ask a 0 Provide a problem/question that is comprehensible,
Question relevant, and motivating to students.
Engage . . . . .
o Engage students in hypothesrzrng about patterns in therr
Elicit experiences
Student 0 Probe students’ understanding
Ideas 0 Invite students to raise questions & think about their
own ideas
0 Create opportunities for students to mess around with
materials & ideas (experiences)
Explore o Create opportunities for students to try out & test ideas
Phenomena (hypotheses)
E l o Create opportunities for students to collect and analyze
XP 01:6 & data/evidence (look for patterns)
Investrgate . . . . .
o Provrde opportunrtres for students to share their ideas.
Explore 0 Have students share ideas about patterns and evidence
Student for them
Ideas 0 Have students comparing/coming to agreement about
observed patterns.
0 Provide opportunities for students to share their ideas.
Students 0 Have students share their own explanations (reasons) for
explain patterns.
patterns 0 Have students share ideas of how their explanations
answer thgquestion.
o Represent scientific ideas accurately and
. Introduce h b]
Explain Scientific compre ensr y - . .
- Contmue to burld congruence between student thinking
Ideas . . .
and screntrfic ideas
0 Provide opportunities for students to share & compare
Compare . .
Ideas With each other
Student . .
Ideas 0 Use formative assessments to make adjustments to
teaching and to compare student ideas to scientific ideas
Practice . . . . .
Apply with o Provrde opportunities for students to apply the screntrfic
explanation in new contexts
support

 

240

 

 

 

 

Practice
with fading
support

 

Provide opportunities for students to apply the
scientific explanation in new contexts with
diminishing support from the teacher.

 

241

 

Appendix 2. Example Lesson Plan about the periodic table

Learning goal: Understand that elements in a group in the periodic table (families) have
similar physical and chemical properties due to the same outer electron structures of

 

 

 

 

 

atoms
Model Description Activity Activity
Stage Functions Function for
for motivation
instruction
Engage A teacher asks a question about why some Understand
people look similar or different. (e. g., man the relevance
vs. woman, Asian vs. American) of the topic to
He asks a question of how students/their students’ lives
parents classify clothes or CD3. (Use an
He asks a question of what makes up a car analogy
and why Michigan is famous for car familiar to my
industry. I 1 students)
A teacher shows gold, silver, calcium, Ask a Understand
copper, iron, neon, carbon, mercury, and question the relevance
oxygen. He asks about students’ of the topic to
experiences related to the elements. He asks students’ lives
about the properties of them. He says that (Explain the
as people look similar or different, so do relevance/ben
chemical elements. He asks about why efits of
some elements have similar or different learning of
properties. He explains the benefits of the contents
learning the content to our society (e. g., We to society.)
use some elements for a certain purpose. all
metals are good conductors of electric
current. The electrical wires used in your
home are made of copper. Most metals are
good conductors of thermal energy.
However, nonmetals such as oxygen are
poor conductors.)
Students talk about their ideas about the Elicit
question. students’
ideas.
Explore Students find out properties of their own Explore Autonomy-
& elements. (Students will have opportunities phenomena support
Investigat to choose which elements they will focus (Providing
e on.) The teacher will give students choices)
materials made of the elements, and a Hold attention

 

 

 

 

 

 

1‘ A teacher may ask all of three questions or choose one of them.

242

 

 

picture of structures of atoms of the

and interest

 

 

 

 

 

 

elements. (Providing
Groups of four students find out common opportunities
patterns of four elements. to engage in
hands-on
activity, Use
authentic
materials)
They share their ideas of why the elements Explore
have common patterns. student
ideas
Explain Students in each group explain the common Students
patterns of the elements in each group explain
They share their ideas about why elements patterns.
in a group have common patterns.
A teacher explains that elements in a group Introduce
in the periodic table (families) have similar scientific
physical and chemical properties due to the ideas
same outer electron structures of atoms.
Students compare the given scientific Compare
explanation to their own ideas. students’
ideas
Apply A teacher explains that hundreds of years Practice Understand
ago, some people often spent their whole the relevance
lives trying to find a way to make gold. He of the topic to

 

asks whether and how students can make
gold from other metals, such as lead.
Students discuss their ideas in groups and
share their ideas in a whole group
discussion.

