UNDERSTANDING HOW SECONDARY SCIENCE TEACHER CANDIDATES LEARN TO
TEACH:
ANALYZING THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE, PRACTICE, AND PROFESSIONAL
IDENTITY
By
Hosun Kang

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy
2011




ABSTRACT
UNDERSTANDING HOW SECONDARY SCIENCE TEACHER CANDIDATES LEARN TO
TEACH: ANALYZING THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE, PRACTICE, AND PROFESSIONAL
IDENTITY
By
Hosun Kang
This study investigates the mechanism of beginning teachers’ learning in the context of a
university-based teacher preparation program. The purpose is to understand how and why
secondary science teacher candidates from the same university-based teacher preparation
program develop different kinds of practices of science teaching as their responses to
deliberately designed occasions for learning. This study focuses on two key science teaching
practices—(a) planning and enacting classroom activities, and (b) assessing and responding to
students—that are closely connected to learning from professional communities and learning
from students. Fourteen teacher candidates, 14 mentor teachers, and two course instructors
participated in this study. Data included written plans and reports of teaching, candidates’
teaching videos, interviews with candidates, mentor teachers, and course instructors, candidates’
vision statements, and other teaching artifacts. The findings show that the candidates’ ways of
understanding science for teaching and their designated identities—the kind of teacher they want
to be and the kind of practice they want to master—play critical roles in their learning from
professional communities and from students by affecting their highlighting and interpretation of
practices, resources, and advice from the communities of practices. I conclude this study by
presenting a mechanism of beginning teacher learning developed from the evidence. The
implications for practice and research of teacher education are discussed.




Copyright by
Hosun Kang
2011




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all those who have made this dissertation possible and because of whom my graduate
experience has been one I always will cherish, I express my sincere thanks. My deep gratitude is
to my advisor, Dr. Charles W. Anderson who gave me thoughtful guidance and warm
encouragement to recover when I faltered. His patience and support helped me overcome many
difficulties and finish this dissertation. I hope that one day I would become as good a mentor to
my students as he has been to me. Also, I gratefully acknowledge the members of my committee:
Drs. Christina Schwarz, Peter Youngs, and Suzanne Wilson for all their support, thoughtful
comments, critical feedback and guidance. In addition, Dr. Edna Tan, Dr. Douglas Campbell,
and Amy Lark kindly read through this dissertation and gave me critical feedback. Thank you for
your time and support.
I am also thankful to the faculty in College of Education at Michigan State University,
especially Drs. Angela Calabrese-Barton, Gail Richmond, Mary Lundeberg, Amelia Gotwals,
Joyce Parker, and Alicia Alonzo. Their professional guidance and collegial support were
extremely significant in my journey of doctoral program.
I would like to thank my special friends, Hyunju Jeong, Dooyoung Kim, Jooyoung Park,
Seokju Soon, Wangjun, Kim, Taeseob Shin, Eunhae Ham, Sheila Marquardt, Takumi Sato, Amal
Ibourk, and Li Zhan. They were with me at the emotional moments and listened to my stories.
Thank you for the sustaining friendship and support throughout the last five years.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the special support and encouragement provided by all of
my family. Any of my accomplishments would not have been possible without their support.




iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES....................................................................................................................... VII
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................X
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1
Overview .................................................................................................................................1
Conceptual framework ............................................................................................................5
Two perspectives on beginning teacher learning ..............................................................5
Framework for investigating mechanisms of beginning teacher learning.......................10
Research questions ................................................................................................................13
Overview of methodology.....................................................................................................14
Significance ...........................................................................................................................19
Overview of chapters.............................................................................................................20


CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................21
Overview ...............................................................................................................................21
Literature on the development of core cognitive and affective factors for teaching.............22
Literature on the cognitive mechanisms of learning to teach ...............................................29
Literature on the development of teacher identity.................................................................31
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................34


CHAPTER 3. CONTEXTS AND METHODS .............................................................................36
Research context: A university-based teacher preparation program .....................................36
Designed occasions for learning: Planning and enacting classroom activities ...............38
Designed occasions for learning: Assessment practices .................................................38
Methods .................................................................................................................................39
Participants ......................................................................................................................39
Focus case selection ........................................................................................................42
Data collection.................................................................................................................44
Data analysis....................................................................................................................49
Subjectivities ...................................................................................................................60
Limitations of this study........................................................................................................62


CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS I: PLANNING AND ENACTING CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ....63
Overview ...............................................................................................................................63
Fourteen candidates’ patterns of classroom activity practices ..............................................65
The case of David..................................................................................................................66
The case of Monica ...............................................................................................................85
The case of Adam................................................................................................................100
Classroom activity practices and candidates’ understanding of science for teaching.........113
Candidates’ designated identities and their interpretation of practices & resources...........122



v





Discussion............................................................................................................................133

CHAPTER 5. FINDINGS II: ASSESSING AND RESPONDING TO STUDENTS ................140
Overview .............................................................................................................................140
Fourteen candidates’ patterns of assessment practices........................................................141
The case of Leslie................................................................................................................143
The case of Susie .................................................................................................................156
The case of Teresa ...............................................................................................................169
Assessment practices and candidates’ understanding of science for teaching ....................182
Learning from students and candidates’ designated identities ............................................183
Discussion............................................................................................................................189


CHAPTER 6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ..................................................................197
Discussion............................................................................................................................198
Candidates’ understanding of science for teaching reflected in their practices and
interpretation of practices ..............................................................................................206
Learning to teach: Closing the perceived gap between actual and designated identities in
the field of influence......................................................................................................206
Contexts: The occasions for learning that locally created for each candidate ..............211
Conclusion and Implications ..............................................................................................213
The mechanisms of secondary science teacher candidates’ learning to teach ..............213
Implications for practice in teacher education...............................................................215
Implications on research of teacher education ..............................................................217


APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................222
Appendix A. Lesson/unit plan template ............................................................................. 223
Appendix B. Assessment assignment template ..................................................................229
Appendix C. teacher candidates interview protocol ...........................................................233
Appendix D. Jeremiah interview protocol ..........................................................................238
Appendix E. Coding scheme for classroom activities ........................................................241
Appendix F. Coding scheme for assessment practice ........................................................243
Appendix G. The results of coding about classroom activities ..........................................245
Appendix H. David’s worksheet: DNA replication activity ..............................................253
Appendix I. Monica’s worksheet: Incomplete/co-dominance activity ...............................254
Appendix J. Adam’s worksheet: Pedigree notes ................................................................257
Appendix K. Adam’s worksheet: Complete the pedigree ..................................................258
Appendix L. The results of coding: designated identities throughout two years ...............259
Appendix M. The results of coding about assessment practices ........................................263
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................276




vi


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Two key science teaching practices.................................................................................15
Table 2. Research context: A five year reform-oriented teacher preparation program .................37
Table 3. Participant selection.........................................................................................................40
Table 4. Profiles of the 14 teacher candidates ...............................................................................41
Table 5. The three focus cases for classroom activity practice......................................................43
Table 6. The three focus cases for assessment practice .................................................................44
Table 7. Data analysis of the two focus practices..........................................................................51
Table 8. Examples of standardized descriptors..............................................................................52
Table 9. The four elements of knowledge for teaching .................................................................58
Table 10. Fourteen candidates’ classroom activity practices.........................................................66
Table 11. David’s teaching video ..................................................................................................76
Table 12. David’s narratives on his classroom activity practice ...................................................83
Table 13. David’s highlighting of classroom activities at interview .............................................83
Table 14. Monica’s teaching video................................................................................................94
Table 15. Monica’s narratives on her classroom activity practice.................................................98
Table 16. Monica’s highlighting classroom activities at interview ...............................................99
Table 17. Adam’s teaching video ................................................................................................106
Table 18. Adam’s narratives on her classroom activity practice .................................................112
Table 19. Adam’s highlighting classroom activities at interview................................................112
Table 20. Candidates’ ways of understanding science as content for teaching ...........................114
Table 21. Three candidates’ designated identities .......................................................................132
Table 22. Fourteen candidates’ assessment practices ..................................................................142




vii


Table 23. Candidates’ understanding of science for teaching .....................................................182
Table 24. Leslie, Susie, and Teresa’s designated identities.........................................................189
Table 25. Fourteen candidates’ patterns of the two focus practices ............................................198
Table 26. Coding scheme for classroom activities ......................................................................241
Table 27. Coding scheme for assessment practice.......................................................................243
Table 28. Monica’s highlighting of classroom activity ...............................................................245
Table 29. David’s highlighting of classroom activity..................................................................245
Table 30. Susie’s highlighting of classroom activity...................................................................246
Table 31. Teresa’s highlighting of classroom activity.................................................................247
Table 32. Leslie’s highlighting of classroom activity (senior year) ............................................247
Table 33. Leslie’s highlighting of classroom activity (intern year).............................................248
Table 34. Adam’s highlighting of classroom activity..................................................................248
Table 35. Scott’s highlighting of classroom activity ...................................................................249
Table 36. Shannon’s highlighting of classroom activity .............................................................249
Table 37. Alisa’s highlighting of classroom activity ...................................................................250
Table 38. Lori’s highlighting of classroom activity.....................................................................250
Table 39. Lynn’s highlighting of classroom activity ...................................................................251
Table 40. Stella’s highlighting of classroom activity ..................................................................251
Table 41. Kevin’s highlighting of classroom activity..................................................................252
Table 42. David’s designated identities from senior to intern year ............................................259
Table 43. Monica’s designated identities from senior to intern year...........................................260
Table 44. Adam’s designated identities from senior to intern year ............................................260
Table 45. Leslie’s designated identities from senior to intern year ............................................261




viii


Table 46. Susie’s designated identities from senior to intern year .............................................261
Table 47. Teresa’s designated identities from senior to intern year ...........................................262
Table 48. David’s assessment practices ......................................................................................263
Table 49. Monica assessment practices ......................................................................................264
Table 50. Susie assessment practices...........................................................................................265
Table 51. Teresa’s assessment practices .....................................................................................266
Table 52. Leslie’s assessment practices ......................................................................................267
Table 53. Shannon’s assessment practices ..................................................................................268
Table 54. Adam’s assessment practices...................................................................................... 269
Table 55. Alisa’s assessment practices .......................................................................................270
Table 56. Mary’s assessment practices .......................................................................................271
Table 57. Kevin’s assessment practices ......................................................................................271
Table 58. Lori’s assessment practices .........................................................................................272
Table 59. Scott’s assessment practices .......................................................................................273
Table 60. Stella’s assessment practices ......................................................................................274
Table 61. Lynn’s assessment practices .......................................................................................275




ix


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Conceptualizing learning outcomes: actual and interpretation of practices...................13
Figure 2. Occasions for learning about two practices of science teaching ....................................16
Figure 3. David’s highlighting of classroom practices ..................................................................84
Figure 4. Monica’s activities: incomplete inheritance...................................................................90
Figure 5. Monica’s highlighting of classroom activities ...............................................................99
Figure 6. Adam’s activity: Lion King pedigree ...........................................................................105
Figure 7. Adam’s highlighting of classroom activity ..................................................................113
Figure 8. Leslie’s assessment practice in senior year ..................................................................154
Figure 9. Leslie’s assessment practice in intern year...................................................................154
Figure 10. Leslie’s approach of assessing and responding to students........................................155
Figure 11. Susie’s assessment practice ........................................................................................168
Figure 12. Susie’s approach of assessing and responding to students.........................................168
Figure 13. Teresa’s assessment practice pattern ..........................................................................181
Figure 14. Teresa’s approach of assessing and responding to students.......................................181
Figure 15. The role of knowledge in the process of learning to teach.........................................198
Figure 16. Two-dimensional narrative model: making causal connections ................................203
Figure 17. Three-dimensional constructivist model: making testable and revisable connections
between observation/experiences and scientific models or theories............................................204
Figure 18. Learning to teach: closing the perceived gap between actual and designated identities
......................................................................................................................................................207
Figure 19. The role of designated identities in the process of learning to teach..........................211
Figure 20. The mechanism of learning to teach...........................................................................215
Figure 21. Monica’s highlighting of classroom activity .............................................................245




x


Figure 22. David’s highlighting of classroom activity ............................................................... 246
Figure 23. Susie’s highlighting of classroom activity ................................................................ 246
Figure 24. Teresa’s highlighting of classroom activity .............................................................. 247
Figure 25. Leslie’s highlighting of classroom activity (senior year) ...........................................247
Figure 26. Leslie’s highlighting of classroom activity (intern year) ..........................................248
Figure 27. Adam’s highlighting of classroom activity ...............................................................248
Figure 28. Scott’s highlighting of classroom activity .................................................................249
Figure 29. Shannon’s highlighting of classroom activity ............................................................249
Figure 30. Alisa’s highlighting of classroom activity..................................................................250
Figure 31. Lori’s highlighting of classroom activity ...................................................................250
Figure 32. Lynn’s highlighting of classroom activity..................................................................251
Figure 33. Stella’s highlighting of classroom activity .................................................................251
Figure 34. Kevin’s highlighting of classroom activity ................................................................252







xi


Chapter I.
Introduction
Over the last several decades, science education communities have learned about
effective science teaching practices that promote students’ meaningful understanding and
participation. A new vision of good science teaching was well clarified in recent influential
documents (NRC, 2000, 2005, 2007) and a new conceptual framework for national standards
(NRC, 2011). The ‘reform-oriented practices’ described in those documents address the concerns
raised with traditional science teaching practices, and are to develop students’ proficiency in
science to prepare them as citizens in the future society (NRC, 2007). Whereas traditional
teaching is focused on conveying authoritative knowledge and skills in classrooms organized
around student performance for grade exchange (Doyle, 1983), reform-oriented teaching is
intended to create classrooms as communities of practice that support students’ scaffolded
engagement in the strands of scientific proficiency. Reform-oriented teaching is based on a new
perspective of science-as-practice (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006; NRC, 2007) that is fundamentally
different from the traditional view that considers science as the final form of answers or the
combination of content and process.
Despite the numerous efforts to encourage reform-oriented science instruction, teacher
education communities still have difficulties in understanding how teachers learn of these
important science teaching practices, and in providing sufficient support for them (Davis, Petish,
& Smithey, 2006). The fundamental challenge for the science teacher education community
resides in the fact that reform-oriented pedagogy is not yet present in most schools, as articulated
by standards documents (Luehmann, 2007). The vision for good teaching advocated by
university faculty is “fundamentally at odds with that of public school teachers [and] students”




1


(Farkas, Johnson, & Duffett, 1997), and research-based criteria advocated by the teacher
education community are still subject to criticism, rather than replacing the social value
advocated by the public (Kennedy, 2010a). This new vision is often perceived as “one of many”
perspectives that teacher candidates can consider, and currently there is little or no sanction on
the candidates who fail to meet goals or standards, especially at university-based teacher
1

preparation programs . It is not surprising that teacher candidates frequently get mixed or even
contradictory messages about “good” science teaching from different professional communities
during their student teaching (see Crawford, 2007; Rozelle, 2010). This is significantly different
from other professional training processes, such as for lawyers or doctors. Despite the teacher
education community’s strong positioning about reform-oriented practices, teacher candidates
have a large degree of freedom in selecting resources and ideas to craft their teaching practices in
their classrooms, while valuing one ‘perspective’ over the other and developing different kinds
of practices of science teaching. Currently it is undeniable that most teacher preparation
programs organized around advocacy of reform practice continue to graduate traditional teachers
whose instructional practices are focused mostly on delivering authoritative content of science
and developing some skills.
Many beginning teachers teach science as they were taught, even after graduating from
reform-oriented programs. To explain this trend, researchers have pointed out the powerful role
of previous experiences in shaping beginning teachers’ teaching practices (Eick & Reed, 2002).
Teachers begin to learn about teaching even before they know they will be teachers, through
their apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975, 2002). When teacher candidates get into

























































1

There are a few of states, including California, Connecticut, and Tennessee, that moved away
from traditional teacher certification tests and use performance assessments with standardized
assessment rubrics as part of the teacher licensure process.







2


teacher preparation programs, they bring with them a “script” (Stigner & Hiebert, 1998, p. 2) for
teaching—a mental version of teaching patterns—that is formed informally as they move
through twelve or more years of school. This script for teaching, which includes their views
about the subject, how students learn, the roles of students and teachers, and their values, is hard
to change because it has “evolved over long periods of time in ways that are consistent with the
stable web of beliefs and assumptions that are part of the culture” (p. 2). Numerous research
studies on science teacher learning have pointed out the impact of beliefs and values on
beginning teachers’ learning of reform-oriented practices (e.g., S. L. Brown & Melear, 2006;
Demir & Abell, 2010; Fletcher & Luft, 2011; Kang, 2008; McBride, Bhatti, Hannan, &
Feinberg, 2004; Smith & Anderson, 1999). Recently researchers, especially those from the sociocultural research tradition, also argue that school contexts, including mentor teachers’ traditional
instruction, make it difficult for beginning teachers to learn reform-oriented practices (Bianchini
& Cavazos, 2007; Lasky, 2005; Luehmann, 2007).
Although the notions of “apprenticeship of observation” and “script of teaching” help us
to understand the continuity of traditional teaching and some factors that are involved in the
process of learning how to teach, teacher educators are still puzzled about beginning teacher
learning for two reasons. First, neither the notion of apprenticeship of observation nor role of
contexts account for all the facts that we are observing about our teacher candidates. If these
factors determine outcomes, why do some graduates who have mostly experienced traditional
teaching emerged as well-started beginners of reform practices? Why do some graduates who
work with traditional mentor teachers successfully learn reform-oriented practices, or vice versa?
Second, the previous explanatory models do not provide mechanisms of influence. If these




3


factors play certain roles in the process of beginning teacher learning, why are these factors
important and how do they influence candidates as they learn to teach?
In fact, teacher educators have recognized the powerful roles of teachers’ previous
experiences and have responded to this unique challenge by designing programs to support
beginning teachers’ learning of reform-oriented practice as an important part of contexts.
Reform-oriented teacher preparation programs focus on developing candidates’ practices of
teaching in school contexts by gradually increasing candidates’ time in the field. In addition,
such programs deliberately design occasions for learning based on evidence from the research on
teacher learning (see Bianchini & Cavazos, 2007; Darling-Hammond & Richardson, 2009; Eick
& Dias, 2005; Eick & Reed, 2002). Specifically, most of these programs set up occasions for
learning in which teacher candidates can learn from multiple members of communities, such as
mentors and course instructors, through their participation in and socialization with professional
communities. These programs also set up occasions for learning from their students through
formative assessment, with the hope that beginning teachers move forward from their previous
experiences of traditional teaching and learn “ambitious pedagogy” that promotes students’
proficiency in science. Given this unique context of beginning teacher learning, it is important to
answer the following questions to tease out the processes of how beginning teachers learn to
teach: How do teacher candidates who go through the same reform-oriented teacher preparation
program develop different kinds of science teaching practice? Why are some candidates
successful in the learning of reform-oriented practices by making use of resources and ideas
provided from the program, whereas other candidates are less successful or fail to learn the kinds
of practices advocated by the program? What roles do candidates’ previous experience, a




4


university-based teacher preparation program, and mentor teachers play in each candidate’s
learning process, respectively and collectively?
The purpose of this study is to understand the mechanisms of beginning teacher learning
by going beyond identifying factors. I intend to understand how and why beginning teachers
develop certain kinds of science teaching practices in the context of a university-based teacher
preparation program. I begin by discussing two promising approaches in the field that provide
some insights on the mechanisms of teacher learning and presenting my conceptual framing of
the process of learning to teach, before turning to my research questions.
Conceptual Framework
Two Perspectives on Beginning Teacher Learning
The review of literature on beginning teacher learning in the field of science led me to
identify three different groups of research studies: (a) cognitive and affective factor oriented
2

research, (b) cognitive mechanism oriented research, and (c) identity oriented research . I intend
to build this study on the latter two groups of research studies—cognitive mechanism and
identity oriented research. These two groups of research take a different ‘lens’ to examine the
mechanisms of beginning teacher learning. Researchers in cognitive mechanism oriented
research program have studied the process of beginning teacher learning by focusing on the
acquisition of content-specific knowledge and practices specified by standards documents (e.g.,
Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2011). Identity-oriented research studies
consider learning as the process of authoring professional identities through beginning teachers’
participation in and socialization with communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991;
Luehmann, 2007). These perspectives are complementary rather than contradictory because they

























































2
See the detail in Chapter 2



5


provide important insights on the mechanism of learning—cognitive self-organization or
individual-in-social action (Cobb, 1994). I argue that we can develop a powerful understanding
of the mechanism of beginning teacher learning by considering both perspectives
simultaneously. This study conceives of beginning teacher learning as the process of developing
knowledge and practices of science teaching while authoring the professional identity.
Learning as the acquisition of knowledge and practices. Both previous studies on
science teacher learning and the most recent reform oriented documents (NRC, 2007, 2011)
make it clear that there exists specialized knowledge required for reform-oriented teaching.
Specifically, the recent reform documents propose new goals for science education; that is,
developing students’ proficiency in the strands of the practices of science. The new vision is
based on the perspective of ‘science as practice,’ which is fundamentally different from previous
3

views on science such as science as logical reasoning or science as content and process . The
reform document emphasizes that, “Science instruction should provide opportunities for students
to engage in all four strands of science proficiency” (NRC, 2007, p. 6). Engaging students in the
practices of science requires teachers’ in-depth understanding of science for teaching. It has been
well known that teachers’ epistemological understanding about the nature of scientific
knowledge and practices and their perceived goal of science instruction play important roles in
the ways that they structure students’ learning experiences with their instructional decisions
(NRC, 2007). Whereas science is frequently presented as so-called ‘the final form of answers,’
or ‘master narratives’ in many classrooms at the K-12 and college levels, the reform-oriented
documents describe science as “both a body of knowledge that represents current understanding
of natural systems and the process whereby that body of knowledge has been established and is

























































3
See the detail of this discussion in chapter 2



6


being continually extended, refined, and revised” (p.26). It is important to present science as “an
integrated body of knowledge and practice” (p. 6) for students’ meaningful understanding and
participation, and inquiry is often suggested as one of promising ways of teaching science
meaningfully (NRC, 2000, 2005).
Reform-oriented practices also require teachers’ in-depth understanding about students as
science learners. Understanding the role of students’ prior knowledge is a core idea of learning
theory (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; J. S. Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; NRC,
2005). Teachers should be able to appreciate the diverse ways of students’ knowing as well as
students’ unique needs and provide productive instructional responses in order to enact equitable
instruction (Bianchini & Brenner, 2010).
Learning as the process of authoring professional identities. Learning reform-oriented
practices involves the process of authoring professional identities that often do not match either
beginning teachers’ initial script of teaching or the common norm in the profession (Day, Elliot,
& Kington, 2005; Lasky, 2005; Luehmann, 2007). Currently the notion of identity is a
4

complicated construct that means many different things in the field . My view of professional
identity is informed by discussions about socialization of communities of practice (Lave &
Wenger, 1991), about the relationship of identity and practice in practice theory (Holland,
Lachicotte Jr., Skinner, & Cain, 1998) as well as about narrative definitions of identity (Hall,
Johnson, Juzwik, Wortham, & Mosley, 2010; Juzwik, 2006; Sfard & Prusak, 2005). Teacher
candidates’ practices are always socially negotiated and structured through relationships and
interactions in particular contexts, rather than purely a product of their science-teaching
knowledge and skills. While socializing with and participating in multiple communities of

























