 

 

students’ lives

 

243

 

Appendix 3. Motivational principles in MIAIM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motivational Description Related theory
principles
Relevance Students are more willing to engage with Interest theory, Neo-
content that they view as relevant to their Dewyean work,
agendas and applicable to their lives outside Classroom observation
of school. studies
Autonomy- The more students perceive a learning Self-determination
supportive activity as autonomous rather than theory
extrinsically controlled, the more they
experience intrinsic motivation. Students can
perceive a learning activity as autonomous or
self-deterrnined by adopting values of the
task as personally important or integrating
the values into their coherent sense of selves.
Situational You may catch and hold students’ situational Interest theory, Intrinsic
interest interest through designing learning activities motivation theories
that students are likely to find enjoyable or
incorporating elements of fantasy, humor,
novelty, and variety into class work.
Students’ sustained situational interest can
develop into personal interests in science.
Knowing Knowing about students’ experiences can Expectancy*value
my students help you link your students’ ideas with those theory, interest theory,
& Using in the content area and become more invested intrinsic motivation
knowledge in knowing the outcome. Knowing about
about students’ interests or values can help you link
students their interests or values with those of science.

 

244

 

Appendix 4. Teacher actions/strategies for motivation in MIAIM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Model Activity Teacher action/ Strategies
Stage Functions
for
motivation
0 Explain the relevance/benefits of learning of the
content to students, schools, society
0 State how the learning would build on my students’
Understand existing skills
the 0 Use analogies familiar to my students from past
relevance experience
of the topic 0 Attempt to link content to student needs such as the
to students’ need for affiliation, power, and achievement,
lives 0 Point out its current or future applicability in
students’ lives
0 Show enthusiasm for its applications
0 Ask students to determine for themselves why or how
the content is relevant to them
Engage . , .
I Relate topics to my students interests
0 Use themes relating to topics widely viewed as
interesting (animal or human life, injury or death,
sex, scandal, and so on)
I Allow students to project themselves into situations,
Catch . . . . .
students’ such as rdentrfymg With a central characterin a story
. . 0 Include features that wrll enhance the actrvrtres’
srtuatronal
interests appeal (fantasy, novelty) .
O Provrde opportunities to observe models who display
competence in science
0 Use oral or written presentations organized within a
narrative format
0 Use games, simulations, humor, or other fun features
I Provide choices
0 Minimize extrinsic performance pressures
Explore O Refrain from the use of contingencies to motivate
& Support behavior
. dents’ . .
Investrg stu 0 Encourage students to solve problems in their own
autonomy . . . .
ate ways rather than msrstrng on a Single method
Explain 0 Invite students to ask questions and suggest ideas for
individual learning projects
0 Provide timelypositive feedback

 

245

 

 

Hold
students’
attention
and interest

Provide opportunities to engage in hands-on activity
Use authentic material and activities

Create recognition of the discrepancy between what
we think is true and what the situation implies.
Provide an appropriate level of challenge and support

 

 

Apply

 

Understand

the role of
science

 

Model applying new ideas to everyday life

Have students apply new ideas to their everyday lives
or their community

Give students opportunities to become aware of their
progress and mastery

Help students realize the good feelings they
experienced during the class and attribute these
feelings to their involvement in science lessons

Have students talk about benefits, affordances of
learning science

 

246

 

 

Appendix 5. Interview Protocol about teachers’ teaching approaches and practices

1. Pre-intervention interview questions
1) Questions about background information
Information about students:
Total Students:
Number of Males/Females:
Ethnicity of class:
Economic status of students

Information about teacher
How many years have you taught in total?
At the elementary level?
At the middle school level?
At the high school level?
Other?
Certifications?
What degree(s) do you hold? (both science and/or education)
Bachelors?
Masters?
Specialist?
Other?
Information about teaching schedule
How do you teach this year?
Which topic do you think appropriate for doing inquiry lessons or
incorporating motivational strategies for this study?
Other background information:

2) General questions about the teacher’s teaching approaches and practices of
instructional and motivation
I. What is your goal in teaching science?
2. What is the general sequence of activities in your lessons?
3. How did you teach (the name of unit that teachers would incorporate
MIAIM after the intervention) in previous years?
4. How do you define ‘inquiry’? What do you do to promote science
inquiry or application with your students?
Give examples.
What kinds of driving questions do you pose?
What kinds of experiences do you provide?
How do you help students to find patterns in those experiences?
How do you link those patterns with explanations?
How do you help students apply these explanations to other
contexts?
5. Why do you think that learning science is worthwhile?
6. What do you do to motivate your students to learn science? Give a
specific example of how you have done this in the last week.

sup-99‘!»

247

7. How do you find out your student’s prior knowledge, interests, or values?
How do you relate those to modifying units/sequences or the content of
the unit?

8. When you notice that your students don’t value science, what do you feel
you need to do as the teacher?

9. What other things do you think I should ask about your science teaching?
What things seem important to you?

3) General questions about the enactment of specific science lessons
1. What goals do you have for what you want students to learn about science
in the lesson?
2. Why did you say or do this when you taught the lesson? What reasons did
you have for making this decision?