4
See the discussion in the chapter 2: literature review



7


practice, teacher candidates encounter various resources, ideas, and values about science
teaching. On the one hand, candidates’ practices, as the outcome of their responses to mixed
ideas and resources provided for them in a social context, are grounded in their current sense of
self and the tools and resources that they can draw upon. On the other hand, their practices
reflect their future sense of self and practice—the kind of science teacher they want to be and the
kind of science teaching they want to enact and master. Developing certain kinds of science
teaching practice comes to be the process of forging identity-in-practice, ‘who they are,’ and
‘who they want to be’ as a science teacher, in a social context.
Teachers author their professional identities in a field of influence with certain
momentum. As Wenger (1999) pointed out, identity “has momentum of its own in addition to a
field of influence” (p. 154); a teacher candidate’s identity bears certain momentum toward their
future sense of self and practice that is most likely grounded in their previous experiences and
their script of teaching. This momentum may have to do with their values, vision (e.g., religious
mission), and/or their images of good science teaching, and it affects ways that candidates
interact with people in “a field of influence” that is created with their participation in
professional communities.
I agree that “the notion of identity cannot become truly useful unless it is provided with
an operational definition” (Sfard & Prusak, 2005, p. 15). With the goal of developing powerful
empirical evidence of teacher learning and the awareness of its potential for explaining the
mechanisms of teacher learning, I chose the notion of “the narrative rendering of identity” (Sfard
& Prusak, 2005, p. 14) or storied identities for this study. Sfard and Prusak (2005) defined
learning as closing the gap between actual identity and designated identity. Whereas actual
identity is “stories about the actual state of affairs” (p. 18), designated identity is “narratives




8


presenting a state of affairs which, for one reason or another, is expected to be the case, if not
now then in the future” (p. 18). I posit that teacher candidates’ actual and designated identities
are collective stories about their current and future self(s) in/and practices told by multiple
people. It should be noted that identities are constructed through narrativatization of self(s) and
practices when people tell stories, but practices are not equivalent to identities themselves.
Whereas candidates’ practices are always fluid and changeable depending on time, space, and
people, ‘storied identities’ constructed through narrativatization of multiple people tend to
capture “reifying, significant, and endorsable” (Sfard & Prusak, 2005, p. 14) aspect about a
candidate and his/her practices. The notions of actual and designated identities are particularly
useful in investigating beginning teacher learning, given the unique contexts of that learning.
What teacher candidates actually do in a classroom, reflected in actual identities, is the
complicated outcome of their interaction and negotiation with people on a daily basis, especially
with their mentor teacher (see Rozelle, 2010), which I argue does not necessarily capture all the
important outcomes of their learning. Candidates’ designated identities—their stories about what
kinds of teacher they want to be and what kinds of practice they want to master—tell us what
they learn from their experiences through their highlighting and their interpretation about it along
with the nature of their interaction with people in a field of influence.
Accordingly, this study investigates stories about current or future self(s) in/and practices
to understand the mechanism of learning through actual and designated identities. Stories about
both self(s) in/and practices told by multiple people, including candidates, their mentor teachers,
and course instructors show who they are as a teacher, who they want to be, how they interpret
and respond to resources and ideas provided from different professional communities, how they
position themselves while interacting with multiple communities, and finally how they are




9


recognized by others. By examining stories of current and future self in/and practice (i.e., actual
and designated identities) told by candidates themselves as well as by key members of
community who work most closely with candidates, I aim to understand how identity work takes
place in a social context in their journey of learning to teach.
Framework for Investigating Mechanisms of Beginning Teacher Learning
Now I frame ‘the outcomes’ of learning, that is, what I will look at with respect to
beginning teachers’ learning outcome and how it will help me to understand the mechanism of
learning. I propose two different types of practices. One is actual classroom practices, and the
other is discursive practices of teaching, that is, interpretation of practices. The following section
provides the processes by which each practice is produced and the rationales for this conceptual
framing.
Beginning Teachers’ Practices: Outcomes of Responses to Deliberately Designed
Occasions for Learning. Teachers’ classroom practices have been nominated as one of the key
outcomes of teacher learning (Kennedy, 2004, 2010a) that powerfully impacts students’
performance and participation (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Kennedy, 2010b). From review of research
on the relationship between one or another factor and student learning, Kennedy found, “It is
what teachers actually do that is most relevant to student learning” (Kennedy, 2010b, p.
591[italic in original]). What teacher candidates actually do in their classroom is not a simple
result of their personal traits (Kennedy, 2010b). Rather, it is a combined function of both
personal qualities that they bring with them and various situational factors to which candidates
have to respond. In the context of a university-based teacher preparation program, a program
deliberately designed for “occasions for learning” with a form of assignments or activities,
makes their resources and ideas available for teacher candidates in order to support them to learn




10


high quality science teaching practices. Accordingly, teacher candidates’ actual practices reflect
their responses to the program’s deliberately designed occasions for learning.
The nature of occasions for learning, however, is not the same across teacher candidates,
even from the same program. The contexts of school placements make a big difference in such
occasions by affecting the types of experiences that teacher candidates have with their students
and the types of advice and resources that they get from their mentor teachers. For instance,
candidates who work at urban high schools that have high demands for classroom management
have to respond to different occasions for learning compared to the candidates at suburban
academic-oriented high schools. Mentor teachers’ preferable instructional approaches, types of
advice, and expectations of candidates also influence the nature of occasions for learning, along
with the resources and advice provided by the program. Rozelle’s (2010) study noted the
differences in the nature of advice between mentor teachers and teacher preparation programs,
such as immediate and localized vs. general and formal. Mentor teachers’ resources and ideas for
teaching are not always aligned with the ones from a reform-oriented program (see Crawford,
2007), which sometimes creates some tension that beginning teachers have to respond to.
Beginning teachers select resources and ideas provided by different professional communities to
produce certain types of practices as their responses to the locally created occasions for learning.
Interpretation of Practices: Representation of Teaching Expertise. I draw upon the
ideas of professional vision (Goodwin, 1994; van Es & Sherin, 2008) and learning to notice (van
Es & Sherin, 2002, 2008) to propose discursive practices of teaching as one aspect of beginning
teacher learning outcome. Goodwin (1994) suggested highlighting and coding as the practices
that participants of professional activities used to build their professional vision. Professional
vision “consists of socially organized ways of seeing and understanding events that are




11


answerable to the distinctive interests of a particular social group” (p. 606). Highlighting is the
process of attending to and identifying particular aspects of a complex social activity in situ.
Coding involves interpreting what they attend to after picking out a specific aspect of activity.
Professional vision recognized through the discursive practices of highlighting and coding
reflects someone’s depth of understanding of an event being seen as well as their attached
cultural values. Built upon Goodwin’s work, van Es and Sherin (Sherin & van Es, 2005; van Es
& Sherin, 2002, 2008) proposed the ability to notice classroom interaction as a key feature of
teaching expertise. They proposed three key components of teachers’ ability to notice: (a)
identifying what is important in a complicated teaching situation, (b) using what one knows
about the context to reason about a situation, and (c) making connections between specific events
and broader principles of teaching and learning (van Es & Sherin, 2008, p. 245). While claiming
that in the context of reform noticing is a skill that teachers may need to develop, van Es and
Sherin used the notion of noticing to investigate changes in teachers’ thinking as they
participated in a video club.
For two reasons, I propose that beginning teachers’ interpretation of practices produced
through their highlighting is one important aspect that should be considered in the investigation
of the process of learning. First, the interpretation of practices shows what experiences are salient
to a teacher, how it is interpreted, and what lessons they draw upon from their experiences. It
shows the kinds of “feedback loops” created by a beginning teacher from their experience. The
interpretation of practices can be a powerful indicator of their future practice as much as
candidates’ actual practices. Second, the interpretation of practice enables me to trace beginning
teachers’ learning trajectories including kinds of expertise they are developing. Most beginning
teachers obtain some kinds of expertise after five or 10 years of teaching experiences. It has been




12


known that there exist discernable differences in ways of seeing events between novice and
experts (DeGroot, 1965; Lesgold, et al., 1988). Tracing beginning teachers’ interpretation of
practice through stories can provide evidence of their learning trajectories toward certain kinds
of teaching expertise.

Figure 1. Conceptualizing learning outcomes: actual and interpretation of practices
Research Questions
Thus far, I have presented my conceptual framing of the process of beginning teacher
learning with my theoretical perspective on beginning teacher learning. Based on this
framework, I intend to study the mechanism of learning, how and why secondary science teacher
candidates from the same university-based teacher preparation program develop different kinds
of practices of science teaching as their responses to deliberately designed occasions for learning.
This study focuses on two core science teaching practices emphasized by most science teacher




13


preparation programs: (a) planning and enacting classroom activities, and (b) assessing and
5

responding to students .
The specific questions are:
1. How do the candidates from the same university-based teacher preparation program
respond to deliberately designed occasions for learning?
a. How do they plan and enact classroom activities? How do they interpret and
respond to resources and advice for classroom activities provided by the teacher
preparation program, their mentor teachers, and their course instructors?
b. How do they provide opportunities for formative assessment, and how do they
interpret and respond to their students and their students’ work?
2. What makes a candidate successful or less successful in making use of the resources and
opportunities provided by the program? How do these elements influence candidates’
two focus practices and their interpretations of student work, program expectations and
resources, and advice from mentors and course instructors?
a. How are candidates’ practices and interpretations influenced by their knowledge
for science teaching?
b. How are candidates’ practices and interpretations influenced by their identity
work?
In the following section, I describe the methodology used in this dissertation, including the
selection of two science teaching practices, to help readers understand and critically judge how I
construct this phenomena through this research project.
Overview of Methodology

























































5
I describe the rationales for selecting these two practices in the following overview of
methodology



14


I highlight my key methodological decisions in the course of a research study for critical
readership of this study before I close this chapter and move to reviewing the literature on
beginning science teacher learning. This is a multiple case study with 14 secondary science
teacher candidates from a university-based teacher preparation program over three years. The
details of research design and research activity is described in Chapter 3. I made four
methodological choices to examine the mechanisms of beginning teacher learning. Those are: (a)
selecting occasions for learning about key practices of science teaching, (b) setting up
comparisons of candidates in similar contexts, (c) comparing candidates on different trajectories,
and (d) getting multiple perspectives on the same practices of teaching to triangulate observation
and interpretation.
Selecting Occasions for Learning about Key Practices of Science Teaching
In order to examine the process of learning to teach, I decided to focus on two key
science-teaching practices emphasized by most teacher preparation programs. One is planning
and enacting classroom activities, and the other is assessing and responding to students (see
Figure 2 and Table 1). I selected these two practices for two reasons. First, they are directly
connected with the two core occasions for learning deliberately designed by most programs—
learning from participation in and socialization with professional communities and learning from
students—thus they enabled me to investigate the processes that beginning teachers learn from
professional communities as well as from their students while engaging in these practices. While
planning and enacting classroom activities, candidates have opportunities to interact with their
mentor teachers and course instructors through their advice, resources, and ideas for activities.
Therefore, candidates’ classroom activities show how they respond to occasions for learning, in
particular, from professional communities. The second practice, assessing and responding to




15


students, is connected with the process of learning from students. By focusing on their
assessment practice, I intend to examine the ways in which candidates learn from their students.
The second reason why I selected these two practices is that both classroom activities and
assessment practices are indeed high-leverage practices that “the proficient enactment by a
teacher is likely to lead to comparatively large advances in student learning” (Ball, Sleep, Boerst,
& Bass, 2009). Both practices support work that is central to science and to helping students to
improve their learning and achievement, and both are kinds of practices that beginning teachers
use frequently when they teach science.

Figure 2 Occasions for learning about two key practices of science teaching
Documenting the quality of the two focus practices with empirical evidence requires
parsing the complex system of activities with common language (Grossman & McDonald, 2008).
I identified key aspects of each practice to characterize different types of practices observed in




16


6

candidates’ classrooms . Whereas the aspects of classroom activities primarily emerged from the
data in a way that aligned with the literature and my conceptual framework, the aspects of
assessment practices were conceptualized from the literature in the first place, with consideration
of the nature of available data sources (see the key aspects of each practice in Table 1).
Table 1. Two key science teaching practices
Planning and enacting classroom
activities
Dimensions Learning from professional
for
communities
learning
Elements
(a) setting/highlighting/interpreting
of practices goals of lesson
(b) managing/highlighting/interpreting
the roles of activities
(c) managing/highlighting/interpreting
the roles of students

Assessing and responding to students
Learning from students
(a) Providing opportunities for students
to give information about them
(b) Identifying
(c) interpreting
(d) responding to students

Setting Up Comparisons of Candidates in Similar Contexts
In multiple case studies, comparison is recognized as “a grand epistemological strategy, a
powerful conceptual mechanism, fixing attention upon one or a few attributes” (Stake, 2004, p.
457). All 14 teacher candidates’ patterns of practices were analyzed during the data analysis, and
I subsequently set up comparisons of six candidates in similar contexts to better understand the
uniqueness and complexities of the process of learning to teach. With respect to classroom
activity practices, I selected three candidates who worked at similar suburban high schools. For
assessment practices, another three candidates who worked at similar urban high schools were
selected. The processes of learning are expected to be influenced by contexts, but by setting up
comparisons of candidates in similar contexts, I intended to focus more on the process of
learning to teach in relation to candidates’ knowledge development and authoring professional

























































6
See the process of identifying key aspects of each practice in detail in chapter 3: Methods.



17


identities in similar social contexts rather than to investigate the influence of different nature of
contexts.
Comparing Candidates on Different Trajectories
The choice of cases greatly impacts the nature of understanding of the targeted
phenomena (Stake, 2004; Yin, 1989). When selecting six focus cases out of 14 candidates, I
chose the cases that showed candidates’ different learning trajectories even though they worked
in similar contexts with the same support from the program. I made this choice because I think
this selection provides the best opportunities to learn about the mechanisms of beginning teacher
learning. By no means do I claim that that these six candidates are a representative sample of the
population of teacher candidates in the program. But all six candidates that I selected in this
study were candidates whom we could frequently meet and we can easily identify similar
candidates every year in the program.
Getting Multiple Perspectives to Triangulate Observation and Interpretation
The last methodological characteristic that I want to note in this study is getting multiple
perspectives on the same teaching event through multiple people’s interpretation of practices. I
selected two segments of a candidate’s teaching video and used the segments in the individual
interviews with the candidate, his/her mentor teacher, and course instructor to see what they
highlighted and how they coded (i.e., interpret) what they highlighted. As a researcher, I also
highlighted and coded the same segments of video when analyzing the data. By comparing
multiple interpretations of practices from candidates, mentor teachers, course instructors, and
myself, first I intended to triangulate my observation and interpretation of the practices with
“rival explanations” (Yin, 1989, p. 41). Secondly, comparing the highlighting and coding
between a mentor teacher and course instructors allowed me to figure out the direction of




18


influences on candidates from the two professional communities, so as to understand the nature
of locally created occasions for learning.
Significance
One contribution of this study is informing the practices and curriculum of science
teacher preparation programs. Teaching, at its core, is a practice that encompasses cognition,
craft, skills, and affect (Grossman & McDonald, 2008), and it has been argued that teacher
preparation should be centered on core practices as a way of supporting people to develop craft
and skills through targeted training and clinical experiences (Ball & Forzani, 2009; CochranSmith & Power, 2010; Grossman & McDonald, 2008). Understanding the mechanism of
beginning teachers’ learning of reform-oriented practices, including the nature of their
difficulties and key elements involved in that process, enables teacher educators to re-structure
the occasions for beginning teachers’ learning and to find a powerful pedagogy that supports
beginning teachers’ learning of reform-oriented practices.
This study addresses major methodological concerns of teacher education research.
Currently, insufficient empirical evidence makes it difficult for teacher educators and
policymakers to make decisions about the curriculum and policy of teacher preparation
programs. It is difficult to produce empirical evidence on beginning teachers’ practices because
of the lack of shared language for describing the features of components of practice, agreeing on
measures for capturing the elements of practice (Grossman & McDonald, 2008), and capturing
the substantive meanings of events with objectivity (Kennedy, 2010a). As Kennedy (2010a)
pointed out, “We have faced serious technical problems in trying to translate our intuitive
perceptions into precise terminology and reliable measurement scales” (p.245). This study
suggests a new approach of documenting beginning teachers’ development of core science




19


teaching practice with empirical evidence. It shows ways of parsing practices of science teaching
and providing potential evidence of learning, which provides researchers with the analytical tools
to describe, analyze, and improve teaching.
Overview of Chapters
Having provided the reader with the contexts, the conceptual framing, and some
methodological characteristics of this study, I now turn to a brief overview of the reminder of the
dissertation. In chapter 2, I review the literature on teacher learning that informed the conceptual
framing of this study. In chapter 3, I describe the context of this investigation and its methods.
Chapters 4 and 5 present the findings about the process of beginning teacher learning through
two focus practices. In chapter 4, I describe the process of learning from participation in
professional communities through classroom activity practices, using three candidates’ cases in
similar suburban high schools. Chapter 5 is focused on the process of learning from students
through assessment practices using another three candidates’ cases in similar urban high schools.
Chapter 6 discusses and draws conclusions on the mechanisms of learning by bringing the
analyses in Chapters 4 and 5 together. Implications of this study for research and practice of
teacher education are also discussed in the final chapter.




20


Chapter 2. Literature Review
Overview
This chapter reviews the literature on teacher learning in the field of science education. I
identified three groups of research studies that explore science teacher learning with different
foci. A significant proportion of the literature on teacher learning has been the studies on
identifying certain core cognitive factors that affect their instructional practices and their
students’ learning. This ‘factor-oriented research’ has explored how other factors or
interventions, such as activities in methods courses, influence on teachers’ development of those
cognitive characteristics such as knowledge and beliefs (e.g., Abell, 2006; Bryan & Atwater,
2002; Friedrichsen, et al., 2009; Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002;
Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 2002). The second group of researchers was interested in
cognitive mechanism of learning to teach with special attention to the practice of science
specified in a new vision of science education (e.g., Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2008b;
Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2009, 2011). This ‘mechanism-oriented research’ has
examined the process through which teachers acquire knowledge and skills for science teaching.
The third group of researchers, what I call ‘identity-oriented research,’ brings with it different
assumptions on learning from a cognitive-oriented research tradition. Researchers in the
sociocultural tradition consider learning as the process of forging identities through participation
in communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Whereas cognitive-oriented researchers are
primarily interested in the development of some characteristics focusing on individual teachers,
sociocultural researchers are interested in the interplay between the learner and the sociocultual
context where learning is situated (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Therefore, they use the lens of ‘identity’ to explore the process of learning. In the following




21


section, I will discuss three groups of literature on science teacher learning to draw out
implications for this study.
Literature on the Development of Core Cognitive and Affective Factors for Teaching
The majority of previous research has focused on identifying one or another factors (e.g.,
personal characteristics of a teacher) that affect teachers’ practices and students’ learning, and
explored how teachers acquire those factors to develop certain science teaching practices.
Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), understanding of Nature of Science (NOS),
and beliefs about teaching and learning are some of the constructs that have appeared most
frequently in the field of research on science teacher learning.
Since Shulman and his colleagues proposed a model for understanding the specialized
knowledge required for teaching (Shulman, 1986, 1987; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987),
many science teacher educators have studied what allows teachers to develop their pedagogical
content knowledge (PCK) and how this knowledge influences their instructional practices. In the
PCK research program, this notion is conceived of as a body of knowledge distinguished from
subject matter knowledge (SMK) or pedagogical knowledge (PK), although each has an
influence on PCK (Abell, 2006; Magnusson, et al., 2002). The essence of PCK is “how teachers
transform SMK of specific science topics into viable instruction” (Abell, 2006, p. 1134).
Currently researchers in the PCK research program have specified many areas of sub7

knowledge to investigate how teachers acquire one or another specific type of PCK for teaching
a topic, a unit, or a discipline, such as chemistry (e.g., Avraamidou & Zembal-Saul, 2010; Jong,
van Driel, & Verloop, 2005; Lee, Brown, Luft, & Roehrig, 2007; Loughran, Milroy, Berry,
Gunstone, & Mulhall, 2001). For example, researchers report the positive impact of university
























































7
Magnusson, Krajcik, and Borko (2002) specified PCK as knowledge of science curricula,
knowledge of instructional strategies, knowledge of assessment, and knowledge of students



22


based courses (e.g., Avraamidou & Zembal-Saul, 2010; Justi & van Driel, 2005), in-service
workshops (e.g., Van Driel, Verloop, & Vos, 1998), or the effects of teachers’ prior experiences
(e.g., Friedrichsen, et al., 2009) on teachers’ development of one or another type of PCK.
There are a significant number of researchers in this group who have studied teachers’
development of views on Nature of Science (NOS), arguing that teachers’ understanding of NOS
is a critical factor in shaping their practices (Lederman, 2006). Using instruments to assess
teachers’ views on NOS (see Lederman, et al., 2002), they have shown the influences of
particular experiences provided by the teacher education community on teachers’ views on NOS,
such as philosophy of science courses (Abd-El-Khalick, 2005), summer professional
development programs focusing on developing communities of learners (Akerson, Cullen, &
Hanson, 2009), and teacher research experiences (Schwartz & Lederman, 2002). For instance,
Schwartz and her colleagues (2004) designed a science research internship course, combined
with seminars and reflective activities, to encourage teacher candidates to develop views on the
nature of science (NOS). They concluded that the science research internship effected desirable
changes in the participants’ NOS views by providing authentic contexts for their learning.
Teacher’s beliefs are another construct that has been identified as one major factor that
plays a significant role in shaping teachers’ instructional practices (Jones & Carter, 2006). In the
field of research on science teacher learning, the conceptual boundary between knowledge and
beliefs is less clear “as they do not represent separate entities” (Jones & Carter, 2006, p. 1069).
Abell (2006) also points out that the relation of subject matter knowledge to teacher beliefs and
values and to classroom practice is less clear. Set aside its unclear boundary between beliefs and
knowledge, in general, the researchers who study teacher learning focusing on development of
teacher beliefs agree that a teacher’s beliefs about science, science learning, and science teaching




23


influence almost every aspect of a teacher’s job, and especially their beliefs on reform-oriented
instruction. Numerous studies have shown some relationship between teachers’ beliefs - in
particular, epistemological belief - and instructional practices (e.g., Luft, 2001; Richmond &
Anderson, 2003; Zipf & Harrison, 2003); the impact of certain activities in methods courses on
teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Bryan & Atwater, 2002; Kang, 2008); and the roles of field experiences in
developing teachers’ belief and instructional practices (e.g., Crawford, 2007; Fletcher & Luft,
2011).
This group of research studies, which I call ‘cognitive and affective factor-oriented
research,’ has contributed to the research and curriculum of science teacher education by
identifying some important elements involved in the process of beginning teacher learning. The
studies in this group also have suggested some potential experiences that affect the development
of particular knowledge and skills of teaching, such as activities and structures in methods
courses or professional development programs. There are two issues that have emerged from this
research, however, in relation to understanding how beginning teachers learn the reform-oriented
practices.
First, this body of literature has been less successful in providing powerful accounts of
how those important elements involve the process of learning to teach in the specific social
contexts where learning actually takes place. Most researchers in this group note that the ways
that one factor influences classroom practices depends on other factors, such as context,
placements, or teachers’ subject matter knowledge, etc. For example, in Fletcher and Luft’s
(2011) recent study on the relationship between beginning teachers’ beliefs and instructional
practices in the context of student teaching, they found that beginning teachers’ beliefs about
teaching and learning were “impacted in different ways based on the context of the placement




24


and the individuals” (p. 1). Crawford (2007) concluded that despite her systematic efforts toward
helping candidates learn about teaching science as inquiry through her course, teacher
candidates’ learning is a much more complicated process that involves multiple elements playing
critical roles in teacher candidates’ learning. Those elements include teacher candidates’ beliefs
about teaching and of science, as well as mentor teachers’ views, and mentors’ openness or
reluctance to allow teacher candidates to try out new approaches. From a review of literature on
teachers’ beliefs, Jones and Carter (2006) conclude, “It is becoming increasingly clear that
teachers’ belief systems are embedded in the larger sociocultural environment, which includes
students, peer teachers, parents, administrators, families, communities, and political/government
environments” (p. 1095). Abell (2006) also notes that although teacher knowledge is essential,
science teacher education must honor the local and practical knowledge of teachers in the field
and the sociocultural contexts that frame their work. Researchers in this group have recognized
the complicated process of beginning teachers’ learning that involves multiple factors, but thus
far they have been less successful in giving us insights on those complicated processes.
More importantly, it is questionable whether the conceptual constructs of these studies
align with the new vision of science education, as articulated in the most recent reform-oriented
documents (e.g., NRC, 2007, 2010). The field of science education has evolved over several
decades as we have learned more about science, science learning and teaching. It has been a
continuing theme to move beyond teaching science as what Duschl (1990) calls, “final form
science,” because it may “leave students in the dark about the way knowledge is generated and
may also distort the nature of scientific knowledge, inappropriately conveying that it is
unchangeable and uncontested” (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006, p. 159). Since the 1960s, teaching the
process of science along with the content has been the most popular rhetoric in the discourse




25


about the goal of science education, and still they seem to be, especially to school teachers and
curriculum designers. Science educators have problematized this process/content dichotomy
because it becomes evident that learning “skills” is just as meaningless as learning facts or
scientific theories in the textbook separately (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006). It may also fail to help
students to understand the nature of scientific knowledge and practice that is indeed inseparable
and fundamentally contingent on each other. Over the last several decades, the focus of the
debate in science educators was to clarify what the essence of science is, the core of what we
should teach. The several ‘essences’ of science, such as scientific concepts (i.e., knowledge),
reasoning (i.e., skills), and epistemology (e.g., nature of science), were identified and appear in
the previous National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), and have been reflected in the
research on science teacher learning as demonstrated above.
The most recent reform documents (e.g., NRC, 2007) and a new framework for science
education (NRC, 2010), however, propose new goals for science education with consideration
given to our current understanding of science, research on science learning, as well as the need
for preparing future citizens in our society. In these documents, the goals of science education
are stated in a significantly different way from the previous standards, that is, developing
students’ scientific proficiency in the four interwoven strands. These documents state that
students who are proficient in science (NRC, 2007, p. 36):
1. know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world;
2. generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations;
3. understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge; and
4. participate productively in scientific practices and discourse.




26


It should be noted that the four strands of scientific proficiency are not the core or essence of
science that we expect to see as the outcomes of development that are internal to individuals.
These strands are practices of science, that are “patterns of activities that are initiated and
embedded within goals and thoroughly saturated with human meaning and intentions” (Lehrer &
Schauble, 2006, p. 161). This perspective of ‘science as practice’ (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006;
NRC, 2007) is fundamentally different from the traditional view of science as focusing on the
development of individual characteristics, such as acquiring knowledge, skills, and an
understanding of the nature of science. Lehrer and Shauble (2006) discuss how the science
education community re-conceptualizes the view of science and moves forward from the
previous perspective:
The science-as-practice image suggests that science spans multiple epistemologies
and practices. Moreover, perhaps what is important with respect to development is not
characterizing changes that are internal to individuals, but understanding how individuals
are initiated into and participate in these variable ways of knowing and doing science.
From an educational perspective, the goal in that case would be to consider which forms
of practice provide the greatest educational leverage, and then to understand how to assist
students in beginning to participate (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006, p. 160).
Undoubtedly, the success of reform depends on teachers’ capabilities of engaging
students in the practices of science, which require teachers’ in-depth understanding of ‘science as
practice.’ The reform document states, “science instruction should provide opportunities for
students to engage in all four strands of science proficiency” (NRC, 2007, p. 6).
Given the current reform movement in science education, the factor-oriented research
programs raise some important questions. There is no doubt that reform-oriented teaching




27


requires specialized knowledge for teaching, especially, teachers’ in-depth understanding of
science as practice. However, the current PCK research program in science conceives of PCK as
a distinct body of knowledge different from subject matter knowledge (SMK) (Abell, 2006).
Researchers in this program tend to be more interested in the transformation of SMK (because it
is a distinct body of knowledge) than characterizing the nature of specialized knowledge for
teaching that is fundamentally integrated with understanding of science itself. It seems to me that
the distinction among subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and
pedagogical knowledge in this research program may generate a distorted understanding of
science teaching as much as the dichotomy of scientific content and process does. In the case of
the Nature of Science (NOS) research program, above all, the underlying assumption of NOS as
the core subject for science teaching is questionable in the new standards. Researchers in the
NOS program distinguish NOS from science processes or scientific inquiry, emphasizing that
“NOS refers to the epistemological underpinnings of the activities of science and the
characteristics of the resulting knowledge” (Lederman, 2006, p. 835). Given that the integrated
understanding of knowledge and practices of science is a critical element for reform teaching,
this essentialistic argument of NOS as a distinct entity that is separated from the practice of
science (i.e., inquiry) makes its power as conceptual construct for explaining teacher learning
even less promising.
In summary, the previous research studies in this group inform me that there exists
certain specialized knowledge that powerfully affects teachers’ instructional practices. These
studies also suggest that the process of learning to teach is a complicated one that involves
multiple elements with some characteristics of both teachers and contextual factors. Despite the
fact that some researchers are aware of the complicated roles of multiple elements, so far




28


researchers in this factor-oriented group are struggling to provide powerful evidence-based
explanations about the dynamic interaction of those multiple elements in the process of learning
how to teach. In addition, the conceptual constructs of this research seem to be less successful in
capturing either important characteristics of teachers or practices of teaching advocated by the
most recent reform-oriented documents.
Literature on the Cognitive Mechanisms of Learning to Teach
There is another body of literature that studies the mechanisms of beginning teacher
learning focusing on acquisition of content-specific knowledge and practices of science teaching.
Windschitl and his colleagues have been exploring beginning teachers’ learning of reformoriented with special attention to the practices of science as articulated in the new vision of
science teaching (see Windschitl, 2002, 2003, 2004; Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2008a;
Windschitl, et al., 2008b, 2009, 2011). Whereas factor-oriented research studies tend to focus on
certain core characteristics of teachers (i.e., knowledge, skills, epistemology of science) that need
to be developed, this group attends to both practices of science and of science teaching in its
investigation of beginning teacher learning. For instance, in one recent study, Windschitl and his
colleagues (2008b) designed ‘a system of learning activities’ that intended to foster teacher
candidates’ participation in material and discursive activities characterizing the work of
scientists, that is, what they called “model-based inquiry” (Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten,
2008a). The focus of their investigation was to understand how beginning teachers engage in the
practice of science teaching as scaffolded by the program, and how it affected beginning
teachers’ practice of science teaching. Their research questions demonstrate their attention to the
mechanisms of beginning teacher learning as follows: “In what ways does an instructional focus
on scientific models and model-based investigations influence how beginning teachers think and




29


talk about the epistemological role of models in inquiry? In what ways does an instructional
focus on models influence beginning teachers' use of models and modeling with their own
students? (p. 312)” Rather than arguing certain causal relationships between the experiences
provided by the program and beginning teachers’ epistemological understanding or their
practice, Windschitl and his colleagues concluded that their instructional approaches provided
“conditions” for beginning teachers’ learning of model-based inquiry.
In another recent study about beginning teachers’ learning through ‘collaborative inquiry
into practice’, Windschitl and colleagues (2011) further investigated the process of learning what
they called ‘ambitious pedagogy.’ They identified two groups of teacher candidates who had
different habits of mind and views of the relationship between teaching and learning (i.e.,
simplistic view vs. problematized view). They described how these two groups of candidates
responded to learning opportunities differently, such as selecting different kinds of artifacts from
classroom tasks, differences in the depth of analyses of student works, and the ways in which
they represent their dilemmas to their peers. They conclude that those candidates having a
problematized view benefit most from the resources provided by the program because they can
“learn from the collaborative examination of records of practice (p 15).”
For this group, the focus of inquiry is clearly not examining certain core characteristics of
individual teachers required for reform-oriented teaching. What makes it different from the
factor-oriented research that focuses on cognitive and affective factors is that this group intends
to understand the mechanisms of learning—the ways in which beginning teachers participate in
practices of science as well as science teaching. The attention to practices is well aligned with
the new goals of science education, that is, engaging students in the strands of scientific
proficiency.




30


Literature on the Development of Teacher Identity
Recently, the idea of identity is getting new attention in the field of teacher development
and teacher learning with the awareness of the complex dialectic between learning and its
sociocultural context (Sfard & Prusak, 2005). There is a growing body of literature that uses
identity as an analytical lens for teacher learning (Enyedy, Goldberg, & Welsh, 2006; Gee, 2000;
Hall, Johnson, Juzwik, Wortham, & Mosley, 2010; Helms, 1998; e.g., Luehmann, 2007;
Richmond, Juzwik, & Steel, 2011). Sociocultural and socioconstructive researchers argue that
studies that solely focus on knowledge, understanding or other purely cognitive constructs in
teacher education are limited because they leave “the novice teachers alone to figure out how to
develop, integrate, and reconcile emotions and physical aspects with the understanding involved
in becoming a teacher” (Luehmann, 2007, p. 827). Sociocultural researchers are concerned about
the process of the cultural shaping of learning, the relations of people in communities, and the
process of learners becoming a part of a community of practice (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003;
Holland, William, Skinner, & Carole, 2001; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Ma, 1999; Sfard & Prusak,
2005; Stigner & Hiebert, 1998). From sociocultural perspectives, learning is considered an active
and social process. It is situated in circumstances and settings (Brown, et al., 1989; Resnick,
1987), and is a process of socialization in which learners develop identities-in-practice while
participating in communities of practice (Brickhouse, 2001, Lave & Wenger, 1991). Thus,
researchers in this tradition propose to replace the traditional discourse on schooling with talk
about the “construction of identities” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 53).
Studies that examine teacher identity aim to understand the mechanisms underlying
human actions, in other words, to explain why different teachers act differently in the same
situation such as reform-oriented movements of teaching (e.g., Day, Elliot, & Kington, 2005;




31


Flores, 2006; Hong, Oliver, & Vargas, 2009; Lasky, 2005; Luehmann, 2007). By using the
notion of identity, researchers try to understand similar patterns emergent from different
teachers’ teaching practice and their development (see Enyedy, et al., 2006; Lasky, 2005;
Luehmann, 2007), and how one’s experience across multiple cultural communities of practice
impact one’s professional practices, values, and/or beliefs, and what form it takes.
Sociocultural researchers highlight the similar features of identity and professional
identity. Luehmann (2007) reminds us of the four common characteristics of identity. First,
identity is socially constituted, that is, one is recognized by self and others as a kind of person
because of the interactions one has with others. Second, identity is constantly being formed and
reformed, though the change process for one’s core identity is long term and labor intensive.
Third, identity is considered by most to be multifarious, that is, consisting of a number of
interrelated ways one is recognized as a certain kind of person, participating in social
communities. Finally, identity is constituted in interpretations and narrations of experiences
(Luehmann, 2007, p. 827). In general, identity is viewed as a fluid, dynamic, relational,
recursive, and discursive process (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004; Hall, et al., 2010; Juzwik,
2006; Richmond, et al., 2011; Sfard & Prusak, 2005) in this tradition.
Researchers, however, have also struggled to operationalize the definition of identity so
as to capture the complex interplay between learners and its sociocultural context. It may be true
that “the notion of identity cannot become truly useful unless it is provided with an operational
definition” (Sfard & Prusak, 2005, p. 15). Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop (2004) remind us that
more attention should be paid to the role of context in professional identity formation, and in
what counts as ‘professional’ in teachers’ identity. One approach to documenting identities is to
consider every aspect that seems to relate to identity. For instance, Enyedy, Goldberg, and Welsh




32


(2006) are aware that “the notion of professional identity lies at the intersection between one’s
personal history and individual psychology on the one hand and one’s cultural history and
community of practice on the other hand” (p. 71). Arguing that identity is a complex construct,
yet extremely important to understand the practice of teaching as a profession, Enyedy et al.
(2006) include beliefs, goals, and knowledge as the constructs of identity, though point out that it
is not limited to them.
Another approach to operationalizing identity development is the narrative definition of
identities (Hall, et al., 2010; Juzwik, 2006; Richmond, et al., 2011; Sfard & Prusak, 2005). Sfard
and Prusak (2005) define identities as “collections of stories about persons or as those narratives
about individuals that are reifying, endorsable, and significant” (p. 16). While rejecting the
notion of identities as extra-discursive entities that one merely “represents” or “describes” while
talking, Sfard and Prusak claim that narratives themselves present them as discursive
counterparts of one’s lived experience. Researchers who share this narrative definition of identity
tend to examine what a teacher, or others, tell them about the teacher’s practice assuming that it
will reveal the complex dialectic between identity-building and other activities (see Richmond, et
al., 2011). Narratives or teachers’ stories about themselves and practices become the essential
part in most recent investigations on identity. In many empirical studies, identities or
professional identity is constructed from the thematic analysis of teachers’ stories about
themselves. For instance, Leuhmann and Tinelli (2008) studied teacher professional identity
development with social networking technologies in the context of a year-long graduate level
seminar at a university. They define the professional identity as “being recognized by self or
others as a reform-minded science teacher” borrowing from Gee’s (2000) definition. The
development of professional identity is identified by looking at the emerging themes in the




33


contents of the blogs such as wrestling, displaying competence, sharing emotions, encouraging,
etc. Similarly, Lasky (2005) analyzes teachers’ professional identity through thematic analysis of
stories about themselves from the interviews. The narrative definition of identity seems to have
potential to provide some insights concerning teachers’ different actions and development
trajectories in social contexts.
In summary, sociocultural studies provide a new vision of learning suggesting that the
notion of identity allows us to better understand the underlying mechanism of teachers’ change
of practice. Despite some meaningful attempts at defining and capturing teacher identity, the
review of empirical studies on teacher identity indicates that the field is still looking for better
ways of capturing teacher identity that reveal the complex dialectic between a teacher and social
contexts.
Conclusion
I identified three groups of research studies in the field of research on science teacher
learning in this review of the literature: (a) cognitive and affective factors-oriented research, (b)
cognitive mechanism-oriented research, and (c) sociocultural identity-oriented research.
Considering the goal of understanding mechanisms of beginning teachers’ learning of reformoriented teaching, I draw upon the following implications for this study.
First, researchers in science teacher education have been successful in identifying some
important elements that play significant roles in shaping beginning teachers’ classroom practices,
but they have been less successful in understanding the mechanism of learning—why those
factors are important and how they work together in actual contexts. In order to provide
appropriate and substantial support for beginning teachers’ learning, we need to know more than
the fact that it is a complicated process that involves multiple elements.




34


Second, the reform-oriented teaching manifested in most recent standards requires
teachers’ in-depth understanding of science as practice in order to engage students in the strands
of scientific proficiency. The change of the goals of science education in the standards
documents reflects the movement toward participating in the practices of science beyond
developing knowledge of a core or essence of science. Thus far, the research on science teacher
learning has been dominated with what I called factor-oriented research that is organized around
the development of core or essential characteristics of science teaching. Considering the new
goals of science education, teachers’ understanding of the view of ‘science as practice’ needs to
be better attended in the research on teacher learning.
Third, both cognitive mechanism-oriented and sociocultural identity oriented research
seem to be promising in exploring the process of beginning teacher learning. Examining the
process of acquiring knowledge and practices of reform-oriented teaching will help me to
understand the mechanisms of learning in-depth in relation to teachers’ cognitive development.
The notion of identity is a useful analytical lens that potentially allows me to explore the
mechanism of learning in social contexts. But the construct of identity needs to be
operationalized with the consideration of the unique challenge of beginning teacher learning.
Therefore, I intend to build my study on these two groups of research studies (mechanism- and
sociocultural identity oriented) in order to understand the mechanisms of beginning teacher
learning comprehensively and in-depth.




35


Chapter 3.
Contexts and Methods
This investigation is a multiple case study (Stake, 2004; Yin, 1989) with 14 secondary
science teacher candidates in a university-based teacher preparation program for a research
period totaling three years. I examined secondary science teacher candidates’ mechanisms of
learning with special attention to the roles of knowledge and professional identities by setting up
comparisons with six focus cases. In this chapter, I begin by describing the university-based
teacher preparation program as one main context of the candidates’ learning. Next, I describe the
methods in detail, including participants, data collection, and data analysis. The limitations of
this study are discussed at the end.
Research Context: A University-Based Teacher Preparation Program
The Green teacher preparation program is a reform-oriented five-year program at a large
Midwestern University. Teacher candidates typically get into the program in their junior year and
take basic courses along with the experience of tutoring in the field. They take a series of four
content-specific methods courses from the senior year to the intern year (see Table 2 below).
Candidates are placed in nearby schools early in their senior year, and then placed in a different
school once again for their internship year. Thus, most candidates experience two different
mentor teachers over two years. The program is designed to gradually increase candidates’
experiences in the field as they move through the program. Candidates observe four hours per
week at their school placements during their senior year, and they teach between two and five
lessons in each semester. During their internship in the 5th year, they spend four days a week,




36


from Monday to Thursday, at the field site as a full-time intern, and they take methods courses
8

on Fridays except during the (guided) lead teaching periods .
Table 2. Research context: A five year reform-oriented teacher preparation program
Level
Semester
Teacher
education
program
School-based
experiences

Seniors (4th year)
Fall
Spring
Science
Science
methods
methods
seminar I
seminar II
Observation (4h Observation (4h
per week)
per week)
Co-planning & Co-planning &
co-teaching
co-teaching
(Two single
(Two single
lessons)
lessons & One
3-day lesson)
Occasions for Planning and
Planning and
learning:
enacting two
enacting two
Classroom
single lessons
single lessons &
activities
one 3-day
9
lesson
Occasions for
learning:
Assessment
practice

Clinical
interview
Analyzing
student
responses

Designing
assessment
items &
analyzing three
focus student
responses (one
per semester)

Full time Internship (5th year)
Fall
Spring
Science methods Science
seminar III
methods
seminar IV
Observation
Lead teaching
Teaching one
(10 weeks)
focus class
Two guided lead
teachings (2
weeks per each)
Planning and
enacting daily
lessons & units

Planning and
enacting daily
lessons & units
Inquiry/applicati
on activity
sequences
Designing
Designing
assessment items assessment
& analyzing
items &
three focus
analyzing three
student
focus student
responses (two
responses
per semester)
(twice per
semester)

Interns select one class hour, and teach this ‘focus class’ throughout the whole internship period.
They teach one more class period besides their focus class during the first two-week period of

























































8
(Guided) lead teaching is the period when interns’ teaching load in the field increases by
adding one or two more classes to the general teaching load during the non-(guided) lead
teaching period. It was designed by the program to periodically increase or decrease the teaching
load in the field in order to assist their learning to teach effectively by engaging them in the cycle
of planning, teaching, assessment, and reflection.
9
Candidates teach three consecutive lessons for three days



37


guided lead teaching (GLT), and they teach two more classes during the second GLT period in
the fall semester. Finally, they assume full responsibilities as a lead teacher during 10 weeks of
lead teaching in the spring semester. Teacher candidates are provided opportunities for
interacting with their course instructors and their peers regarding their planning, teaching, and
assessment through the assignments and discussion in the methods courses.
Designed occasions for learning: Planning and enacting classroom activities. Teacher
candidates are provided several targeted opportunities of planning and enacting classroom
activities while getting advice from both their mentor teachers and their course instructors
10

through ‘Lesson/unit plan and report’ assignments . Similar to other teacher preparation
programs, the assignment for classroom activities is structured to support candidates’
development of classroom activity practices by helping candidates’ thoughtful planning and
reflection before and after teaching. During the occasions that are named “co-planning and coteaching,” typically candidates get access to resources and ideas of school professionals,
including their mentor teacher. Whereas mentor teachers’ advice is mostly provided through
informal conversations, worksheets, or activities, course instructors provide written comments
and suggestions on candidates’ ideas for classroom activities both before and after their teaching.
In addition, candidates have opportunities to discuss their ideas of classroom activities with
instructors and their classmates in their methods courses, before and after their teaching.
Designed occasions for learning: Assessment practices. Candidates are requested to
design two to three formative assessment tasks/items tied to their proposed learning objectives in
11

their lesson plans, and to enact them both before and after their teaching,

























































10
See the template for lesson/unit plan and report in appendix 1
11




See the instruction for this assignment in appendix 2.
38


whenever teacher

candidates engage in planning and reporting that teaching assignment from the senior to the
internship year. Therefore, a candidate gets at least nine occasions for learning about assessment
practices over two years. Typically, a candidate has opportunities for analyzing and discussing
students’ responses to their assessment questions with instructors and peers in their methods
courses. A candidate has to select three focus students who are at different achievement levels,
and then develop a written report based on evidence of students’ learning.
It should be noted that the occasions for learning in this program are focused more on
formal assessment practices such as written work or planned interviews than an informal
assessment practices such as questioning and responding during instruction. Formal assessment
practices presented with their written work or stories of practices give information on all
elements of assessment practice.
Methods
Participants
Teacher candidates. A total of 14 teacher candidates from three cohorts in a reformoriented teacher preparation program at a large Midwestern university participated in this study
for two years (see Table 3 below). Participants were selected from a pool of volunteers in a way
that represented the teacher candidate population of the program, considering their school
contexts, major, gender, and school level. I selected four candidates from three consecutive
cohorts during the period of data collection, 2008-2010. The first four candidates from cohort I—
Monica, David, Teresa, and Susie—were interns (5th year) during the first year of study (200809). The second four candidates, from the cohort II—Leslie, Shannon, Mary, and Kevin—were
seniors (4th year) at that time. Two of them, Leslie and Shannon, continued to participate in this
study in the next year (2009-10) during their internship period, and another two candidates,




39


Adam and Alisa, replaced Mary and Kevin due to the distance of their internship placements
from the research site for the latter. The third group of four candidates, from cohort III—Lori,
Lynn, Stella, and Scott—participated during the second year of data collection (2009-10) as
seniors.
Table 3. Participant selection
Academic year
Cohort I

Cohort II

2008-9

2009-10

Monica
David
Teresa
Sarah
Leslie
Shannon
Mary
Kevin

 Leslie
 Shannon
Adam
Alisa
Lora
Lynn
Stella
Scott

Cohort III

Status during data
collection
Intern
Intern
Intern
Intern
Senior/Intern
Senior/Intern
Senior
Senior
Intern
Intern
Senior
Senior
Senior
Senior

Table 4 shows the 14 candidates’ profiles, including gender, major, school context, and
stages of program. Among the 14 candidates, 10 candidates were female and four were male.
Seven out of 14 candidates majored in Biology, three in Chemistry, two in Physics, and one in
Earth science. The contexts of their schools (i.e., urban vs. suburban) were evenly balanced
during the process of selecting participants. The characteristics of the 14 candidates were fairly
consistent with the characteristics of all the secondary science teacher candidates in the program.
Mentor teachers. Fourteen mentor teachers who worked with the teacher candidates
participated in this study. The mentor teachers had from six to 38 years of teaching experience
when they worked with these candidates, and all of them had experiences working as a mentor
teacher more than two times before they worked with these candidates in this project. Among 14



40


mentor teachers, eight had worked with the program several times, and four mentor teachers
graduated from the same teacher preparation program. The mentors were each interviewed about
candidates’ practices, their own practices, and the nature of their relationship and interaction
with their candidate.
Table 4. Profiles of the 14 teacher candidates
Academic Pseudony
Gender
Major
year
m
Monica
F
Bio
David
M
Bio
Cohort I
Teresa
F
Bio
Sarah
F
Chemistry
Leslie

Cohort III

3 cohorts
(2009-10)

Bio

Shannon
Cohort II

F
F

Chemistry

Mary
Kevin
Adam
Alisa
Lori
Lynn
Stella
Scott

F
M
M
F
F
F
F
M

14 Teacher
candidates

F: 10
M: 4

Chemistry
Physics
Bio/Phys
Earth
Bio
Bio
Bio
Physics
Bio: 7
Chemistry: 3
Physics: 2
Earth Science: 1

School context
Suburban HS
Suburban HS
Urban HS
Urban HS
Urban HS
Urban HS
Urban HS
Suburban HS
Suburban HS
Suburban HS
Suburban HS
Urban MS
Urban HS
Suburban HS
Suburban MS
Urban MS
Urban: 8
Suburban: 8

Stages of
program
Intern
Intern
Intern
Intern
Intern/senior
Intern/senior
Senior
Senior
Intern
Intern
Senior
Senior
Senior
Senior
Intern: 8
Senior: 8