2. Post-intervention interview questions
1) General questions about teachers’ teaching approaches and practices of
instructional and motivation
1. What is your goal in teaching science? Do you think that your goal in
teaching science has changed during the last two or three months?
2. How do you define ‘inquiry’? What do you do to promote science inquiry
or application with your students?
Give examples.
What kinds of driving questions do you pose?
What kinds of experiences do you provide?
How do you help students to find patterns in those experiences?
How do you link those patterns with explanations?
How do you help students apply these explanations to other
contexts?
3. What do you do to motivate your students to learn science? Give a
specific example of how you have done this in the last week.

sup-99‘s»

2) General questions about enactment of specific science lessons
1. What goals do you have for what you want students to learn about science
in the lesson?
2. Why did you say or do this when you taught the lesson? What reasons did
you have for making this decision?

3) Teacher views on the impact of professional development

1. We worked together to think about how the lesson sequence or
motivational principles in MIAIM could work in your unit. I want to
revise MIAIM to help pre-service teachers learn about instructional and
motivational practices in their science methods courses. Could you give
advice about what aspects of MIAIM need improvement or have been
helpful? Is there anything unclear in the model that made you difficult to
interpret?

2. Could you explain how you used MIAIM in your lessons? (I showed a
document of MIAIM and asked questions about how they used each

248

sequence of MIAIM in their lessons)
3. Is there anything that you want to talk about MIAIM or your experiences
related to it?

249

Appendix 6. A survey to assess students’ motivation to learn science

1. Likert-scale questions

All of personal interest items will be put together as one group of items at the
beginning of the survey. These items will prefaced with the statement: “For the first 4
questions, think about how you felt about science before the schol year began.”

All of the other items will be randomly mixed in the rest of the survey.

All of the items will have the following response format.

Our class is fun
Strongly agree agree slightly agree neutral
slightly disagree disagree stronly disagree

Personal interest (Interest value in science fi'om a personal perspective)
1. In general, I find working on science assignments boring.
2. I like doing science(e.g., reading magazines or books about science, or doing
experiments)
3. I’m interested in science.
4. Compared to other subjects, science is exciting to me.

Job related utility value
5. Learning science is usefirl for what I want to do after I graduate and go to work.

Everyday related utility value
6. What I learn in science class is useful for my life outside school.
7. The stuff I learn in this class will never be used in real life.

Situational interest (Interest value in science class from a situational perspective)
8. Our science class is fun.
9. I actually look forward to going to science class this year.
10. Our science class is dull.
11. This year I like science.
12. I don’t find anything interesting about science this year.

Importance
13. I see the science I learn as important.
14. I feel that working hard in science class is important.

Perceived efforts
15. I put forth my effort during the science lessons.
16. I work hard to learn about science.

2. Open-ended questions
1. Do you think science is useful? What parts of science are useful to you? Why?
What parts of science are not useful to you? or why not?
2. Do you think science is interesting? What parts of science are interesting to you?
Why? What parts of science are not interesting to you?

250

3.

4.

5.

Do you think science is important? What parts of science are important? Why?
What parts of science are not? Why not?
How is the topic that you will learn (or learned) related to your everyday life?
Give several examples of how you applied big ideas of the topic to your life.
(Only in the post-survey)Think about what you felt toward science about two
month ago. Do you think that your perception or attitude toward science has
changed after this unit of instruction? If yes, how have they changed? Why? If
not, what your perceptions and attitudes are? Why do you think they don’t
change?

251

Appendix 7. Interview protocol about students’ motivation

I. Pre-intervention Interview questions

1)
2)
3)
4)

5)

6)

7)

What subjects do you like best? Why?

What do you want to be in the future? What is your dream?

Tell me more about what you think about science.

Do you like science? What parts of science do you like? why? What parts of
science do you not like? Why not?

Do you think science is useful for your everyday life or your personal goals?
What parts of science are useful? Why? What parts of science are not useful?
Why not?

You will learn (the name of unit). What do you want to know about it? How will
the topic that you will learn be related to your life out of school or help you to be
a better person?

I know one student from Korea. She does not like to learn science and do not
want to study science in school. Do you have any suggestions for me to help her
to study science in school?

2. Post-intervention Interview questions

1)

2)

3)
4)

5)

6)

7)

Of the stuff that you learned in the instruction of (the name of unit), please tell me
anything that you remember. Do you have anything that was interesting to you?
Why?

What parts of the stuffs are important to you? Why? What parts are not
important? Why not?