Course instructors. Two science methods course instructors, Dr. R and Dr. G, were
interviewed in the same way as the mentor teachers. Dr. R had taught the science methods course
for more than 10 years in the program, and for Dr. G, it was her fourth year of teaching the
methods courses. Due to the cohort system of the program, typically a course instructor works
with the same cohort for two consecutive years, from the senior to the internship year, which
provided both the instructors and the candidates opportunities of building a close working




41


relationship. Both Dr. R and Dr. G worked with the candidates for two years while teaching four
consecutive science methods courses.
Focus Case Selection
All 14 teacher candidates’ practices were analyzed to find patterns of practices, but six
focus cases are described in detail in the findings section in order to have depth of analysis. The
six focus cases were selected considering the contexts of the school placements (i.e., urban vs.
suburban), the nature of mentor teachers’ instruction (i.e., conceptual, reform-oriented vs.
didactic, traditional), and characteristics of the student classroom communities. I selected three
interns—David, Monica, and Adam—who worked at similar suburban high schools but
developed different kinds of classroom activity practices. With respect to assessment practice,
another three candidates—Leslie, Susie, and Teresa—were selected. These three candidates
worked at the same or similar urban high schools in the same school district that had similar
level of challenges in managing the classroom, but they each developed different kinds of
assessment practice. I will describe the details of the six focus cases and their contexts in the
following section.
Classroom activities: Three suburban candidates’ cases. Three interns—David,
Monica, and Adam—shared many common features with one another. These three candidates
were all biology majors, and taught either 9th or 10th grade biology in the unit on genetics at
similar academic-oriented suburban high schools in their internship year (5th year) (see Table 5).
The schools had a relatively high percentage of white students (66%, 84%, 90%), and a low
percentage of students who get free or reduced lunch (9 to 19 %). One key difference among the
three candidates was the kinds of resources and ideas for classroom activities provided by their
mentor teachers. Two of them, David and Adam, worked in a so-called “best scenario




42


condition,” where their mentors and teacher preparation program provided consistent ideas and
resources for reform-oriented science teaching. Their mentor teachers, Mrs. M and Mr. V,
graduated from the same teacher preparation program 12 and 7 years ago, respectively. Both
mentors were highly regarded mentor teachers by the program, and they modeled reformoriented practices for candidates. Another intern, Monica, worked with Ms. S, whose practice
was mostly didactic. Ms. S had strong reservations about inquiry teaching. Planning and enacting
classroom activity practices involve selections of resources and ideas for activities provided by
professional communities. Therefore, the difference among mentors’ preferred instructional
approaches and their positioning with respect to the program created important differences in the
nature of occasions for learning for each of the candidates. The three candidates developed
different kinds of classroom practices while responding in a substantially different way to their
occasions for learning.
Table 5. The three focus cases for classroom activity practice
Candidates
David
Monica
Ethnicity, gender
White male
White female
Major
Biology
Biology
School setting
Suburban high school Suburban high school
9th grade biology, the 9th grade biology, the
Subject to teach
unit of genetics
unit of genetics
Stage of program
Intern
Intern
Mrs. M (graduated
Mentor
Ms. S
from the program)

Adam
White male
Biology
Suburban high school
10th grade biology,
the unit of genetics
Intern
Mr. V (graduated
from the program)

Assessment practices: Three urban candidates’ cases. I selected three urban
candidates, Leslie, Teresa, and Susie, as focus cases for assessment practice, on the assumption
that the nature of student communities in their classroom might play a critical role in candidates’
learning from students. The placements for these three candidates commonly had fairly diverse
populations of students, large class sizes, and limited resources. The West high school, where




43


Leslie and Susie worked, had about 55 percent non-white students, and about 58 percent of the
students were eligible for free or reduced lunch. Teresa worked at the Central high school that
had 63 percent non-white students, and about 51 percent of the students were eligible for free or
reduced lunch. Teachers at both West and Central had been suffering from a severe budget cut.
th

The three candidates taught either 9 grade biology or chemistry. Susie and Teresa were in their
th

th

internship year (5 year) but Leslie was in her senior year (4 year) (see Table 6). The three
mentor teachers were all experienced teachers who had collaborated with the program for several
years. Their approaches to teaching science were so-called ‘traditional,’ but they were reasonably
successful teachers in these challenging urban high schools. In summary, Leslie, Susie, and
Teresa shared most contextual factors that potentially would involve in their learning of
assessment practices. Even so, they developed different kinds of assessment practices while
responding in different ways to their occasions for learning.
Table 6. The three focus cases for assessment practice
Candidates
Leslie
Susie
Ethnicity, gender
White female
Asian female
Major
Biology
Chemistry
Urban high school
Urban high school
School setting
(West high school)
(West high School)
Subject to teach
Stage of program
Mentor

th

th

9 grade biology, the
unit of genetics
th
Senior (4 year)
Mrs. F (graduated
from the program)

9 grade chemistry,
Chemical reaction
th
Intern (5 year)
Mrs. B

Teresa
Asian female
Biology
Urban high school
(Central high school)
th

9 grade biology, the
unit of genetics
th
Intern (5 year)
Mrs. R (graduated
from the program)

Data Collection
Multiple data types were collected to document candidates’ mechanisms of learning the
two focus practices. The primary sources of data were candidates’ teaching episodes. A teaching
episode was a unit of data collection produced through candidates’ guided engagement in the




44


teaching cycle—planning, teaching, assessment, and reflection. Various artifacts around the
teaching cycle were generated by candidates as they responded to the deliberately designed
occasions for learning with a form of written reports or videos. One of teaching episodes
included a set of interviews that were conducted with a candidate, his/her mentor teacher, and
course instructor using the candidate’s teaching video. In addition, candidates’ vision statements
and extra interviews with candidates using a clinical interview video were also used as sources of
data.
Teaching episodes. Each candidate produced two or three teaching episodes per
semester. I selected one episode per semester for each candidate as a primary data source, and
used other episodes as complementary data. Typically, data from one teaching episode included
written plans and reports of teaching. Candidates were required to include their teaching video in
one teaching episode each year. Each year, I collected at least two teaching episodes for each
candidate, including the one that had a teaching video. The different types of data included in the
teaching episodes are described in detail as follows.
A. Plans and reports of teaching. Each teaching episode includes a written plan and a
report. The “plan” has the descriptions of lesson objectives, classroom activities, and assessment
items. The “report” includes candidates’ stories about their teaching (e.g., stories of what
happened during the lesson), three focus students’ responses to both their assessment questions
and their instruction, and ideas for improvement. These written data showed both actual practices
and ‘narrativatized’ practice. The plans and reports of teaching were used as the major source of
data for analyzing assessment practice. The assessment questions in their plans showed the first
step of assessment practice—providing opportunities for students to give information about
themselves. Their written analysis of three focus students’ responses to their assessments showed




45


what candidates identified about their students and how they interpreted it. Finally, their stories
of ideas for improvement included candidates’ responses to students (i.e., the last element of
assessment practice). The narrativatized practices of classroom activities were used as the
complementary source for triangulating the patterns of actual practices identified from the
teaching video. In addition, candidates’ stories about the two focus practices were used for
analyzing candidates’ knowledge and identities.
B. Candidates’ own teaching videos. Candidates videotaped at least one lesson at their
school placement while developing one teaching episode. Teaching videos were analyzed to
characterize candidates’ actual practices of classroom activities. These videos were also used for
interviews with candidates, mentor teachers, and course instructors.
C. Interviews using teaching videos with candidates, mentor teachers, and course
instructors. I conducted individual interviews with all 14 candidates, the14 mentor teachers, and
the two course instructors, using candidates’ self-made teaching videos. Interviewing using
videos has been suggested as an effective approach to understand teachers’ reasoning behind
their science teaching practice and their professional vision (Enyedy, Goldberg, & Welsh, 2006;
Sherin & van Es, 2005; van Es & Sherin, 2008). Furthermore, interviews provide opportunities
for candidates to tell stories about self(s) and practices of science teaching, either currently or
designated practices in the future in their classroom. It also allows other important members of
communities who work most closely with candidates to tell stories about candidates, his/her
practices, and the nature of interaction and relationship with candidates. Candidates’ stories
about self and practices, in particular their interpretation about practice, resources, and ideas
from different professional communities were used for analyzing candidates’ learning of the two
focus practices, their knowledge, and identities.




46


The interview was semi-structured; typically one interview took between 60 and 70
minutes. I selected two short segments of videos before the interviews. Each segment was three
to seven minutes long; one segment captured characteristics of classroom activities (i.e., the
focus practice I), and the other showed candidates’ interaction with students, a key part of
assessing and responding to students (i.e., focus practice II). During the interviews, questions
were asked before and after watching the two segments of videos. The important part of this
interview was to provide opportunities for interviewees to highlight and code (i.e., interpret) the
two focus practices of this study in response to my both open and structured questions.
Examples of questions for highlighting and coding include: (a) What do you notice in the video?
Is there anything that stands out to you? (b) What do you like or dislike about it and why? (c) Is
there anything that you would like to do differently? If so, why? (see all the questions in the
interview protocol in Appendix 3). Besides the highlighting and coding of the focus practices, I
also asked about (a) school contexts, (b) relationships with students, mentor teachers, course
instructors, and other members of communities, if any, in relation to their practices (e.g., how to
work when you plan a lesson), and (c) current and future self (s) as a teacher. The same or
similar questions were asked of candidates, mentor teachers, and course instructors in order to
compare what they highlighted and how they coded (i.e., interpreted) what they highlighted with
respect to the two focus practices of this study.
D. Artifacts of teaching episodes. Other artifacts about teaching episodes provided by
candidates or mentor teachers were used as complementary sources of data, such as worksheets,
PowerPoint presentation slides, examples of students’ work, or models used in the videotaped
lessons.




47


Other data sources. Besides the teaching episodes that have multiple sources of data
generated by multiple members, there were other important sources of data that were used to
triangulate patterns of practices identified from the main teaching video. Some of these data were
analyzed to understand the mechanisms of learning—the roles of candidates’ knowledge and
professional identities in the learning process. Those data included candidates’ vision statements
and interviews with candidates using a clinical interview video.
E. Candidates’ vision statements: Statements of good science teaching and teaching
philosophy. Teacher candidates developed statements of good science teaching at different
stages of their teacher preparation program as a part of their course assignments. Depending on
course instructors, some candidates produced “vignettes of good science teaching” that included
exemplary teaching episodes that they experienced or wanted to see in their classroom, along
with their analysis. Teaching philosophy statements produced at the end of the internship year
were also added to the data if available. All these data included candidates’ stories about self(s)
and practices at different stages of their program. These data were especially useful to see
candidates’ vision of good science teaching, and their designated identities—what kind of
science teacher they wanted to be and what kind of science teaching they wanted to master.
F. Interviews with a clinical interview video. During the first year of data collection, I
conducted other individual interviews with the eight teacher candidates from cohort I and II,
using one video. This video showed a faculty’ member’s clinical interview with a sixth grade
student, Jeremiah. In the video, Jeremiah had rich personal experiences of gardening with his
father and knowledge about plants, but dismissed the school knowledge associated with the term
“photosynthesis” by saying, “I don’t know a lot about photosynthesis. I did not pay attention to
that part.” During the individual interviews, the candidates watched and responded to Jeremiah.




48


This interview, by using the same video, created a ‘controlled’ environment where candidates
were provided with exactly the same information about a student, Jeremiah, through video, and
12

had opportunities of identifying, interpreting, and responding to him . This interview was used
as complementary data to triangulate candidates’ patterns of assessment practices that emerged
from their own teaching episodes.
Data Analysis
The purpose of this study was to understand the mechanisms of candidates’ learning of
the two science teaching practices—the practices of classroom activities and assessment. In this
data analysis I examined the processes by which candidates developed certain kinds of practices
as they responded to occasions for learning. The model of beginning teachers’ mechanism of
learning was developed through the examination of the processes of both acquiring knowledge
and of authoring professional identities as framed in the conceptual framework.
In the first stage of data analysis, I analyzed all 14 teacher candidates’ cases to find
patterns of the two focus practices of this study—the practices of classroom activities and
assessment. Considering the emerging patterns of practices, general characteristics of candidates’
understanding of science for teaching, school contexts, and other elements that are involved in
13

mechanisms of learning, I selected the six focus cases --the three candidates at similar suburban
high school contexts for classroom activities practices, and the other three at similar urban high
school for assessment practices—for the second stage of data analysis that was about model
building. In the second stage, I examined their knowledge and professional identities to explain
how and why the candidates developed certain kinds of science teaching practice following the

























































12

See the interview protocol at Appendix 4

13

See the rationale and the detailed process of selecting six focus cases in the section on
participants, pages 54-57



49


conceptual framing. In the following section, I describe the detailed process of data analysis at
each stage.
Stage I: Finding patterns of the two focus practices. The two focus practices of this
study—classroom activities and assessing and responding to students—needed to be specified
with a “common technical vocabulary” (Grossman & McDonald, 2008, p. 186) in order to
characterize patterns of practice in a valid and reliable way. This specification of the focus
practices should align with both the conceptual framework and the empirical evidence existing in
the data. The specification and data coding were conducted iteratively at the first stage of data
analysis. The major sources of data for finding patterns of candidates’ practices were (a)
candidates’ teaching video, (b) interviews about the teaching video, and (c) the written plan and
reports of the videotaped lesson from one teaching episode. The data from other teaching
episodes were also analyzed to complement the patterns of classroom activity practices that
emerged from the main teaching episode. For the assessment practice, candidates’ interviews
with a clinical interview video were analyzed as supplementary data sources as well. The detail
of the process of analyzing data for each focus practice is described in the following section and
summarized in Table 7.
Planning and enacting classroom activities. One teaching episode included multiple
sources of data about the same classroom activities enacted by candidates. The data included: (a)
teaching video, (b) a written plan and report, (c) the candidate’s interview about the videotaped
lesson, (d) a mentor’s interview about the videotaped lesson, and (e) a course instructor’s
interview about the videotaped lesson. The data were analyzed with four steps: (a) developing
the coding schemes for each focus practice, (b) data coding, (c) finding patterns of practices, and
(d) triangulating and checking reliability. The patterns of classroom activities practice emerged




50


from one teaching episode were triangulated using other teaching episodes. Overall data analysis
was conducted with the help of Nvivo 8, a computer software program for assisting qualitative
analysis.
Table 7. Data analysis of the two focus practices
Classroom activity practices
Major data source Teaching video
Written plan and report
Candidates’ interview
Mentor’s interview
Instructor’s interview
Supplementary
Written plans and reports of
data source
other teaching episodes
Elements of
(a) Goals of lesson
practices for data
(b) Roles of activities
analysis
(c) Roles of students

Unit of analysis

An account about three elements
of classroom activity practices.
One account consists of one or
multiple sentences.

Assessment practices
Written plans and reports of multiple
teaching episodes
Candidates’ interview
Teaching video
Interview with a clinical interview
video
(a) Providing opportunities for
students to give information about
them
(b) identifying
(c) interpreting
(d) responding
Accounts generated from one student
response that have information about
candidates’ noticing and responding to
students

A. Developing coding scheme. To characterize candidates’ practices of teaching, I first
examined each candidate’s written plan and report and interview transcript. As I read through
written plans and reports of teaching and interview transcripts, I identified the places that
included candidates’ stories about classroom activities. At this initial stage, I developed
analytical memos linked to each data source from the 14 candidates’ teaching episodes using
NVivo. The analytical memos included relevant segments of data, analytical summaries, and my
initial observations and comments about classroom activity practices. Next, I developed the
“standardized descriptors” of each type of data in order to code the analytical memos using
NVivo software. The standardized descriptors represented the main content of each segment of




51


data, such as “objectives”, “sequences of activities”, “ideas for improvement”, and “relationship
with mentor teachers” (see Table 8).
Table 8. Examples of standardized descriptors
Plan and report
Examples of
• Classroom activities
Standardized
o Objectives
descriptors
o Sequences of activities
• Assessment items
• Making sense of students’
responses
• Ideas for improvement

•
•
•
•
•
•

Teaching video
Introduction of the lesson
Relationship with the mentor
Concerns
Comments about the lesson
Teaching materials
Goals of the lesson

Three elements of classroom activities commonly appeared in the two types of data
across most candidates’ cases. These elements were (a) goals of the lesson, (b) roles of activities,
and (c) roles of students. I decided to use these elements to characterize candidates’ classroom
activity practices because of their alignment with research on reform-oriented science teaching
and their strong empirical presence in this source of data.
Data were first coded with the standardized descriptors using NVivo. The result of this
coding allowed me to see the contents of one descriptor from all candidates on the same page,
and thus to easily compare and characterize different kinds of classroom activity practices across
candidates. For example, with respect to the descriptor of “Goals of the lesson,” whereas a
candidate’s account was focused on students’ content understanding (e.g., “finding patterns from
data and formulating a new explanation”), another candidate’s account was focused on social
aspects of learning (e.g., “getting them to work together”). I developed two levels of “codes” that
captured the characteristics of proposed goals in candidates’ stories of practices. One is
“descriptive codes” that directly come from the data and characterize candidates’ accounts, such
as “getting them to work together,” and the other is “interpretive codes” that group similar
characteristics of descriptive codes together, such as “content understanding”, “social aspect of




52


14

learning”, and “motivational/behavioral aspect” . These two levels of code helped me to
address the issue of balancing objectivity and subjectivity in the later process of checking
reliability. During the data coding, considering the interpretive code linked to the multiple
descriptive codes allowed the coder to code the data capturing the meaning of the words in the
context of teaching, rather than simply relying on the words themselves. This was important
because many candidates appropriated the program language in their own meaningful way
without understanding the underlying meaning of it during the interview.
B. Data coding. Candidates’ interview transcripts were coded again with the final coding
scheme for classroom activities using NVivo 8. The coding scheme was iteratively revised
whenever moving to another candidate’s case. The unit of analysis in this coding was an account
about any of the three elements. One account consisted of one or more sentences. I coded
candidates’ teaching videos using the same coding scheme. The written plan and report were
used to triangulate the consistency of the results of coding of both teaching video and the
interview transcript. With respect to the six focus cases, mentor teachers’ and course instructors’
interview transcripts were coded in the same way in order to compare their accounts of
classroom activities with candidates’ accounts, with respect to goals of lessons, roles of
activities, and roles of students.
C. Finding patterns of practices from the results of coding. The number of codings was
counted and converted into percentages in a spreadsheet to find the overall patterns of practices
across different types of data in each candidate’s case. The percentage chart showed which
aspect of goals of lesson, roles of activities, and roles of students were highlighted more than
others relatively in both teaching videos and their accounts.

























































14
See the coding scheme for classroom activities in appendix 5.



53


D. Inter-rater reliability and triangulation. The coding schemes were regularly
discussed with one faculty member at weekly meetings. Another doctoral student in the science
education PhD program coded samples of data to check the reliability of my coding. The initial
inter-rater reliability was below 50% because of the different level of interpretation in the
process of coding data between two researchers. As I described above, the greatest challenge in
this process was how much the researcher codes the account relying on the words in the accounts
themselves. Coding the data relying on words that were captured in the descriptive codes made
the result of coding objective and reliable, but it failed to capture the meaning attached to the
words because candidates often meant different things even when they used the same program
language (e.g., inquiry, explaining). This reflects the difficulty of “capturing the substantive
meanings of events rather than just the events themselves” (Kennedy, 2010, p. 245). In order to
balance objectivity and meaningfulness, I developed ‘interpretive codes’ in addition to the
existing ‘descriptive codes,’ and had the second researcher recode data using the new coding
scheme. The coding scheme was continuously revised until we reached to over 80 % reliability.
Candidates’ patterns of practice were identified from the multiple data sources within one focus
teaching episode, and then the patterns were triangulated with the data from other teaching
episodes.
Assessment practices. The process of analyzing assessment practices was very similar to
the one for classroom activities, except that the elements of assessment practices were specified
from the prior conceptual framework. As described in the theoretical framework in Chapter 1,
assessment practices were examined with respect to (a) what kinds of opportunities candidates
provide for students to give information about their learning either formally or informally, (b)
what they identify (i.e., highlight) about students from those opportunities, (c) how they interpret




54


(i.e., code) what they identify, and (d) how they respond to students. Candidates’ suggestions
and ideas of modification for improvement showed their instructional responses to their students
as well as the lessons that they drew upon from their experiences. The coding scheme for
assessment practices was developed with respect to these four elements through the same
15

process .
The major sources of data for assessment practices were (a) written plan and reports and
(b) the candidates’ interviews about their lessons. Written plans and reports included candidates’
assessment questions or tasks, the description of three focus students and their responses to the
assessment questions, candidates’ analysis of students’ work, and ideas for improvement.
Candidates’ interview transcripts included their accounts of students and students’ responses to
their instruction. The unit of analysis of this coding was the accounts generated from one student
response. Data showed that one student response usually generated one cycle of assessment
practice, from identifying to responding. If candidates summarized or pointed out the pattern of
student responses, that account was also counted as one unit of analysis.
All 14 teacher candidates’ assessment practices were analyzed using sets of data from
candidates’ two teaching episodes. For the three focus cases of assessment practice, I also
analyzed another interview with candidates using a clinical interview video. I coded this
interview using the same coding scheme for assessment practice to triangulate patterns of
assessment practices that emerged from candidates’ own teaching episodes.
Stage II: Building the model on the mechanisms of learning through the analysis of
knowledge and professional identities. The results of the first stage of data analysis showed
patterns of practices for 14 candidates’ classroom activities and assessment. Overall the

























































15
See the coding scheme for assessment practice in appendix 6.



55


candidates were separated as two sub-groups who were either successful or less successful in
making use of resources and ideas from the program to develop reform-oriented practices. As
described in the above focus case selection and in the overview of methodology of chapter 1, I
selected the six candidates who showed different learning trajectories even though they shared
many characteristics with one another and worked in similar contexts. While selecting the six
focus cases, I also set up comparisons of candidates in similar contexts—three suburban high
school cases and three urban high school cases in order to focus on the process of candidates’
knowledge development and authoring professional identities as framed in the conceptual
framework. With respect to the selected six cases, I analyzed candidates’ understanding of
science teaching and their professional identity to develop the explanatory model of the
mechanisms of beginning teachers’ learning.
Candidates’ knowledge for science teaching. Candidates’ knowledge was analyzed from
their highlighting and coding in their stories of science teaching. While telling their stories,
candidates picked up the salient aspects of their experiences (i.e., highlighting) and interpreted it
(i.e., coding) in a certain way. Candidates used their knowledge to make sense of what they
noticed (Sherin & van Es, 2005). Accordingly, candidates’ stories of practice, in particular their
interpretation of the practices and resources reflected their understanding of science and teaching
science. The major sources of data were each candidate’s interview and written reports of
teaching from two or more teaching episodes. Candidates’ vision statements were also analyzed
as supplementary data sources.
The analysis of candidates’ knowledge for science teaching was guided by the four
strands of scientific proficiency described in the most recent reform documents. As the learning




56


goals or outcomes of science education, these documents describe students’ scientific proficiency
in the four strands as the following (NRC, 2007, p. 36):
Students who are proficient in science:
5. know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world;
6. generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations;
7. understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge; and
8. participate productively in scientific practices and discourse.
The core question for examining teacher candidates’ understanding of science for
teaching is how candidates understand the meaning of student proficiency in science. In order to
analyze the ways in which candidates understand science for teaching, I identified the four
elements of knowledge for teaching from the strands of scientific proficiency while considering
its presence in actual data (see Table 9). The four elements are: (a) the meaning of understanding
science, (b) the roles and the relationship of key components of science, including observation,
experiences, data, pattern finding, scientific models, or theories in the process of developing
students’ scientific knowledge, (c) the relationship between scientific knowledge and practice in
their instructional representation, and (d) the relationship between the classroom learning
community and scientific community with respect to the roles of participants in each community.
Using this framework, I examined candidates’ highlighting and coding in their stories
about science teaching. In particular, I closely examined their interpretation of practices in terms
of candidates’ senses about goals of instruction and its effectiveness with regard to student
learning. The six candidates’ knowledge were analyzed individually, and then cross-examined. I
found two different ways of understanding science for teaching from this cross-examination.




57


These two different ways of understanding science for teaching were characterized with respect
to the four elements.
Table 9. The four elements of knowledge for teaching
The four strands of scientific proficiency
The four elements of knowledge for teaching
students who are proficient in science:
(a) the meaning of understanding science
1. know, use, and interpret scientific
(b) the roles and the relationship of key
explanations of the natural world;
components of science, including observation,
2. generate and evaluate scientific evidence
experiences, data, pattern findings, scientific
and explanations;
models, or theories, in the process of
3. understand the nature and development of
developing students’ scientific knowledge
scientific knowledge; and
(c) the relationship between scientific
4. participate productively in scientific
knowledge and practice in their instructional
practices and discourse.
representation
(d) the relationship between classroom learning
community and scientific community with
respect to the roles of participants in each
community.
Professional identities. In this study, professional identities were conceptualized as
collective stories about a candidate in/and practices told by multiple peoples. Professional
identities consist of two types of stories: (a) the stories about their current self in/and practice
(i.e., actual identities) and (b) the stories about their future self in/and practice (i.e., designated
identities). Whereas actual identities reflect candidates’ current practices based on their current
available tools, personal resources, the nature of interaction and relationship with people in
social contexts, designated identities reflect their aspiring practice and resources if they do not
have now then in the future. It should be noted that candidates’ understanding of science for
teaching is not a separate entity from their professional identities. Rather, candidates’
understanding of science for teaching is one of their key resources that determine the kinds of
practice that they are currently capable of engaging in, which is reflected in their actual
identities. Candidates’ practices are reflected in the collective stories about current self(s) in/and




58


practices, but the practices themselves are not the same with the actual identities. Rather,
practices are reconstructed through a story-teller’s narrativatization.
The data showed that the stories about self in/and practices were organized around the
four elements: (a) goals, (b) classroom activities, (c) students, and (d) roles of and relationship
with people. These elements guided my analysis of both their actual and designated identities.
For actual identities, the interviews with candidates, mentor teachers, and course instructors
conducted at the last stage of the program or after graduation were used as the major sources of
data. I also analyzed other complementary data that included any stories of candidates’ current
self(s) in/and practices, that were (a) written plans and reports, and (b) interviews using a clinical
interview video. For designated identities, candidates’ vision statements were used as the
primary data sources. Candidates developed vision statements (e.g., accounts of good science
teaching, teaching philosophy statement) at three different stages of the program: (a) at the
th

th

beginning of senior year (4 year), (b) at the beginning of internship year (5 year), and (c) at
the end of internship year. The three vision statements were coded and compared to examine any
16

changes in their aspiration throughout two years . Candidates’ interviews with teaching video
conducted at the end of the internship year were used as supplementary data source for analyzing
candidates’ designated identities.
Building the model about the mechanisms of beginning teacher learning. In order to
develop the explanatory model about the mechanisms of beginning teacher learning, specifically,
how candidates produce certain learning outcomes (i.e., actual practices and interpretation of
practice) as their responses to occasions for learning, I examined the patterns of each candidate’s
two focus practices in relation to their highlighting and coding, their understanding of science for

























































16
See the result of coding of designated identities in appendix 12.



59


teaching, and their actual and designated identities. I also examined across the six candidates’
cases while comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences.
As I noted before, candidates’ understanding of science for teaching was not a separate
entity from their professional identities. Both of the conceptual constructs were analyzed from
their stories about self in/and practices. Candidates’ ways of understanding science for teaching
was one important personal resource that enabled them to engage in their current practices.
Therefore, understanding of science for teaching was reflected in their actual identities. Despite
the inherent conceptual overlapping between the notions of knowledge and professional
identities of this study, both conceptual constructs were useful because each of them allowed me
to examine the mechanisms of learning from the different perspectives. By taking the analytical
‘lens’ of candidates’ understanding of science for teaching, I focused on examining individual
candidates’ internal cognitive process while candidates respond to the occasions for learning and
their effects on the development of certain types of practices. The analytical ‘lens’ of
professional identities allowed me to examine the process of developing certain types of
practices through candidates’ interaction with activities and people in social contexts.
Subjectivities
As a qualitative researcher, I recognize that any observation and interpretation that I
made were filtered through my own professional vision and biases that were formulated with my
own experiences, values, and knowledge. I am an Asian woman who used to be a science teacher
at two low resourced public schools in Republic of Korea. I had six years of middle school and
high school teaching experience in that country. Through the struggles of teaching science at the
early stage of my career as a science teacher, I was convinced that the traditional science
teaching did not provide students meaningful and powerful learning experience. I came to




60


strongly believe that preparing a quality teaching force is the key to make actual changes in
classroom. My personal journey of learning how beginning teachers learn started a long time
ago, even before this project. While a graduate student, I learned about the structure and
characteristics of the teacher preparation program by observing science methods courses and
shadowing university field supervisors’ work. During the first year of data collection, I took on
the role of university field supervisor for six interns, including Monica. Although David, Teresa,
and Susie were not the interns that I was supervising, I was able to hear many stories about them,
including their progress and struggles in the field, from both their field supervisor and course
instructor through weekly instructor meetings throughout the whole year. During the second year
of data collection, I taught the senior-year methods course; the four senior participants in this
study—Lori, Lisa, Scott, and Stella—were my students. I was not formally related to either
Leslie or Adam through the program, but my close relationship with their course instructors and
field supervisors allowed me to encounter pieces of stories about them, though this was rare. My
roles and relationships with the candidates certainly influenced my interpretation as well as the
candidates’ responses, because I knew them and the contexts that they had to deal with. I was
actually a part of the context that candidates had to respond to, and I was aware that all the
participants recognized this when they responded to my interview questions.
I addressed the issue of subjectivities with multiple layers of triangulation. First, I used
multiple data sources to find patterns of practices. The patterns were triangulated with other
teaching episodes. Second, I gained multiple perspectives from multiple people on the same
segments of teaching video, including teacher candidates, course instructors, mentor teachers,
and myself. By comparing the interpretation in their narratives on the same teaching episodes, I
was able to compare and triangulate my interpretation with others. Third, I set up comparisons of




61


cases at similar contexts, and I was a part of their common context. Finally, I conducted a formal
inter-rater reliability check of my coding results with another graduate student with a sample of
data.
Limitations of this Study
There are two limitations that should be noted in reading the findings of this study. The
first concerns the data collection, and the other involves the data analysis. Two teaching episodes
per one candidate were collected each year as the primary sources of data. The patterns of
classroom activity practices, that is one of two focus practices of this study, were analyzed from
the one main teaching episode that included candidates’ teaching video, the written plan and
report, interviews with the candidate, mentor teacher, and course instructor. This teaching
episode was the one that was taught at the last stage of candidates’ internship year. Then, this
pattern of classroom activities was triangulated with other sources of data or the other teaching
episodes. Regarding the analysis of the patterns of classroom activities, the results would be
more reliable and valid if multiple sets of complete teaching episodes had been collected and
analyzed. Also, multiple teaching episodes might allow me to trace the changes of practices
throughout one or two years. The process of data collection requires time and energy from both
researchers and candidates. It also increases the amount of work for analyzing data. Finding a
balance between producing reliable and valid evidence of candidates’ learning and having
reasonable time and energy is tricky but important for future investigations.
The other limitation concerns the process of checking the inter-rater reliability of coding.
Only a small sample of data could be coded by the other graduate student using the coding
scheme that I developed due to the constraints of the resources. A broader reliability check with
two or more other researchers would make the results of coding more reliable.




62


Chapter 4.
Findings I: Planning and Enacting Classroom Activities
Overview
This chapter examines the process by which secondary science teacher candidates
develop certain kinds of practice of classroom activities as they respond to deliberately designed
occasions for learning. I analyzed 14 teacher candidates’ classroom activity practices manifested
in both their actual practices (i.e., teaching video) and their narratives of practices (i.e.,
interview). The results indicate that only five candidates were clearly successful in making use of
the perspectives and resources of the program as they planned and enacted classroom activities;
the other nine candidates were less successful in making use of the program’s ideas and
resources to plan and enact classroom activities in a way that supports students’ meaningful
understanding. I selected the cases of the three teacher candidates who worked in similar
suburban high school contexts. I closely examined the ways in which they responded to the
occasions for learning in relation to their understanding of science teaching and professional
identities (i.e., actual and designated identities). The three cases showed that candidates’
understanding of science for teaching affected (a) what they highlighted about their experience
and classroom activity practices, (b) how they coded (i.e., interpreted) what they highlighted, and
(c) their selection of resources, ideas, and advice provided by the professional communities.
Despite the fact that the program deliberately designed occasions for candidates to learn from
professional communities, candidates’ responses were profoundly constrained by their
understanding of science teaching in how they highlighted and interpreted experiences, practices
of classroom activities, resources, and advice from the professionals. Candidates selected
resources, ideas, and advice based on their interpretation of them; thus candidates who had




63


initially different ways of understanding science for teaching from the program were less likely
to make use of resources and ideas from the program.
Candidates’ professional identities, in particular their designated identities, also affected
their learning from their mentor teachers and their course instructors as they engaged in
classroom activities practice. Candidates positioned themselves as a learner of science teaching
in certain ways depending on their perceived gap between actual and designated identities, which
affected their ways of interacting with the professionals.
This chapter begins by presenting the 14 teacher candidates’ patterns of classroom
activity practices. Then the cases of three focus candidates—David, Monica, and Adam—are
described in great detail. The description of each case is structured in three parts: (a) stories
about the candidate, (b) the nature of occasions for learning for the candidate, and (c) the
candidate’s responses to the occasions for learning. By presenting the stories about candidates
and their practices told by multiple people, including candidates themselves, their mentor
teachers, course instructors, and myself, I intend to help readers to see candidates’ actual
identities—their current self(s) in/and practices constructed through collective stories. Because I
purposefully selected three suburban candidates’ cases who worked in similar suburban high
schools, the differences in the nature of occasions for learning were mostly associated with
resources provided by their mentor teachers and their preferred instructional approaches (e.g.,
reform-oriented vs. traditional). The patterns of classroom activities of one teaching episode
taught at the last stage of their program were analyzed in both their actual practices (e.g.,
teaching video) and their narratives on practices (e.g., teaching video interview). Candidates’
narratives on their practices were compared with their mentor’s and course instructor’s narratives
in terms of what they highlighted and how they coded (i.e., interpreted) what they highlighted.




64


The descriptions of the three cases are followed by my analysis of the three candidates’
understanding of science for teaching and their designated identities across two years. Finally,
the process of learning to teach is discussed in relation to their understanding of science for
teaching and authoring professional identities.
Fourteen Candidates’ Patterns of Classroom Activity Practice
Two patterns were found in candidates’ classroom activity practice as the result of data
17

coding . One group of candidates, consisting of five of the 14 candidates, highlighted and
interpreted the goals of classroom activities, the roles of students, and the roles of activities with
the focus on students’ conceptual understanding of content. Their classroom activities provided
meaningful opportunities for students to interact with both content and other students. The other
group, nine out of 14 candidates, focused primarily on procedural or motivational roles in their
highlighting and interpretation of the three focus aspects—the goals of the lesson, the role of
students, and the role of activities. Their classroom activities passively engaged students in the
process of reproducing canonical scientific knowledge without making connections between
observations and scientific models or theories (see Table 10). In the following section on the
three focus cases—David, Monica, and Adam—I describe (a) stories about the candidate, (b) the
nature of occasions for learning for the candidate, and (c) the candidate’s responses to the
occasions for learning.


























































17
See Appendix 7: The results of coding about classroom activities



65


Table 10. Fourteen candidates' classroom activity practices
Classroom activities supporting
Classroom activities focusing on
students’ meaningful
delivering content as the final
conceptual understanding of
answers
materials
Candidates Monica, Susie, Adam, Leslie
David, Teresa, Shannon, Alisa
Interns Leslie, Scott
Mary, Kevin, Stella, Lynn
Seniors
Goals
Actively engaging students in
Teaching the content (i.e. the correct
scientific practices
answer) and process/skills (i.e.,
Developing safe and comfortable critical thinking skills, problem
learning environment
solving skills, scientific method)
Roles of students
Actively interacting with both
Actively engaging in tasks
content and their peers
Finishing the work following the
Developing their own knowledge direction
from data
Roles of activity
A selected activity provides
A selected activity motivates
meaningful opportunities for
students and helps them remember
students to make connections
the information better by visualize or
between observations and
illustrate the content.
scientific theories/models.
The Case of David
David is the candidate who was provided with consistent resources and ideas from both
his mentor and the program, but who failed to demonstrate his learning of reform-oriented
teaching. To begin with, I present stories about David told by himself, his mentor, and his course
instructors. The stories were organized around the four elements: (a) goals, (b) classroom
activities, (c) students, and (d) relationships with people. Next, the occasions for learning locally
created for David in Mrs. M’s classroom are described. In the latter part, the patterns of David’s
classroom activities in both actual practice (i.e., teaching video) and narratives of practice (i.e.,
his stories about practices during the interview) are presented with the results of coding. David’s
highlighting and coding (i.e., interpretation) of the classroom activities in his teaching video
were compared with the highlighting and coding of his mentor and course instructor.
Stories about David




66


David was a white male intern who majored in biology and had a minor in chemistry. He
wanted to be a high school biology teacher, and he had a firm vision about good science teaching
when he got into the program in his senior year. David was concerned about relevancy, and he
believed that science is fun and interesting when we can relate it to students’ everyday lives. In
his vignette of good science teaching that he wrote at the very beginning of his senior year,
David described a mitosis and meiosis lesson in his high school AP biology course as “One of
the best examples of science teaching that I can remember.” As demonstrating his designated
identities in this vignette, David highlighted that the teacher activated students’ prior knowledge
to make connections, made every subject exciting by relating it to their everyday lives, did not
make students bored by giving a short lecture, got students to have some fun by actually acting
out the [mitosis and meiosis] processes as a class, and finally helped students to remember the
information. David stated, “Since everyone was having so much fun with it, we all learned it
very well. Acting it out gave us all really good connections to remember the information, too.”
Throughout the internship, David enjoyed teaching and did not encounter any troubles
with students at the academic-oriented high school in a university town. In his stories about self,
David described himself as a “laid back”, “relaxed,” and “free flowing” teacher for his students
during the interview:
David: More laid back…I don’t know, kind of like, I like…kind of relaxed…I’d say I’m
a teacher who expects students to do what they’re supposed to be doing. Like,
they’re supposed to meet me half way and, you know, do the things I want them
to and, and if they do, then there’s not really going to be too many problems or
anything like that.




67


While offering lots of freedom to students, David expected that students should “hold
their responsibility to pay attention,” and “If they’re not paying attention that’s their choice.” In
general, students were respectful to David. David was clear about his expectations about grading,
which most students of this school were concerned about. In his methods course, David was a
“relaxed” participant who often made jokes. The course instructor, Dr. R, described David as the
candidate who did not take teaching very seriously, while expressing her concern about his
attitude. She said that David “was so flippant about things.”
Dr. R:

I had concerns about several things. One was not about his practice. It was
about his attitude without practice cause I early on just didn’t think that he took
teaching very seriously. It was just because he was so flippant about things. I
mean he has a good sense of humor. He’s a joker. But sometimes that leaked
into some of… I think that he was very confident about his ability. He thought
he could be a fine teacher. I don’t think he thought the program would do him a
whole lot of good you know. I think that he thought of himself as somebody
who was a pretty good teacher coming in.

While working with his mentor, Mrs. M, David was “laid back,” which made Mrs. M
concerned about his planning. Mrs. M stated, “My number one concern is planning, and then the
subset of that would be content knowledge to be able to relate to ninth grade kids.”
Mrs. M: The planning portion, I didn't really feel like it was a strong relationship. He
would take a look at what my materials were, and then he would design his
lessons, but very rarely did I see lessons early. So that was a real struggle,
trying to be able to figure out entirely where are you going with this? You've




68


seen what my plans are and you understand the content, but how are you going
to relate that to kids?
David was aware of the difference in their approaches to planning, and pointed it out as
one key difference between himself and his mentor. David interpreted it as the matter of
personal propensity, such as organized vs. flexible, that comes with experience for the most part:
David: With my planning, I don’t plan as far ahead as Mrs. M does. She does a lot of
things where she’ll plan really far ahead with the genetics that we’re doing right
now…And I like that, I just haven’t planned far enough ahead to actually set
something like that up, but - that’s a difference there. I think that she’s more
organized in knowing what she wants to do and I think that will come with
experience too, obviously, but - I think that Mrs. M likes to make sure that all of
her classes are on the same pace, and I - I am more flexible as far as - like, if one
class is not understanding something, like, allowing them to get a day behind so
that I can re-teach something.
David also highlighted his mentor teacher’s approach of “re-teach for all three classes, so
that they’re all at the same pace” as another difference between himself and his mentor, and
negatively interpreted his mentor’s approach because it took out the time for covering the vast
amount of content required by the standards.
Despite both course instructor and mentor teacher being concerned about his “content
knowledge to be able to relate to students,” David thought that he and his mentor were pretty
similar in that they “both like to tell stories, like personal stories that relate to things and allow
the students to do that too,” except the fact that his mentor had more stories due to her longer
experiences.




69


During the interview, Dr. R said, “[David] felt like he knew how to work with students,
he felt like he knew his content, he never, he never, in as far as I could see in all the stuffs he
turned in, he never doubted his understanding of content.” It was evident that David was less
interested in seeking out resources and advice from both his mentor and course instructor while
positioning himself as a confident candidate as being illustrated in Mrs. M’s following
comments:
Mrs. M: Just in terms of behavior, he was very closed. In terms of what you would see,
his physical stance was with his arms crossed. Kind of staying at a further
distance from me, and just saying, “Okay, okay, okay,” and not really asking the
‘why’ part. It was very short, like, “I've heard you” and that was it. Body
language alone was very telling, at least for me.
It should be noted that the interviews with Mrs. M and Dr. R were conducted after David
graduated from the program. The stories about David and his practices told by Mrs. M and Dr. R
were constructed from their memories of their year long or two-year experience of working with
David, rather than those were the narratives constructed from one time observation of David and
his practices in one particular teaching episode presented by a teaching video. While
characterizing David as “a confidant traditional teacher who emphasizes procedural display
kinds of things from your students, Dr. R said, “That’s not just from this video, but from other
kinds of things that I see”, “If we get procedural display from him, it’s not surprising.”
The Nature of Occasions for Learning for David
David’s mentor, Mrs. M was a 12-year veteran science teacher who graduated from the
same teacher preparation program. She got her master’s degree in the area of educational
technology at the same university. Mrs. M had broad mentoring experiences with candidates and




70


beginning teachers, including seniors and interns from the program, undergraduate students at
the nearby community college, and new teachers at her school.
Mrs. M was a highly regarded mentor teacher who provided candidates with a good
model of science teaching practices advocated by the program. Mrs. M did not teach directly
from the textbook in her biology course. Her instruction started from content expectations, which
she translated into learning objectives for students. She said, “We start with content expectations
for us to read, and then we write an objective sheet.” Mrs. M carefully selected a classroom
activity by considering “what you do with it, and why it is important, and what’s follow up.”
There were many “pieces” that she had to consider, and “the selection of activity has to fit all
those pieces.”
Mrs. M: Then you take that activity – what does that activity help you do? Does it help
you understand the structure of DNA? Okay, does it not? You first have to
make a decision – does it help or does it not? If it is something that’s going to
be meaningful to help the kids make their understanding, okay, that's fine. But
what are you going to do with it? Use it as an introductory piece? Do you use it
after they’ve learned something and use it as their practice? Or do you use it as
a way of assessing where it went. I think it’s the selection of the activity and
what you do with it and why it is important. And what’s the follow up? You've
done the activity, now what? What does that mean? So the selection of the
activity has to fit all those pieces.
Mrs. M described activities as “a frame of references” that all students of her classroom
commonly were able to have. She said, “[Students] all have the same experience and you can
work from that experience and visit it multiple times if you need to.”




71


Mrs. M’s instruction was focused on students’ ideas and their conceptual understanding.
She asked students many “series of questions to get there,” and continuously assessed students’
understanding before, during, and after her lessons to respond to them immediately. Therefore, in
David’s case, both the program and mentor teacher advocated and modeled reform-oriented
science teaching practice coherently, and made the ideas and resources available to him. David
was in a good position to learn reform-oriented practices from communities of practice without
tension between the two important communities that he had to be involved with.
David’s Responses to Deliberately Designed Occasions for Learning
David’s classroom activity in the teaching video: Actual practice. The topic of the
lesson in David’s teaching video was DNA replication in the unit of genetics. David used small
18

plastic models and a packet of worksheets

that he got from his mentor teacher in this lesson.

Students had learned about the structure of DNA by using a plastic model in the previous lesson.
In this lesson, David’s purpose was for his students to understand the process of DNA replication
using the same plastic DNA model. He opened up the activity by stating the goal of the lesson,
“learning how DNA is replicated.”
T: Today’s going to look a lot like yesterday, except we are going to be learning a new
concept about DNA, and how DNA is replicated. It will be using the model that we
were using yesterday. We are going to use those examples and go through a few notes.
And then the questions that are in that packet that I handed you yesterday, the packet
with the directions, how to do this activities, I want you to answer those, and have
those get to me tomorrow.
S1: What?

























































18
See Appendix 8: David’s worksheet of his DNA replication activity



72


S2: One second, what?
T: So the packet that has directions for this activity within it yesterday and today. There
are three questions on the first page and two on the second page. I want you to turn in
tomorrow. And then the last reminder, you don’t have to write this agenda, [it’s] just
reminder. If you did do your extra credit opportunity that was Midwestern University
lecture, if you listened up the lecture, if you want to turn the extra credit in the first
lecture, that’s due today. So if you didn’t go to it, then obviously doesn’t need to do.
… [The class is getting noisy]
T: I want you guys to work with the people who are sitting next to you today.
[David gets some students who do not have a seating partner to move their seat]
T: I am going to pass out the DNA pieces. I want you to start from the second page of the
packet. [The class is noisy. David passes out the DNA pieces]
T: Hold on a second! Guys! When you are building this, all right, follow the direction on
the second page. What I want you to do is, since you already know how to build DNA,
when you are making this small piece of DNA to start with, I think you should be able
to make this in 15 minutes. So go through the replication as much as you can, and then
we are going to talk about it. When you are done with your replication, raise your
hand. I will come over, and I will compare my DNA with yours to see if you are
correct. So you have until 9:55am in order to get this done.
While introducing the day’s activity, David highlighted the procedural aspects in terms of
both the goal of lesson and roles of students. He gave students the task of building a model by
“following the directions” on the packet, and then showing him if their model is “correct.”