Which parts of it are useful to you? Why? Which parts are not useful? Why not?
Do you think that your attitudes toward science or science class have been
changed when you learn about the unit? If yes, how and why?

Has this science class during the unit been similar to or different from other
science classes you have had in the past? (For example, are there any differences
in you learning about land forms and electricity”? If so, how?)

What teacher talks or actions do you think will be helpful for other students to be
more engaged in learning science?

I know one student from Korea. She does not like to learn science and do not
want to study science in school. Do you have any suggestions for me to help her
to study science in school?

 

‘2 I asked this question to Dan’s students. Dan taught about land forms before the intervention

and electricity after the intervention.

252

Appendix 8. Test to assess students’ understanding of scientific ideas from
Richard’s class

Definition of atom
l. The smallest particle into which an element can be divided and still be the same
substance is called
A. nucleus
C. atom
B. electron
D. neutron

Structure of Atom
Use the diagram below to answer the flowing four questions

a) 4)

    

e)

 

2. Which letter refers to the negatively charged particles?
3. Which letter refers to the positively charged particles?
4. Which letter refers to the particles with no charge?
5. Which letter refers to the dense center of the atom?

Atom drawing
6. Use the periodic table to answer to draw an atom of the element. Draw the atom with
the atomic number 11.

Feature of the periodic table
7. In the modern periodic table, the elements are arranged in order of
A. Atomic mass C. Atomic number
B. Chemical Symbol D. Number of Neutrons

8. The number of the periodic table tells you

253

A. how many electrons there are in the atom C. the number of proton
B. The atomic mass D. How many electron energy levels in the atom

Interpretation of the periodic table.
Use the figure below to answer the following questions.

 

Blue Green Yellow

 

 

19 20 2122 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 3132 33 34 35 36
KCaScTiV CrMnFeCoNiCuZnGaGeAsSeBrkr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. Which of these elements is the least metallic?

A. V C. Co
B. Zn D. Se
10. Which element group has all nonmetals?
A. K, Ca, Sc C. V, Cr, Mn
B. Se, Br, Kr D. As, Se, Br
Essay Question

11. Think about how you felt about the periodic table about a month ago. Describe how
your perception or attitude of the periodic table has changed after this unit of instruction.

254

 

Appendix 9. Test to assess students’ understanding of scientific ideas from Teresa’s
class

Cause of plate movement
1.

It is very interesting to see the Continents fit together. Your friend, Bill, tried to fit
together copies of the continents of a world map into one large landmass like the
below picture. He heard that long ago one scientist argued that the continents had
once been joined to form a single super continent. Currently, some scientists say that
some parts of the earth are broken into several huge pieces, called plates, and those
pieces move slowly. Your friend was curious about what makes those pieces
including continents move. So, he asked the question of what makes them move.

_ Whatlsyomexplanatwn"

    

Eflect of plate movement
2. What are effects of plate movement on earth and our lives?

Earthquakes and plate boundary
3. Are some places more likely to experience an earthquake than others? Explain your
answer

Efibcts of Earthquakes
4. What are the major hazards produced by earthquakes?

Effects of Volcanoes
5. How can explosive volcanic eruptions affect the atmosphere and weather around the
world?

Types of Volcanoes

6. How are volcanoes characterized? (Use the pictures to guess)

255

composite
volcano

   
 

 

256

SUMMH (Alfiffih

{LN li’iAl V'Eill

Maia?“ RfSlfih’VSlR

 

257

Appendix 10. Test to assess students’ understanding of scientific ideas from Dan’s
class

1. Your fiiend wants to light the bulb. She has one flashlight bulb, one battery, two
rubber bands, two plastic rulers, two pieces of thread, and two wires. However, she
does not know how to light the bulb. Could you use some of the materials and help her to
light the bulb?
1) What materials will you use? Draw a circle on the materials that you will use.
One bulb, one battery, one rubber band, two rubber bands,
one plastic ruler, two plastic rulers, a piece of thread, two pieces of thread,
one wire, two wires.

2) Please draw pictures to show an arrangement of the materials.

 

 

 

 

 

3) Explain why it will work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) What is the role of battery to light the bulb?

 

 

 

2. For each drawing, circle YES or NO to show if you think the bulb will light or not
and explain why. Draw arrows to show where you think electricity is moving.

258

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) Will the bulb light? YES NO 2) Will the bulb light? YES NO
Explain why: Explain why:
3) Will the bulb light? YES NO 4) Will the bulb light? YES NO
.
I I
Explain why: Explain why:
5) Will the bulb light? YES NO 6) Will the bulb light? YES NO
Explain why: Explain why:

 

 

259

 

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