73


After about five minutes of short introduction, the students started working with their
partner. The key activity of this lesson was “DNA replication modeling.” As indicated in the
introduction, students followed the direction on the packet and simulated the process of DNA
replication using the plastic DNA model for 15 minutes. When they finished it, they called David
and showed their model to him. In 15 minutes, David got students’ attention back to him, and he
went over the replication process in front of all students using his correct model for about five
minutes. He had students correct their model if it was wrong. After wrapping up this modeling
activity, he gave a PowerPoint lecture about the DNA replication process for 23 minutes. David
explained in detail the DNA replication process, including the basic components of DNA, the
purpose of replication, the process of zipping and unzipping, and the function of enzymes in the
process (i.e., helicase, DNA polymerase). Students quietly listened and took their notes during
this lecture. During his lecture, he sometimes asked questions of students. If one or another
student gave the correct answer that he looked for, he moved to the next point.
T: So we had an original [DNA]. We made two. What happens to the actual halves of the
DNA strands that were originally there? Is there all the same DNA strands? Is there
one on each?
S: There is only one strand in each copy.
T: Right. It was split and the DNA was built in the middle, so there is only one strand in
each copy. There is one old strand in each copy. Okay? This will be what we call the
DNA template strands, so the strands that we use to build a new DNA, Okay?
S: [quiet]




74


T: And then one new strand in each copy. [show his model of DNA] So in your copies of
DNA, this would be the same in any DNA you think of being replicated, one of the
strands is old copy, and one of the strands is the brand new copy of DNA, Okay?
S: [quietly writing down the information on the PowerPoint presentation on the notes]
About three minutes before the bell, David showed a short web-based animation that
simulated the process of DNA replication. He said, “What I want to do to finish up class today,
as we went through the replication and we modeled it, I just wanted to show you one more
animation. Just so you can have seen it in one different way. Without having to touch it, you
concentrate what’s actually happen.” Students watched the animation, showing their interest
after listening to the long lecture.
Goal of lesson, roles of students, and roles of activity in David’s teaching video. The
analysis of the teaching video showed that this lesson was focused on delivering procedural
scientific knowledge—the process of DNA replication [code G-b: reproducing factual
information or canonical knowledge]. There was only one moment when the teacher talked about
the goal, at the very beginning of the lesson. David said, “Today’s going to look a lot like
yesterday except we are going to be learning a new concept about DNA, and how DNA is
replicated.” And then the rest of the lesson was devoted to students getting through the process
using a hands-on activity, comparing it with the ‘right’ model that the teacher made, and getting
through the process step by step with the PowerPoint lecture. The major roles of students in the
activity coded through the analysis include (a) following directions, (b) remembering
information, and (c) paying attention to the teacher. The major roles of activity coded in the
analysis include (a) making science interesting, (b) getting students to remember the new
information, and (c) visualizing the concept. The modeling activity served as the representation




75


of the invisible phenomenon, but the connection between the model and real world examples was
not addressed very well, either through teacher’s explanation or questions to students in the
video (see Table 11). Overall, this activity engaged students in reproducing canonical scientific
knowledge—the process of DNA replication—by following the directions with the provided
worksheet.
Table 11. David's teaching video
Focus aspects
Interpretive/descriptive codes
Presented Goals
• Reproducing factual information/ canonical knowledge (G-b1)
• Getting some skills or procedural knowledge (G-b2)
Roles of students
Relating to procedural/behavioral aspect
• Following directions (S-b1)
• Filling out worksheets or taking notes (S-b2)
• Paying attention (S-c3)
• Giving answers to the teacher’s questions passively (S-b4)
• Getting things done (S-b5)
• Reproducing the process (S-b6)
• Remembering information (S-b8)
Roles of activities
Relating to procedural/motivational aspect
• Simply visualizing concept without making connection across
scales or phenomena (A-b5)
• Solidifying the concept by confirming canonical knowledge (Ab6)
David’s classroom activity in interview: narratives of practice. The same two
segments of David’s teaching video were used for interviews with David, Mrs. M, and Dr. R.
Their narratives on David’s classroom activities were coded in terms of highlighted goals of the
lesson, highlighted roles of students in the activity, and highlighted roles of activity. Their
interpretations about the highlights were analyzed as well (see Tables 12, 13, and Figure 3).
A. Goal of the lesson. Despite that David, Mrs. M, and the course instructor all talked
about the goal of this lesson relating to the “process of DNA replication,” David highlighted and
coded (i.e., interpreted) the goal in a different way from both Mrs. M and Dr. R did. David’s goal
was “for [students] to be able to explain how replication happens, the steps in replication.” He




76


also said, “My specific goals were to have them go through the directions, so that they could
model how replication is happening, so that they would have that experience before we talked
about it in a lecture.” Mrs. M said, “I think that he is trying to accomplish that there's a process.
If you use these models, you will know what that process is.” The course instructor also
highlighted, “I think his goal is, he wants them to understand replication, what’s the purpose of
replication.” David interpreted that students having experience before he gave his lecture was
effective and appropriate because “It gives them something to link those definitions and steps [of
DNA replication] that we talk about in the lecture.” David said,
David: So [students] could actually, like, while we’re going through the lecture, they can
be, like “Oh, okay, this is when I did that part of the modeling.” “This is when I
unzipped the DNA. I pulled the two strands apart.” So, to give them something
hands-on and visual to relate to what we’re going through in the notes. The point
is to give them experience that they can build patterns from. So, like, to give
them the experience of actually modeling, so that they can provide answers for,
like, why that’s happening or how that’s happening, while we’re going through
the notes of how replication actually works.
David’s highlighting of the goal was mostly focused on reproducing the procedural
aspect of knowledge (i.e., explain the steps in replication) as well as procedural aspects of
students’ activity (i.e., go through the direction). He interpreted it positively because students can
“build patterns from” the experience, so they can provide answers for why and how replication is
happening during the later lecture. However, both the mentor teacher and the course instructor
interpreted that this goal is “problematic” or “faulty” because it does not help students to actually
develop meaningful understanding about DNA replication. Both Mrs. M and Dr. R drew upon




77


their observations of David’s practices throughout the year to interpret what they highlighted
while telling their stories. Mrs. M started making her comments saying, “Based on what I see
and what I remember from last February…”
Mrs. M: Based on what I have seen, what the kids are going to get out of this? …What's
the process? What's the point? Is it really right or wrong? Can't you be
somewhere in the middle? … I think there's just more in there, that's
troublesome to me.
Dr. R interpreted negatively pointing out the similarity of this lesson to the other episode that she
remembered. She said, “just like doing the digestive system is doing something else.”
Dr. R: I mean I think his goal is, he wants them to understand replication what’s the
purpose of replication, but I don’t know. First of all, if all they’ve had is DNA
structure, I don’t even know if they have any sense of, you know, what’s the
purpose of replication…I mean, why does that happen and maybe he started that
way. But if he didn’t, it just doesn’t seem like there is this driving question, 'why
would I care about replication?' … If the idea is, if the goal is, “I want them to
be able to tell me what replication is” and maybe [I would ask him to] “show
me.” Then he probably is maybe if he does enough of this stuff with them.
Maybe he’s achieved his goal, maybe. I think the goal is faulty, um and his uh
his assumptions about students understanding and their learning are faulty.
It should be noted that David appropriated much of the program’s language, such as
“give them experience that they can build patterns from” or “modeling” in his own meaningful
way to label his practices. However, both his mentor teacher and course instructor were skeptical




78


about the appropriateness of the goal in relation to students’ meaningful understanding of the
content.
B. Roles of students. All three parties highlighted the students’ roles in the activity
focusing on students’ behaviors such as “following the directions”, and “taking notes,” even
though Mrs. M and Dr. R expressed their strong disagreement about the appropriateness of these
roles in relation to students’ learning. For example, David said, “You try to get through it, but
then it’s frustrating because, you know, you have kids in the class who are not at the same point
you are when you’re talking about it, so - and one thing that I dislike is, students don’t know how
to follow directions.” Mrs. M also highlighted that “following directions” was the major
expectation of students in this activity while expressing her disagreement. Mrs. M said, “I don't
know if the kids would necessarily be able to just pick up a set of directions and read it, and then
know what to do with it and then try to figure out why they just did it.” Both the course
instructor and the mentor teacher expressed their concerns about students’ passive roles,
specifically not using students’ ideas. They interpreted that students’ ideas were not valued, and
students did not have ownership of the knowledge. For instance, Mrs. M characterized the nature
of scientific knowledge and the role of students in David’s lesson in one sentence: “There are
certain things that [students] need to know, and this is what they are.” Dr. R said, “I don’t think
his students ever owned the knowledge. It was always what he wanted them to know and he gave
them the package for it.”
Dr. R: There wasn’t really a sense of the students’ idea. Oh even though he knew that he
should think about student ideas, I think he had some, you know. Another one of
these things that he recognized what the program valued. He knew that we valued
students’ ideas, he knew that we valued questioning, he knew that we valued




79


inquiry, he knew that we valued careful planning. I mean a whole variety he was
quite aware of that. He was a very good diagnostician in that respect. But I think
he, he used so, it was more about form and not function as he would enact these
things, which on the surface might have been interpreted by some people as being
inquiry or you know reform minded teaching or that he was really listening to
kids ideas. But I never really felt like he pulled that all the way through. It was
like he would ask questions or try to use examples of real life stuff that he thought
the teenagers would be interested in. But I never really felt like it was integrated
into the meat of what he was teaching cause he still had these very canonical
kinds of things he wanted them to understand.
C. Roles of activity. There was a big discrepancy between David’s highlighting and
interpretation and both Mrs. M’s and Dr. R’s with respect to the role of his modeling activity.
David highlighted the role of the activity focusing on its procedural/motivational aspects, such as
“get students excited”, “get them to remember new information better”, and “visualizing the
concept.” He was very positive about this activity because “it gives them something to link those
definitions and steps, too, that we talk about in the lecture”, and “giving them something that
they can remember…the new information.”
David: The hands on activity before that doesn’t necessarily tell them exactly how it
works, but it gives them something to link those definitions and steps, too, that
we talk about in the lecture, so, you know, in the lecture, when I say “the DNA
is unzipped”, then they’ve already did that. They didn’t necessarily realize that
it was called DNA unzipping, but they can be like “oh yeah, that’s when I did
this.” And when we went through the lecture, they have their models in front of




80


them, so that they can do it as we’re going through the notes too. But, just giving
them something that they can remember in their head that they did and, you
know, remember—using that as a way to remember the new information.
However, both Dr. R and Mrs. M’s interpretation about the roles with respect to students’
learning were quite different. Dr. R said, “There is too big a gap.” “I never really felt like the
kids were building the knowledge.” Similarly, Mrs. M said, “Based on what I have seen, what
the kids are going to get out of this?”
Dr. R: I would bet that David thinks by having [students] do this themselves, maybe not
how it is following directions that’s fine, the fact that they are doing something
making something is gonna, make what he’s saying more ‘relevant.’ They're,
they're getting some ownership out of this activity. I can't see it. But I could see
that he might see it cause it’s hands-on, it’s doing something, just like doing the
digestive system, is doing something. But then he’s just gonna give them a
lecture afterwards and somehow it’s magically all gonna fit into place cause
he’ll be able to take that activity and map his power point onto that thing that
they just made. I don’t see it. I think there is too big a gap, and I don’t think it’s
the right order at all.
Mrs. M: Based on what I see and what I remember from last February, yeah, [David
might think that] “by having kids use things, that means they learn things. The
note part – in the end, I'm right. There are certain things that you need to know
and this is what there are.”…Based on what I have seen, what the kids are going
to get out of this? They know they have to model. They know they're either
going to be right or wrong, and they know they have questions that they have to




81


answer. But aren't those kind of three separate things? That whole sequence is
kind of a concern.
In addition, both Dr. R and Mrs. M highlighted both the authoritative nature of scientific
knowledge presented in this lesson and David’s model of students’ learning—his understanding
about how students learn science—and they negatively interpreted its impact on students’
learning through his instruction. Dr. R pointed out that David had the “canonical kinds of thing
he wants his students to understand,” so it prevents his students from having real ownership of
the knowledge. Mrs. M also expressed her concerns repeatedly about David’s positioning with
respect to scientific knowledge and students as an authoritative source. Dr. R said, “His
assumptions about students’ understanding and their learning are faulty.” Mrs. M pointed out
David’s problematic assumption “by having kids use things, that means they learn things” from
her point of view. In summary, all three watched the exact same teaching video, but David
highlighted different aspects of classroom practices and interpreted what he highlighted in a
substantially different way from the way that his mentor and course instructor did. Table 12
compares and contrasts the highlighting and coding (i.e. interpretation) among David, his
mentor, and course instructor. The number shows the total number of units coded in each
category of descriptive codes. Both Table 13 and Figure 3 were generated from the coding
results of David’s interview transcript. Table 4.4 shows the results of interpretive codes—which
aspects were more or less highlighted by David in his accounts on the classroom practices.
Figure 3 shows the relative percentage calculated from Table 13. Once again, this figure shows
which aspect was relatively more or less highlighted in David’s accounts with respect to goals,
roles of students, and roles of activities.




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Table 12. David's narratives on his classroom activity practice
Candidate
Mentor
Course instructor
(David)
(Mrs. M)
(Dr. R)
Highlighted
Identifying (procedural)
Identifying
Identifying (procedural)
Goals
(2)
(procedural)
Highlighted
Following the direction
Follow the direction
Following the direction
role of
(3)
(2)
students
Filling out the worksheet Taking notes (1)
or taking notes (1)
Understand the
Paying attention (3)
purpose of activity (1)
Giving answers to teacher
(1)
Getting things done (4)
Figuring out answers (2)
Highlighted
Getting students excited
Visualize the concept
Get them to do
role of
(1)
(1)
something
activities
Getting students to
Get them to do
remember new
something (1)
information (1)
Visualizing the concept
or content (3)
Giving students
experience that they can
build knowledge on it (3)
Coding
This activity is useful
It is doubtful if students understand either the
because it actively
purpose or the process of DNA replication.
engages students and
It is problematic to present science as
helps them remember the authoritative, the right answer
steps of DNA replication Not using students’ ideas; students do not have
process.
ownership of their knowledge
David’s model of student learning is
problematic—just because having students use
things, does not mean they learn the materials
19

Table 13. David's highlighting of classroom activities at interview
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Content understanding
Social
Procedural/behavioral

0
0
2

2
0
12


























































19
Each number in the table shows the total number of coding



83


3
0
5

David
100%

80%

Procedural/
behavioral
Social

60%

40%


Content
understanding

20%

0%

Goals

Role of
students

Role of activity

Figure 3. David's highlighting of classroom activities

20

Summary of David’s case. Despite the fact that David was in a good position to learn
reform-oriented practices while providing consistent ideas from both his mentor and the
program, the analysis of both the teaching video and the interviews indicated that David was not
successful in planning and enacting classroom activities as advocated by both his mentor and the
program. His actual practice as manifested in his teaching video provided students with limited
opportunities for engaging in science by having them simply reproduce the canonical scientific
knowledge following his directions. In David’s narratives about his classroom activity, he
highlighted the goals of the lesson, the roles of students, and the roles of activities, mostly
focusing on procedural or behavioral aspects rather than content understanding and the social
aspect of students’ learning. He interpreted what he highlighted positively in relation to students’

























































20
The chart is developed from the coding results in the table 4.4. This chart shows which aspect
was relatively more highlighted in David’s accounts with respect to goals, roles of students, roles
of activity



84


understanding of the concept, which was contradictory to both his mentor teacher’s and course
instructor’s interpretation about it. The mentor teacher and course instructor constantly drew
upon their observations of David’s practices to construct their narratives. Interestingly, there
were a couple of times that David appropriated terminologies from the teacher preparation
program to highlight and interpret certain roles of the students or activity. Despite this “labeling”
of his procedural practices using the language of the reform-oriented practice, both his mentor
teacher and course instructor expressed their strong concern about David’s practices, pointing
out that his practice did not provide opportunities for students to learn science meaningfully.
The Case of Monica
Stories about Monica
Monica was a white woman who had a bachelor’s degree in Zoology and Aquarium
science when she got into the teacher preparation program. Monica’s goals as a teacher were
helping students understand science in a cognitively challenging but socially and emotionally
supportive classroom learning community. The teachers that Monica liked the most were the
ones “that challenged you a little bit, but then found ways to challenge you and make you feel
successful still.” One of the words that she liked to use in her classroom was “a community of
learners.” Monica wanted her students to feel “accepted for who they are” through the support
system in her classroom that she created. Her lunch hours were always crowded with students
who tried to get extra help from her. She was busy greeting and talking with students before and
after her classes. She often began her lesson celebrating a student’s birthday, other special
events, or recognizing students’ personal and/or small accomplishments.
As described above, one strong component that repeatedly resonated in Monica’s current
and future stories (i.e., actual and designated identities) was developing a comfortable social




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environment where everyone was cognitively challenged but could be successful. It was also a
point of difference between Monica and her mentor teacher highlighted by Monica. Although
Monica was always respectful to her mentor teacher, she wanted to be a different kind of teacher
from her mentor teacher who was “very by the book”, strict and harsh to students. Monica
thought that “there is only so much I can do” by creating a relaxed environment.
Monica: I try to make it not intense and like – you know, my mentor is a lot – she’s very
by the book, and there are things I probably shouldn’t let my kids get away with
sometimes, like they’ll not be taking notes. But honestly, sometimes in my
opinion, it’s more work to – if they’re not going to take notes and I’ve reminded
them a couple times at that point there’s only so much I can do. So I hope that
it’s a little bit of a relaxed environment for them. I like to think that it’s
comfortable.
Monica was an active participant in her methods course during her internship year. She
volunteered to share her stories at the school with other interns during discussion, raised many
questions, and contacted her course instructor and her university supervisor to get extra feedback
on her lesson plans or resources for teaching. Her course instructor, Dr. R said, “Monica asked a
lot of questions both before she would plan, but also while she was teaching. She would
sometimes write me an email or when we saw each other in class, she really wanted to talk about
some things.”
Throughout her time in the program, Monica had struggled to teach science “differently”
from the way that she had learned science as a student. She said, “I don’t feel like up until
college, none of my classes really focused on inquiry or application as far as I can remember.
Like as a student you’re not really thinking about that.” During the interview, Monica told




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interviewers, “I get tired of lecturing and [students] don’t like lecturing. My first lesson I taught
to seniors, I lectured the entire hour. Their teacher must have threatened them because they were
really good.” It appeared that there was big a gap between what Monica was capable of in her
current practices (i.e., actual identities) and her aspiring practices (i.e., designated identities).
Monica actively sought out resources for teaching from other interns, course instructors, the
Internet, etc. For instance, she voluntarily visited a chemistry intern’s classroom next to hers to
observe her teaching a few days during her busy internship period, and incorporated strategies
that she found useful into her own instruction. Monica’s mentor, Ms. S, described Monica as “a
researcher.” Ms. S said, “She was quite a researcher, so she was really good about going out and
trying to find something new.” Ms. S also said, “Monica is really good at taking suggestion.”
While reflecting on her teaching practices over two years during the interview, Monica was
pleased about her changes. She said, “[If] I did look back at one of my senior year mini-lab
tapes, wow! [now] I do look different than that, so I was happy with that.” Monica’s story
suggested that she perceived some gap between her current practices and what she would like to
do, and she worked hard to close the gap while participating in both the teacher preparation and
school professional communities.
The Nature of Occasions for Learning for Monica
Monica’s mentor, Ms. S had about ten years of teaching experience. At this school, she
was teaching biology and human biology. Her classroom was always clean, orderly, and
organized. Ms. S used a time watch in her instruction to remove any downtime and make
transitions efficient. If the bell rang, students had to finish their work and move to the next
activity following Ms. S’s direction. Ms. S’s approach to science teaching was basically didactic,
though she used interesting labs or activities sometimes. The key thing that Ms. S would look for




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when she designed or selected classroom activities was “relevancy,” meaning whether the
activity would make her lecture clear and confirm the story, and so help students to remember it
better. She said, “I know when I’m lecturing and I want [the activity] to tie in directly to my
lecture. So, does [the activity] enhance what I'm saying or is it just fluff? I don't want to do a
craft just to do a craft, but if it is demonstrating a concept that I'm talking about, then it gives
them a better idea.” For instance, in her lesson on DNA structure, students did a cut and paste
activity to make DNA. Ms. S stated, “That was useful because we’re talking about the structure.
[Students] can manipulate it and things that you touch, you tend to remember more. You have a
picture of what you did in your hand. So I thought that directly related, rather than just making a
DNA model to make a DNA model.”
Ms. S’s classroom activity practice was very different from the one advocated by the
program. Ms. S was well aware of the conflict between hers and the program’s ideas. Mrs. S did
not hide her critical position on inquiry practice, while framing it as “The University’s
discovery.”
Ms. S: In the introduction, I would want to introduce objectives – what are we trying to
learn? That's where I'm not really familiar with the Midwestern University
discovery, discovering patterns on their own. If you give them an objective, are
they not discovering a pattern on their own because you've already kind of told
them it? You know? I would usually introduce a lesson with what I want them to
get out of the lesson and then at the end, go back and ask those questions or
somehow evaluate.
The “discovery” was problematic to Ms. S because the lessons take a long time to create
and to carry out. Furthermore, to Ms. S, “It was hard to watch when the kids weren’t getting the




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pattern.” Ms. S admitted that she did not use the inquiry approach in her classroom. She said, “I
don’t use it…it’s not my style and it’s uncomfortable to do something that’s not your
style...Yeah, and all of the Midwestern university is learning it this way, and I didn't go to the
Midwestern university, so I didn’t learn it this way. But I think it is a good approach.”
Throughout the internship, Monica got contradictory messages about science teaching
practices from her mentor teacher and the program. Monica was in a difficult position where she
had to ‘please’ both her mentor and the course instructor, who advocated different kinds of
practices in order to be a successful intern.
Monica’s Responses to Deliberately Designed Occasions for Learning
Monica’s classroom activity in teaching video: Actual practice. The videotaped lesson
was planned as a part of Monica’s methods course assignment. In this assignment, candidates
had to plan, teach, and report an “inquiry activity sequence.” Monica selected this teaching
video, among others, because she liked this lesson, and she felt “it was better than others.”
The topic of the lesson was incomplete/co-dominance in genetics. Students had learned
about Mendel’s law of dominance in previous lessons, and in this lesson Monica wanted her
students to understand incomplete/co-dominance genetic phenomena through students’ inquiry
activity. Monica found the activity idea from the Internet, and revamped it through her
conversation with peers and course instructors. All teaching materials, including pictures and
21

worksheet , were created by Monica. She opened up the lesson with “bell work” (warm-up
activities) while making a connection with previous lessons and clearly stating her lesson
objectives:


























































21
See Appendix 9: Monica’s worksheet of her incomplete/co-dominance activity



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Monica: We are going to start with bell work today. There are some pictures on the smart
board. Last week, a little bit before, we talked about dominant and recessive
inheritance patterns, so something is always dominant over something else,
Mendel’s law of dominant. Today we are starting to look at some patterns that
don’t necessarily follow that rule.
The journal question on the board was “How do the phenotypes of the following
organisms differ from the dominant/recessive inheritance pattern?” The five example pictures of
crossbreeding that do not follow the Mendel’s law appeared on the screen (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Monica’s classroom activity: Incomplete inheritance (For interpretation of the
references to color in this and all other figures, the reader is referred to the electronic
version of this dissertation)




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Three questions were posted with these pictures: A. What are some important phenotypic
patterns that you see in these pictures? B. What questions do these pictures bring up? C. Talk to
your table partners. What are some questions that your table partners had?
Students observed the five pictures that showed that the offspring did not exactly show
one parent’s trait, or showed a mixture of traits. They formulated questions from their
observations individually, and then they discussed their individual observations and questions
with peers in the table group for about five minutes. Monica got them to share their observations
and questions with the whole class after the individual and small group work, through whole
class discussion.
It should be noted that the first stage of inquiry framed in the inquiry framework (NRC,
2000) is formulating questions. Monica brought five real world examples of incomplete/codominant inheritance into her lesson at the beginning of the sequence, and guided students to
scientific practices, such as making observations, formulating questions from the real world
examples, and finding patterns based on their prior knowledge about Mendelian genetics.
Following about five minutes of bell work, Monica introduced the day’s activity, Easter
egg genetics lab. The outside of the egg represented the organism’s genotype, and the jellybeans
inside represented the organism’s phenotype. Each half of the egg represented one allele (e.g., if
the egg has two red halves, the genotype is RR). The worksheet included three different crossing
scenarios such as purple vs. green flowers, red vs. white fur, and blue vs. orange feathers, with
very student-friendly words and pictures.
To begin with, students reviewed the key concepts and terminologies such as genotype
and phenotype with Monica.




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T: The main activity for today is the Easter Egg Genetics Lab. Pull out the worksheet of
the Easter Egg genetics lab. [Students pull out their worksheet] So in this lab the
outside of the egg represents the organism’s genotype. Give me an example of
“genotype,” Abby?
S: ummm…
T: give me an example of genotype.
S: ummm..
T: [calling out one student] Would you help her out?
S: Capital A, Capital A?
T: Capital A Capital A [AA], okay. Sidney, what is another example of genotype?
S: ummmm.. little b little b?
T: [nodding her head] Little b little b [bb] is another example of genotype. Okay. These
eggs, the outside of the egg represents the genotype from the alleles. When we write a
genotype, how many alleles…. have?
S: [students raise their fingers]
T: Not one, I see fingers are up two while held up. It should be two. There is two alleles,
big A big A [AA]. That’s two alleles. Big B, little b, two alleles. How many halves
of my easter egg has?
S: Two!
T: Ooo! Yeah! So each half represents the allele. If you look at the purple and green, the
very top of the page, what letter is representing the color purples then?
S: Big B
T: Big B, so what letter is representing the green then?




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S: little b
T: Okay. [Showing an egg] so what is this egg representing?
S: Big B little b
T: Big B little b [Bb]. Yeah, half purple, half green...The inside of the egg has jellybeans.
The color of the Jellybean represents the phenotype. So what is the phenotype of this
individual?
S: purple
T: So the phenotype of this individual is purple. So when you look at your lab sheet, there
are going to be multiple spots that you need to write down the genotype and the
phenotype. So what should the genotype look like for the purple plants? So genotype
is the letter combination, the phenotype is the color that you see. So genotype on the
outside, phenotype on the inside.
After this brief review and introduction of the activity, Monica modeled herself what
students should observe with the eggs using two eggs. Then students got to work with partners
and filled out the worksheet for 17 minutes. During this time, they examined the genotype and
phenotype of the offspring that were represented as eggs, figured out the expected genotypic and
phenotypic ratio using a Punnett square, compared it with the actual results of observation, and
found patterns in the given examples. It should be also noted that Monica guided students to
connect what they found in this activity with Mendel’s model that was presented in a previous
lesson, by specifically asking the question, “How does this type of inheritance relate to Mendel’s
Law of Dominance?” She also guided students to do this modeling activity with their every day
experience through the question, “Can you think of any examples of this type of inheritance that
you’ve seen before? If so, what have you seen?”




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Students went over the worksheet with Monica as a whole class after finishing their
group work. Monica asked students to compare the example that follows Mendel’s law of
dominance with the other two examples that do not follow it. Students found that there are
genetic phenomena that do not follow Mendel’s laws, and they talked about similar phenomena
or examples from their everyday experiences. They revisited the five pictures from the bell work,
and they talked about the questions that they formulated using the idea of incomplete and codominance. Finally, Monica gave an example of co-dominance, ABO blood type, before the bell.
Goals of lesson, roles of students, and roles of the activity in Monica’s teaching video.
The classroom activity in this teaching video was coded using the coding scheme (see the detail
in Table 14).
Table 14. Monica's teaching video
Focus aspects
Interpretive/descriptive codes
Presented Goals
• Inquiry: Developing explanations about the phenomena or
solving problems by reasoning through data (G-c2)
Roles of students
Oriented to content understanding
• Formulating questions (S-c6)
• Making observation and finding patterns (S-c4)
• Coming up with explanations grounded in data/evidence (S-c7)
• Developing own knowledge/building own ideas (S-c8)
Oriented to social aspect of learning
• Sharing ideas and communicating with others (S-s1)
• Working together (S-s2)
Roles of activities
Oriented to content understanding
• Representing the phenomena or models to make connections
between observation and scientific model/theory (A-c2)
• Getting students to observe and find some patterns (A-c3)
• Giving students experience that they can build knowledge on (Ac4)
• Making connection with previous or next lessons (A-c5)
Oriented to social aspect of learning
• Getting students to work together and help one another (A-s1)
The results of coding showed that Monica presented a high-level cognitive goal (i.e., developing
explanations about the genetic phenomena), and students in her classroom took active roles with




94


both content understanding (i.e., formulating questions, observing and finding patterns, and
coming up with explanations grounded in data) and the social aspects of learning (i.e., sharing
and communicating ideas with peers, working together). The activity that modeled the
incomplete/co-dominant genetic phenomena helped students find patterns that were not
explained by previous scientific theory (i.e., Mendel’s law), so that students investigated a new
scientific explanatory model that explained new patterns.
Monica’s classroom activity in interview: Narratives of practice. Monica, her
mentor, Ms. S, and Dr. R’s narratives on the same segments of teaching video were analyzed.
The analysis was focused on what they highlighted and how they interpreted (i.e., coded) what
they highlighted with respect to the goals of the lesson, the roles of students, and the roles of
activity (see the results of coding in Table 15, 16, and Figure 5 below).
A. Highlighted goal of lesson. Monica, Ms. S, and Dr. R highlighted the inquiry aspect
of this lesson, though they described it using different terminologies. Whereas both Monica and
Dr. R used languages from the program, such as “inquiry”, “observing and finding patterns,” to
highlight her goals, Ms. S labeled it as “discovery.” Ms. S pointed out that it was a pattern of
Monica’s approach throughout her internship year saying, “She would often try to incorporate
that where the kinds have the experience and they find their own patterns.”
Ms. S: I know MSU patterns in discovery. She would often try to incorporate that where
the kids have the experience and they find their own patterns and then you ask
your questions about what you saw or you try to come up with a rule for what
you see in the world. So they're coming up with their questions.
In addition to the inquiry goal, Monica emphasized several times during the interview
that she tried to develop a safe learning community where students work together.




95


B. Highlighted roles of students. Both Monica and Ms. S highlighted the role of
students that is connected with content understanding through students’ engagement in science
practices, such as finding patterns from observations and figuring out answers. Again,
interestingly Ms. S described students’ practices in the activity as “solving riddles.” Monica also
highlighted the role of students that involved procedural or behavioral (e.g., following the
direction, filling out the worksheet) aspects as well as social aspects. Monica liked this activity
because students could share their ideas and work with their peers together. Like her highlighting
of goals, she pointed out several times how this interaction among students would be beneficial
to their learning. Similar to Monica, Dr. R highlighted students’ engagement in scientific
practices for content understanding, such as making observation and finding patterns.
C. Highlighted roles of activity. Interestingly, the roles of activity highlighted by Monica
and Dr. R were quite different than those highlighted by Ms. S. Whereas Ms. S mainly
highlighted the roles that involve motivational or procedural aspects, such as making it fun and
interesting, motivating students, visualizing the concept, and helping students remember
information, Monica and Dr. R highlighted the way that this activity represented incomplete/codominant phenomena and the connection with real world examples.
D. Competing discourses and different interpretation about the same video. Monica
interpreted the classroom activity of her video very positively, because the activity helped
students to “develop their own knowledge”:
Monica: The strength is that [students] develop their own knowledge, and that’s so much
better I’ve found than me telling them things because I can tell it to them as
many times as they want and they take tests, and they haven’t come up with a
way to remember it, so they haven’t actually learned it.




96


Dr. R also interpreted this activity positively saying, “that is a pretty reasonable beginning of an
inquiry-based investigation.”
Dr. R: I think that what she's trying to do is remind them of the basic pattern that they've
already established about dominance and recessiveness, and then say, “Okay,
now that you understand that, now we're going to change things up a little bit
and there's going to be something a little different in terms of both the alleles
and then the look and ratio of the offspring.” And that's a different pattern. Then
they have to come back around and figure out what might explain the
differences in the patterns. So I think that's a pretty reasonable beginning of an
inquiry-based investigation.
Ms. S, however, interpreted that this activity was good because it gave a visual and
“something to remember.”
Ms. S: I think it demonstrates the concept well. You know, you could have blue and blue
together and they're blue or you could have yellow and yellow together and
they're yellow, or you could have a yellow and a blue together and they're green.
I think it gave a visual and something they could touch rather than just talking
about purple flowers and white flowers. I think it gave them something to
remember.
The following Table 15 and Table 16 show the results of descriptive and interpretive coding,
respectively. The chart in figure 5 shows the relative percentages calculated from Table 16. It
demonstrates which aspects were more or less highlighted by Monica in her accounts on
classroom activities with respect to goals, roles of students, and roles of activity.




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Table 15. Monica's narratives on her classroom activity practice
Candidate
Mentor
Course instructor
(Monica)
(Ms. S)
(Dr. R)
22
Highlighted
Inquiry (discovery) Inquiry
Inquiry (2)
Goals
Developing a safe
Highlighted role
of students

Highlighted role
of activities

Coding

learning community (1)
Following the
directions (1)
Filling out the
worksheet or taking
notes (1)
Observing and finding
patterns (6)
Reasoning through data
(1)
Figuring out answers
(1)
Developing their own
knowledge/building
their own ideas (1)
Sharing ideas and
communicating with
others (2)
Working together (3)
Representing the
phenomena that are
difficult to observe to
make connections (3)
Getting students to find
some patterns (2)
Getting students to
work together and help
one another (3)
Activity helps students
to develop their own
knowledge

Observing and
finding patterns
Figuring out
answers (solving
riddles)

Observing and
finding patterns
Figuring out
answers
Developing their
own knowledge

Get students to
observe and find
some patterns
Visualize the
concept (4)
Make it fun and
interesting (2)
Motivate students
Help students to
remember
It gave a visual and
something to
remember

Representing the
phenomena that are
difficult to observe
to make connections
Getting students to
find some patterns


























































22
The number in the parenthesis shows the total number of coding



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Reasonable start;
would be good to
use real world
examples

Table 16. Monica's highlighting classroom activities at interview
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Content understanding
Social
Procedural/behavioral

2
1
0

9
5
2

5
3
0

Monica
100%
80%
60%

Procedural

40%

Social
Content understanding

20%
0%
Goals

Role of students Role of activity

Figure 5. Monica's highlighting classroom activities
Summary of Monica’s case. Although Monica was in a difficult position where her
mentor provided conflicting ideas and resources about classroom activity practices to the ones
from the program, the results of data analysis indicated that she was successful in making use of
both resources and demonstrating her capability of planning and enacting ambitious classroom
activities as advocated by the program. In addition, Ms. S’s comments suggested that Monica
had made her efforts to engage students in scientific practices throughout her internship year.
Both Monica’s teaching video and the interviews indicated that Monica set high-level cognitive
goals and provided opportunities for students to play active roles in developing their
understanding of content and interacting with both content and other students meaningfully
through the activity. Furthermore, her narratives on the classroom activity suggested that Monica
was sensitive about the social environment in students’ learning process, and she developed good




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knowledge and skills for planning and enacting quality classroom activities as advocated by her
teacher preparation program. Monica’s highlighting and interpretation about the classroom
activity were fairly similar to her course instructor’s, but those were significantly different from
her mentor teacher. They used different language to “label” practices featured in the same
teaching video. Whereas Ms. S mostly highlighted the procedural or motivational aspect of roles
in her narratives on classroom activity and expressed her discomfort with this type of inquiry
activity, Monica highlighted and interpreted positively and enthusiastically how the activity
supported both content understanding and students’ social interaction.
The Case of Adam
Stories about Adam
Adam was a white male intern who desired to be a biology teacher at the secondary level.
He graduated summa cum laude with an associate’s degree in computer networking from a
community college. He had some work experiences in technology-related fields, such as
technical support for a virtual university and an Internet provider. Adam was certified to teach
biology and integrated sciences from the program four years after his graduation from
community college. During his internship, he taught biology and conceptual physics with his
mentor teacher, Mr. V, at a suburban high school.
Adam had a vision of teaching “the fundamentals of science” and incorporating it with
biology content to begin with, although his ideas became more sophisticated with time. Early on
in his senior year, he highlighted the “scientific method”, “asking questions”, “formulating their
own hypothesis,” and connecting what students learn with their lives as qualities of good science
teaching. Later in his internship he stated, “My students not only learn biology and the
fundamentals of science. They develop the ability to question, observe, and explain the world




100


around them. The knowledge that they learn will be realistic and have a goal that can be applied
to their lives.” Adam’s mentor, Mr. V, identified Adam as someone who always struck him as
“having a real strong science mind.” He said that seeing the patterns is “inherent” in how Adam
learned about science, and Adam projected his way of understanding science onto the students.
Mr. V: Adam enjoys science a lot. So with his understanding of science, he’s able to see
the patterns and put them together. That’s his approach to understanding it, and
then he projects that on the kids. I think it’s inherent in how he thinks about
things. It’s like how a teacher will have a certain learning style that they learn
with or learned best with, so they tend to use that a lot more. It's the same way
with him. He learned science by seeing patterns, and so then he made that a
theme to point that out to kids.
To Adam, “the most important part of teaching science” was having students be able to do the
activities, such as “working on a problem and trying to solve it by making observations and
drawing conclusions.”
With his strong orientation to the fundamentals of science in his stories, Adam
highlighted students’ active roles through student-to-student interaction with the least amount of
a teacher’s help. He interpreted this type of independent-active role positively in the sense that
students “take an ownership over their learning” and “it can be a lot of fun for the students to be
able to think about the material and it removes science as not just an accumulation of facts.”
Although both his mentor teacher and his course instructor highlighted the students’ active roles
in Adam’s practices, their interpretations were slightly different from Adam. Both Mr. V and Dr.
G’s were skeptical about students being successful in activities without enough the teacher’s
guidance. Mr. V said, “Adam had a harder time going out and offering help without seeming like




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he was, if that makes sense…Adam was good when the students approached him but he wasn't
necessarily always seeking out those questions from them.” Similarly, Dr. G said, “But what we
talk about a lot in our methods class is that if you want these students to find patterns, sometimes
you have to help them. You can't just do a free for all.”
During his internship, Adam worked very closely with Mr. V. Adam thought that Mr. V
was close to what he imagined to be the ideal teacher. Adam said, “Mr. V is really good. His
level of connection… the way he makes a bond with his students is one of the parts of teaching
that I want to approach.” Mr. V said, “Adam always had a real interest in figuring out what was
going on and just sitting and learning about how you structure a whole unit. He always seemed to
be soaking it all in.” With a strong wish to be a good science teacher, Adam worked hard to learn
and improve his practices. Mr. V said, “Adam was pretty open to constructive criticism. He has a
real focus of wanting to be a good teacher and realizing some deficiencies and some strong
points that he has now and really wanting to work on those to improve them. If we would talk
about something, you could see him trying to implement them in the classroom.”
It appeared that Adam was less interested in participating in his methods course and
utilizing resources from the program, although he “was in line for the program in a lot of ways”
using the course instructor, Dr. G’s words. Dr. G said, “Adam did the assignments, but he didn’t
necessarily buy in to filling everything out the way we wanted it filled out…he would
participate…but he wasn’t one of the more involved students.”
The Nature of Occasions for Learning for Adam
Adam’s mentor, Mr. V was a 7-year experienced science teacher who graduated from the
same teacher preparation program. He had his internship at this school eight years ago, and used
to be a student of David’s course instructor, Dr. R. Mr. V had been working as a mentor teacher




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for several years. Similar to Mrs. M, Mr. V was highly regarded by the program as a mentor
teacher who understood and modeled reform-oriented science teaching practices for candidates.
In his instruction, Mr. V carefully guided students’ thinking to build their knowledge through
classroom activities embedded in real-world scenarios. With respect to selecting classroom
activities, Mr. V stated, “Trying to have hands on things that help students build ideas is kind of
the theme of my activities.” In addition, Mr. V believed that creating a comfortable learning
environment by building a relationship with students is critically important to teach science in a
reform-oriented way. He said,
Mr. V: You've got to break down some of the formalities that would be more traditional
if you want to get kids to be able to work well with each other, respect the
classroom and the stuff you've got here, and then to offer up ideas to you as a
teacher. They need to be able to trust you and building that relationship is
important.
Mr. V always greeted students in the hallway, talked with them before, during, and after
class, in and outside of the classroom. Whenever students did group work at the lab table, he sat
with students and made himself available to students. He knew every single student as an
individual, including their home background, what they liked or disliked, what they did over
weekend, etc. For instance, during the interview, he told the interviewer in detail about students
in Adam’s teaching video, who the student was, what she liked or disliked, and what her pattern
was in classroom, etc. Adam said, “The way that [my mentor] makes a connection to students is
very admirable.”
The science department of Adam’s school had a long history of collaboration with the
teacher preparation program. Many teachers had worked as mentor teachers, or had experiences




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collaborating with university professors through teaching methods courses, conducting research,
or developing curriculum materials together. This school was conceived by the program as one
of the ‘ideal placements’ for teacher candidates, where candidates would be able to experience
the kinds of science teaching practices advocated by the program and could access high-quality
resources coherently. Mr. V pointed out the role of this unique school context in candidates’
development saying, “I think interns here have it a little different”:
Mr. V: It’s a big theme of our department, teaching kids through inquiry and using
constructivism, and having them working in groups to come up with answers and
stuff…I think interns here have it a little different. We have tons of activities here.
We have so many people who teach biology, so that there are a lot of things for
them to use. So it’s hard to bring in something that doesn't work well.
While working as an intern at this school, Adam was in a good position to learn reformoriented science teaching practices. He had access to high-quality resources that were not
normally available to many other interns. He was also provided with consistent ideas about and
resources for science teaching practices from both his mentor teacher and the program.
Adam’s Responses to Deliberately Designed Occasions for Learning
Adam’s classroom activity in teaching video: Actual practice. The topic of the lesson
in Adam’s teaching video was pedigrees in genetics. Adam videotaped this lesson during his
spring lead teaching period. It was the first day of pedigrees, following the unit on inheritance.
In this lesson, Adam wanted to introduce the idea of pedigrees with the story of the Lion King,
including symbols and representations for using a pedigree in the following lessons. The idea of
classroom activity for this lesson was originally from the department of this school.




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After this short introduction to the activity, students moved to the lab tables in the back of
the classroom. There were two sheets on every table that showed the Lion King’s pedigree (see
the Figure 6). The key activity of this lesson was “examining the Lion King’s family pedigree.”
Students looked at it and talked about it with their peers for seven minutes to figure out answers
to the five questions on the sheet. The five questions were either about finding some patterns in
the pedigree (i.e., write down any patterns you notice about the diagram) or figuring out the
meanings of each symbol and the representation of pedigree (i.e., what does the green line
represent?).

Figure 6. Adam's activity: Lion King Pedigree (Figured drawn by Adam)
Students came back to their seats from the lab table after figuring out their answers to the five
questions, and then Adam went over them for about eight minutes. Adam passed out ‘pedigree




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notes.’

23

This note showed one big pedigree that consisted of three generations, and prompts

such as “affected males, affected females, normal males, parents and children, siblings, twins,
etc.” For 22 minutes students listened to the teacher’s explanation about pedigree and symbols,
identified equivalent symbols or individuals in the pedigree, and filled out the note.
24

Adam passed out another worksheet, ‘complete the pedigree. ’ Students wrote the genotypes by
examining the phenotypes of the pedigree while listening to the teacher’s explanation for about
15 minutes.
Table 17. Adam's teaching video
Focus aspects
Interpretive/descriptive codes
Presented Goals
High level cognitive goal
• Application: (G-c1)
Roles of students
Oriented to content understanding
• Observing and finding patterns (S-c4)
• Figuring out answers (S-c7)
Oriented to social aspect of learning
• Sharing ideas and communicating with others (S-s1)
• Working together (S-s2)
Oriented to behavioral aspect of learning
• Following the direction (S-b1)
• Filling out the worksheet or taking notes (S-b2)
Roles of activities
Oriented to content understanding
• Representing the phenomena or models to make connection
between observation and scientific model/theory (A-c2)
• Getting students to observe and find some patterns (A-c3)
• Making connection with previous or next lessons (A-c5)
Oriented to social aspect of learning
• Getting students to work together and help one another (A-s1)
Adam’s classroom activity in interview: Narratives of practice. The analysis showed
that in general Adam’s highlighting and interpretation about the goals of the activity, roles of the
students, and the roles of the activity were consistent with his mentor, Mr. V and his course

























































23
See Appendix 10: Adam’s worksheet A—Pedigree notes
24




See Appendix 11: Adam’s worksheet B—complete the pedigree

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instructor, Dr. G. All three of them highlighted how this lesson would provide the foundation for
the following lessons by making connections with previous lessons. They also highlighted how
students actively engaged in the activity for understanding content, and the ways in which the
activity provided opportunities to interact with other students and make connections with other
scientific models (i.e., Mendelian genetics) and examples (multiple genetic traits). Interestingly,
both Mr. V and Dr. G commented on the insufficient scaffolding for students’ engagement in the
activity (see Table 18, 19, and Figure 7).
A. Goals of the activity. The key activity of this lesson was the Lion King pedigree
activity. After watching the segment of video showing this activity, all three of them described
the goal as setting up some foundations for the following activities by teaching the symbols of
the pedigree. They particularly highlighted the connection of this lesson with following activities
regarding students’ understanding of genetic phenomena. Adam said, “To establish the
foundations for using a pedigree, to interpret later pedigrees.” Mr. V said, “I think he wants the
kids to be familiar with how a pedigree is set up, what the symbols are and then I’m assuming he
talks about and goes through an example where he has them identify the genotypes.” Similarly,
Dr. G said, “Probably his idea was to get them to understand that circles are females, squares are
males, horizontal lines means married, a vertical line means children. So he was probably trying
to get them to find patterns in a pedigree on their own.”
Adam: [The specific goal of this lesson was] to establish the foundations for using a
pedigree, to interpret later pedigrees. So later I would show them different
inheritance patterns and how they look on pedigrees. I’d also want them to learn
about inbreeding and show them an example of an inbreeding pedigree, as well.
Just showing them, starting out with that, I thought without them knowing what




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these different symbols meant, they would be lost. This was just to establish the
idea of pedigrees.
Mr. V: I think he wants the kids to be familiar with how a pedigree is set up, what the
symbols are and then I'm assuming he talks about and goes through an example
where he has them identify the genotypes. They usually like doing pedigrees, so I
think it makes it fun to do. I think he was probably able to get a lot of student
interest.
All of them positively interpreted the appropriateness of this goal. Adam also said that
most students understood the idea of pedigrees, thus this lesson was successful in achieving its
goal.
B. Roles of students. All three interviewees commonly highlighted students’ roles,
focusing on both cognitive and social aspects in relation to their sense-making process. They
highlighted that students engaged actively in this pedigree activity, such as “observing and
finding patterns” from the given pedigree and “figuring out the answers by themselves.” They
also highlighted the social environment where students could interact with each other, such as
“talking to one another to solve the problems”, “telling stories, and yet still be on task.” Whereas
Adam interpreted the role of students positively and productively for the most part, both Mr. V
and Dr. G expressed their concerns about lack of actual scaffolding provided by Adam, although
they interpreted the planned roles of students in this activity positively. Dr. G said, “I like that he
trusted the students to be able to find patterns…what I didn’t like is…I don’t think it was clear to
the students what they were supposed to do when they broke out into their lab groups … It
seemed almost like a free for all.” Mr. V said, “Adam was good when the students approached
him, but he wasn't necessarily always seeking out those questions from them.”




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C. Roles of activity. The role of the activity highlighted by Adam was strongly focused
on content understanding, how this activity would support students’ understanding of
representations of genetic phenomena using pedigrees. The story of the Lion King was one
example that most students were familiar with. By answering the five analytical questions about
the pedigree of the Lion King’s family, Adam thought that students came to understand the
symbols of pedigree (e.g., gender, generation, genetic traits), and how patterns of genetic traits
can be represented through pedigrees.
Adam: I believe that [students] need multiple examples of pedigrees, not just one. They
need to see many different types and to see how many different traits are
inherited. It’s also good if you tie it to some traits that they've seen before. We
just did Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance, so tying the traits that they
learned from before to how they fit in as a family. It helps them build that
connection.
Similarly, Mr. V highlighted the role of this activity focusing on students’ content
understanding. He pointed out how Adam tried to connect pedigrees with some real world
examples or genetic phenomena. Mr. V interpreted this activity positively because it engaged
students actively (i.e., “rather than just him telling them what [pedigrees] are”) and meaningfully
(i.e. “[Adam] is definitely hitting on some of the key things that we want to do”). He commented
that the familiar story of the Lion King motivated students to participate in the activity. Mr. V
said, “It’s nice when you get students talking about things with their peers and figuring out
answers themselves. I think it’s a good activity.”
Mr. V: Well, I think he's doing a good job of getting the kids to look at a pedigree and
come up with the patterns that are there, rather than just him telling them what




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they are. So he seems to be getting the kids involved. He’s using “The Lion
King,” tying it in with something they're familiar with so they are going to be a
little more engaged because of it. It seems like he’s definitely hitting on some of
the key things that we want to do.
Mr. V also pointed out that Adam’s instructional approaches of this episode was fairly
consistent throughout his internship year. Mr. V said,
Mr. V: kids see a pattern and they figure it out in order to build that knowledge…Adam
seemed to get that early on in the year. It seemed a little more inherent in what he
was thinking…so for him, seeing patterns was something that he did himself, and
then that made him a little more aware of getting students to see those.
Dr. G highlighted both the motivational function as well as content understanding (i.e.,
“giving students some freedom in discovering the patterns”).
In summary, all three of them highlighted and interpreted the goal of the lesson, the role
of the students, and the role of the activity in a fairly similar way for the most part. Their
highlighting and coding included students’ content understanding, their social interaction in their
learning process, as well as the motivational aspect. Interestingly, however, Mr. V and Dr. G
made similar comments on the scaffolding provided by Adam in relation to the roles of students.
Both of them liked students to play active roles in this activity, but they pointed out that it would
be hard for students to be successful without substantial supports from Adam. Table 18 and
Table 19 show the results of descriptive and interpretive coding, respectively. The chart in figure
7 shows the relative percentages calculated from Table 19. It demonstrates which aspects were
more or less highlighted by Adam in his accounts on the classroom activity with respect to goals,
roles of students, and roles of activity.




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Summary of Adam’s case. The result of data analysis showed that Adam’s highlighting
and coding about the classroom activity were consistent with his mentor teacher and his course
instructor for the most part. All three of them highlighted the high level of the conceptual goal of
the lesson and the way that the activity provided the foundation for students to understand
genetic phenomena. They also highlighted the role of students, focusing on cognitive and social
aspects of learning. However, both the mentor teacher and the course instructor were concerned
about the lack of scaffolding that supported students’ active roles provided by Adam. This result
indicated that Adam was fairly successful in classroom activities except for providing substantial
scaffolding that supports students’ successful engagement.




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Table 18. Adam's narratives on his classroom activity practice
Candidate
Course instructor
Mentor
(Adam)
(Dr. G)
(Mr. V)
Highlighted
High level conceptual
High level
High level
Goals
goal (1)
conceptual goal (1) conceptual goal
Highlighted role Thinking and analyzing Observing and
of students
critically (4)
finding patterns by
Observing and
Going through thought themselves (2)
finding patterns
process (1)
Figuring out
answers (1)
Making connection
among concepts (1)
Building their own
knowledge (1)
Observing and finding
patterns (4)
Communicating and
sharing ideas with
Drawing
conclusion/figuring out peers (2)
answers (1)
Understanding the
purpose of activity and
make connections (1)
Communicating and
sharing ideas with
peers (2)
Working together (3)
Highlighted role Representing the
Making content
Making content
of activities
phenomena for making interesting (2)
interesting
a connection among
Getting students to
OPM (2)
do something (1)
Making connection
Representing the
with previous or next
phenomena for
lessons (2)
making connection
Get students to see the
among OPM (1)
value of learning the
Getting students to
concept (1)
find patterns (1)
Coding
Overall successful,
Appropriate goals, and roles of activities;
positive
Positive about students’ active roles but be
concerned about the lack of scaffolding
Table 19. Adam's highlighting of classroom activities at interview
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Content understanding
Social
Procedural/behavioral




1
0
0

12
5
0

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4
1
0

Adam
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Behavior
Social
Cognitive
Goals

Role of
students

Role of
activity

Figure 7. Adam's highlighting of classroom activity
Classroom Activity Practices and Candidates’ Understanding of Science for Teaching
David, Monica, and Adam talked about the topics of their teaching video in substantially
different ways, although all three taught a lesson from the same unit (i.e., genetics) in biology. I
found that the ways in which Monica and Adam understood science for teaching were
fundamentally different from David’s. Whereas Monica and Adam understood that scientific
knowledge is integrated with scientific practice by appreciating observation and scientific
models or theories, David saw science as authoritative knowledge that consists of a story of or
about phenomena. In the following, David’s ways of understanding science for teaching are
compared and contrasted with Monica’s and Adam’s (see Table 20). Supplementary data
sources, including candidates’ written reports of teaching other lessons and their statement of
good science teaching, were analyzed along with the teaching video interviews.




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Table 20. Candidates' ways of understanding science as content for teaching
Narrative Ways of Understanding Science
In-depth Understanding of Science for
for Teaching (Two-dimensional Model):
Teaching (Three-dimensional Model):
David
Monica and Adam
• Considering science as stories of/about
• Appreciating the relationship between
phenomena or scientific models; the
observation and scientific models/theories
answer, ‘why’ part, explanation
• Achieving scientific understanding by
• Achieving scientific understanding by
making connections between observation
making connections between or among
and theory
stories (“seeing the connection”)
• Integrated understanding of scientific
• Content vs. process (e.g., scientific
knowledge and practices
method, problem solving skills)
• Scientific community as a model for
• Scientific community as authoritative
students’ classroom community
source of scientific knowledge
• Situating a topic in a unit with the
• Making connections among topics
consideration of big ideas, key phenomena
considering causal (logical) relationship
or patterns of a unit

David’s ways of understanding science: Two-dimensional narrative model. The data
indicated that David understood science as a subject for teaching in a very different way from
both Monica and Adam. The four main characteristics of David’s understanding were the
following: (a) seeing science as stories of/about phenomena and the reason why it happens, (b)
achieving scientific understanding by making connections between/among stories, (c)
understanding scientific community as the authoritative source of scientific knowledge that he
has to cover, (d) making causal connections of a topic with others in a unit to answer “why”
questions.
a. Seeing science as stories of/about phenomena & the reason why it happens. David
narrated the content as stories of and/or about phenomena and the right answer to ‘why’
questions. For instance, with respect to his lesson on DNA replication, the content of this lesson
was the story of DNA replication, why it is replicated. While introducing the context of this
lesson during the interview, David listed the topics that he covered in the unit. The growth of the
human body or cancer is an important phenomenon that can be better understood using the




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scientific models of DNA structure, replication, and the cell cycle. David tended to describe each
topic as stories of something out there (e.g., DNA), or stories about things that happen (e.g.,
cancer, DNA replication), rather than appreciating important observations, patterns, and
scientific theories concerning the topic. David said,
David: This was, this unit was just structure and function of DNA and replication and,
like, the cell cycle. So, we talked about the cell cycle. And then, after, like the
next unit that followed was, we did a cancer unit. So, like, in this unit that
included replication, we did, like, replication and mitosis, cell cycle, like all in
one unit. So, [students] learned cell division, mitosis and then, you know, DNA
replication’s role in that and why it’s replicated. And then after that, we went
onto a unit, a cancer unit, because they know how mitosis works, they’re able to
realize what will happen next when things go wrong with the cell cycle, which
they just got done learning about. (David, from interview with teaching video)
As demonstrated in David’s narratives, he worked hard to make a coherent story of cells,
DNA, and cancer, how a cell is divided, how and why DNA is replicated, and what will happen
when something goes wrong—the story about cancer. In another lesson on sex-linked inheritance
that was framed as a ‘inquiry’ lesson by David, he described the content as the answers to three
“why” questions: “What genetic aspect about men would make them more likely to have a
hereditary disorder than women?” “Why would it not be possible for a man with one of these
disorders to pass the same disorder on to a son?” “Why were Queen Victoria’s daughters able to
escape having hemophilia while her son was not able to?” There was only one correct answer to
each question in his inquiry lesson, which was basically the ‘story’ of sex-linked inheritance.
David stated, “The correct answer to this would be that Queen Victoria can only donate one of




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her X chromosomes to each child.” Students’ reasoning that did not match with the canonical
scientific explanation was “wrong,” so it should be cleared up.
David: The only thing that people got mixed up a little was that they would put the trait
for hemophilia on the Y chromosome of a male as well as the X, which is wrong.
The trait is only carried by the X [chromosome], and that is why men are more
likely to have the disorder because they only get one X to determine that…I think
we cleared up the Y chromosome confusion enough that we didn’t have to talk
about it any extra during the next class” (David, from inquiry lesson report)
To David, the content of science consists of many stories that scientists developed, just
like pieces of puzzles. When all the pieces are put together in the right spot, students get to see
the “picture of it.” The picture is something that is developed by the scientists, and is the right
answer that students need to know. However, if the pieces are not connected very well, they are
all over the place on the puzzle plate, so students fail to see the connection and lose their interest.
David worked hard to tell a coherent story in order to help students ‘see’ the picture.
b. Achieving scientific understanding by making connections between/among
stories. From David’s point of view, making connections between/ among stories in answering
“why” questions was the core for achieving understanding. For instance, during the interview,
David argued that two types of cell division, mitosis and meiosis, should be taught separately,
because “they’re for completely different reasons.” From David’s point of view, to best achieve
understanding, the topic (i.e., story of something out there) should appear when it comes to its
‘turn,’ where one story is logically connected with the next story (e.g., a problem with mitosis
can cause cancer), just like a piece of puzzle should be connected with the correct next piece.




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David: I like doing it that way because I think that in a lot of textbooks, they teach
mitosis and meiosis together. They’re similar, but they’re for completely different
reasons. I mean, mitosis is to split body and cells and, you know, to make
identical cell copies of each other. Meiosis is to make sex cells, so, I mean, there’s
not really to teach that until you’re going to get closer to genetics, because it has
more to do with genetics. So mitosis, and then problems with that would lead to
cancer. And cancer is something that the students loved talking about because all
of them have had experience with that, so, you know, teaching them how it
happens, you know, the process that goes, the process that happens that can go
wrong to cause cancer before we talk about it, helps them understand cancer
more. And meiosis really doesn’t have anything to do with cancer. (David,
interview with teaching video)
David tried to help students make this causal connection between or among stories in
order to get the picture of it. It was important to have students see this connection because it
helped them remember the information better. Therefore, David cared less about appreciating
observation, scientific models, and theories than sorting out connections among each piece/unit
of ‘content’ for the purpose of making a coherent story. He liked hands-on activities because
they helped students to see the story by visualizing it. Students’ experiences through hands-on
activity play a role of “cement” that connects stories (i.e., pieces of puzzles) tightly, so as to help
students “remember the information better.” In his DNA replication lesson, the hands-on activity
in which used plastic DNA models gave students “something to link those definitions and steps
that [he] talked about in the lecture.”




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c. Scientific community as authoritative source of scientific knowledge. David
created a classroom community where students mainly reproduced the canonical scientific
knowledge produced by the scientific community. Despite the fact that he liked students actively
doing something and asking questions when anything was not clear to them, the roles taken by
students or highlighted by David in this classroom community were different from the roles that
scientists take in a scientific community, in the sense that students were not expected to develop
their own explanatory model about the scientific phenomena, experiences, and observations.
David’s positioning about the roles of students in the classroom learning community was the
major source of conflict with both his mentor and course instructor in their narratives on David’s
teaching practices. David understood the scientific community as an authoritative source of
scientific knowledge that he had to cover in his classroom.
d. Making causal connections among topics in a unit to answer “why” questions.
David described the topic of his lesson as focusing on its causal relationship at the topical level.
For example, the topic of cell division was connected with the topic of DNA replication because
cell division explains why DNA is replicated. Mitosis is connected with cancer because it is “the
process that happens that can go wrong to cause cancer.”
Monica and Adam’s ways of understanding science for teaching: Three-dimensional
model. Overall four characteristics were found in the ways that both Monica and Adam
understood science as content for teaching: (a) appreciating the relationship between observation
and scientific models or theories, (b) achieving scientific understanding by making connections
between observation and theory through scientific practices, (d) considering the scientific
community as the model for the classroom learning community, and (c) making connections
among topics with consideration of its big ideas, key phenomena, or patterns.




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a. Appreciating the relationship between observation and scientific models/theories.
Whereas David described science as the story of or about something or the reason why it
happens, both Monica and Adam appreciated the difference between observation and scientific
theory in their lessons, and they emphasized ‘pattern finding’ as a key for making connections
between the two. For instance, Monica explained the reason why she presented several realworld examples of the scientific model (i.e., incomplete and co-dominant inheritance): “For each
inheritance pattern I included an animal, plant, and human example to make sure students could
see that these types of inheritance patterns occur in many different organisms.” It was
problematic to Monica that students did not differentiate observation from inference. Monica
said, “From what I observed, many of the students were making inferences rather than
observations. For example, instead of stating that the flower contained both pink and white
petals, students would say that both pink and white were dominant.” Similar to Monica, Adam
stated, “Being able to make an observation and draw conclusions, that's what the big part of ‘The
Lion King’ pedigree is.” Making observations and finding patterns were typical approaches that
Adam used with his students in his classroom. He said, “I use these types of things a lot. Just the
other day I put up a lesson on a phylogenetic tree. I put this on the projector and said, ‘Let’s
name off all the observations that we can make about this, and what are some patterns that we
can draw from this?’ ”
b. Achieving scientific understanding by making connections between observation
and theory through scientific practices. Whereas David tried to help students to make causal
connections to get ‘the picture,’ Monica and Adam tried to help students to make connections
between observation and scientific models or theories. Monica and Adam understood how




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scientists learn about the world and that scientific knowledge is man-made, incomplete,
changeable, and temporary. Monica said,
Monica: I think some of the first couple of days, I made sure to impress upon them that
like I make mistakes, they’re going to make mistakes… but that that’s okay, like
that’s how we learn, trying to relate it to science, like scientists make a bunch of
mistakes before they get to the answer that they’re hoping for or that they’re
looking for…Not everybody is—nobody is right all the time.” (Monica, teaching
video interview)
Scientific knowledge was integrated with its practice in a sense that scientists learn about
the material world by asking questions, making observations, critically analyzing data, finding
patterns, drawing conclusions, and applying knowledge to other real-world phenomena. Adam
stated, “My students not only learn biology and the fundamentals of science. They develop the
ability to question, observe and explain the world around them. The knowledge that they learn
will be realistic and have a goal that can be applied to their lives.” In Monica’s incomplete/codominance lesson, she engaged students in scientific practices (i.e., observing various examples,
formulating questions individually and discussing them with peers, collecting data, finding
patterns from the observations) to help them develop “their own knowledge” (i.e.,
incomplete/co-dominance inheritance). To Monica and Adam, meaningful scientific
understanding can be achieved by engaging students in scientific practices, such as inquiry or
application, to make connections between observations and scientific models or theories.
c. Considering scientific communities as a model for classroom learning community.
Both Monica and Adam tried to develop classroom communities where students play the role of
scientists who develop their own knowledge by engaging in scientific practice, but their




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approaches to develop classroom-learning communities were quite different. Whereas Monica
was sensitive about students’ difficulties in engaging in this cultural practice of science and
provided rich social and cognitive resources for students to be successful in her classroom, Adam
tended to be less responsive to students’ difficulties. He seemed to expect that students would be
able to do without particular scaffolding, which led Adam to be less successful in developing
classroom communities where students play the role of scientists.
d. Situating a topic in a unit with the consideration of big ideas, key phenomena, or
patterns. While giving the context of the lesson to interviewers during the interviews, both
Monica and Adam situated the topic of the lesson in a big picture of the unit through making
explicit connections with big ideas, key phenomena, or patterns. For instance, Monica described
that her topic of incomplete/co-dominance was in the category of complex inheritance, which
was “different inheritance patterns” from Mendel’s theory of dominant and recessive. Her
account indicated that she understood the topic of this lesson (i.e., incomplete/co-dominance),
key observations (i.e., complex inheritance), big ideas (i.e., Mendelian genetics), and how those
are connected with one another.
Monica: We were just introducing complex inheritance here, and it was kind of more of
an inquiry, check out fine patterns and see what you see. Before this unit we did a
unit with Mendel, and then the dominant recessive patterns. Following this –
well, we finished up complex inheritance and then went in DNA afterward. So
this was the very beginning of those different inheritance patterns that didn’t
necessarily follow dominant recessive. (Monica, interview with teaching video)
Adam also described that the topic of the lesson (i.e., family pedigree) would be the
foundation for understanding the key phenomena concerning this unit (i.e., different types of




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inheritance). Adam said, “Later, I would show [students] different inheritance patterns and how
they look on pedigrees.”
Adam: This lesson, I believe we had just finished polygenic inheritance. They had just
had a quiz about incomplete dominance, co-dominance, sex-linked and normal
inheritance. So they're familiar with different types, we just hadn’t got to a family
type or shown any kind of pedigrees yet. Just today was the first time that they
had thought of maybe a larger family, the larger effect and multiple generations.
[The goal of this lesson was] to establish the foundations for using a pedigree, to
interpret later pedigrees. So later I would show them different inheritance
patterns and how they look on pedigrees. (Adam, interview with teaching video)
It should also be noted that both Monica and Adam situated the lesson within a unit while
pointing out its role in students’ understanding of important genetic phenomena. In Monica’s
case, the lesson was “introducing complex inheritance” and “find patterns and see what you can
see.” To Adam, this lesson was “to establish the foundation for using a pedigree, to interpret
later pedigree” for understanding different inheritance patterns.
Candidates’ Designated Identities and Their Interpretation of Practices & Resources
David, Monica, and Adam’s designated identities—the kinds of teacher they wanted to be
and the kinds of practice they wanted to master—were examined from their stories about future
self(s) in/and practices. Their vision statements collected at the three time points for two years—
(a) at the very beginning of senior year, (b) at the beginning of the internship year, and (c) at the
end of the internship year—were used as the major source of data. The interview with their
teaching video conducted at the end of their internship was also used as supplementary source of
data. Their stories of future self and practices were coded with respect to (a) goals of teaching




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25

science, (b) roles of activity, and (c) roles of students . The results showed that each candidate
held relatively consistent aspirations across two years, that was aligned with their ways of
highlighting and coding practices and resources provided by professional communities. Their
stories of future self(s) in/and practice became more specific and incorporated more technical
languages as they got more experiences. Each candidate’s goals of teaching science, in particular
stated at the end of internship year, was directly connected to the ways that they understood
science for teaching presented in the previous section. In the following, David, Monica, and
Adam’s designated identities are described with respect to the three aspects.
David: Guiding students to get the correct information in a fun and interesting manner by
engaging students in various activities
David’s designated identities manifested in the three stages of the program were analyzed with
respect to his goals, classroom activities, the role of students, and the role of teachers (see
Appendix 12 and Table 21).
Goals. David’s perceived goals of teaching science were fairly consistent across two
years. He continuously pointed out that good science teaching would “guide students toward the
correct answer” and help them to “remember the information” by engaging students in some
kinds of fun and interesting activities. For instance, at the very early stage of his senior year,
David described how an activity would help students to remember information better, so to be
useful in taking test.
Since everyone was having so much fun with it we all learned it very well. Acting it out
gave us all really good connections to remember the information too. I remember taking
the test at the end of the unit and actually thinking about who was which part, so that I

























































25
See the results of coding in Appendix12



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could remember how some of the steps worked in the cycle of [mitosis and meiosis].
(David’s vignette of good science teaching, at the beginning of senior year)
In his accounts of good science teaching written in next year, he again described how an ideal
activity would help students to get the correct answer. Interestingly, the ways in which he
described an ideal activity was fairly similar to his DNA replication lesson analyzed in this
chapter. In his account of good science teaching, David stated that he would initially engage
students in some hands-on activities to teach about human body, had them compare their models
to the correct one constructed by the teacher, and had students correct their wrong models:
After [students] are done [the hands-on activity] I would go through each system in
modeling fashion. Each group would show me their posters, and I would tell them which
parts are right and would construct my own poster to show exactly where things go for
the whole class to see. The students could then compare their posters to mine and
hopefully would learn from their mistakes as they take time to correct theirs. (David’s
personal account of good science teaching, at the beginning of internship year)
The interview conducted at the end of his internship year indicated that his goal of teaching
science was delivering authoritative scientific knowledge but in a student-centered manner. He
said, “Definitely I feed them information more than I would like to.” His goal was “at least
evening out the level of information that I’m giving them instead of them asking questions.”
David wanted his students to ask questions more actively, but the authoritative nature of
knowledge that students ought to learn was consistent with the previous statement. In short,
David seemed to carry his goal of delivering the “correct” information in a fun and interesting
way by engaging students in a variety of hands-on activities throughout the two years.




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The role of classroom activities. The kinds of classroom activity that David wanted to
master were also fairly consistent in their nature across two years. For the most part, the
activities were purposed to motivate students and get all of them to “do what they are supposed
to do.” The core concern for David was the boring part of learning the content. David stated, “I
think that what I’m used to from teachers I’ve had is more of, like, the lecturing. Just spitting out
information, so it’s hard for me to break out of that.” David wanted to teach science in a fun and
interesting way by engaging students in various activities and relating science to students’
everyday life. Initially at the very early of senior year, David pointed out, “relating lessons to
[students] everyday lives”, “always had some ways of making it interesting”, ‘not giving a long
lecture’ as the key characteristics of good activities. In his account in the beginning of internship
year, he thought of “using a hand on strategy” and “having students to work together” as his
classroom activities in an ideal situation for the motivational purpose. The data indicated that
David expanded his activity ideas as he got more experiences. In his accounts at the end of the
internship year, David included more specific strategies, such as group work, discussion, project,
and student-centered notes as the kinds of activities that he would like to see in his future
classroom.
The role of students. David wanted all his students to get engaged in activities, and do
their work independently to learn science. The students in David’s stories were consistently
described as engaging in some activities and holding some responsibilities of getting things done,
but students were not described as the ones who would develop their own knowledge. At the
beginning of the senior year, David highlighted the role of students who paid attention to the
teacher, engaged in fun and interesting activities, remembered the information, and learned the




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new vocabulary. At the beginning of the internship year, David described a few possible ways of
engaging students in certain activities with the hope of “keep them engaged.”
The students in this situation would hopefully be engaged because they are
working together and they are coloring in a giant picture with things that are actually in
their own bodies. Students who may not know as much about the systems get clues from
their partners that may remind them of things as they are working, which will hopefully
keep them engaged as well. (David, the personal account of good science teaching, at the
beginning of the internship year)
During the interview conducted at the end of the internship year, David said, “I’d say I’m a
teacher who expects students to do what they’re supposed to be doing. Like, they’re supposed to
meet me half way and, you know, do the things I want them to and - and if they do, then there’s
not really going to be too many problems or anything like that.” David wanted his students to be
more “independent” in their learning, so to ask questions about the procedures and activities that
they were supposed to do to get the information. Overall, despite the repeated emphasis of
actively engaging in some kinds of hands-on activities, the role of students in David’s stories for
two years were passive in nature in that students were not expected as someone who would
develop their own knowledge.
Monica: Actively engaging students in inquiry and developing a community of learners
Monica’s designated identities manifested at the three different stages of the program
were analyzed with respect to goals, classroom activities, the role of students, and the role of
teachers in her future classroom (see Appendix 12 and Table 21).
Goals. Monica emphasized that her goals of science teaching was actively participating
students in scientific practices to help them learn the “big ideas” or “connect real world




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experiences to scientific concepts” as opposed to simply having students regurgitate facts or
prepare for the test. At the beginning of the senior year, Monica stated that the exemplary teacher
who she remembered made “the class see the Big Pictures in every lesson. We weren’t there to
take tests and regurgitate facts, but instead to participate in science and learn from it.”
The final, and I believe, most important teaching strategy that Mr. Erspamer
exhibited was his ability to make the class see the “Big Picture” in every lesson. We
weren’t there to take tests and regurgitate facts, but instead to participate in science and
learn from it. In my future science classes I revisited many of the subjects that had been
covered in my seventh grade class. (Monica’s vignette of good science teaching, at the
beginning of the senior year)
At the beginning of her internship year, Monica again stated that her goal was “engaging
students in inquiry-based learning.” Monica particularly emphasized her another goal of creating
learning environment specifically mentioning “a community of learners.”
One of the most important strategies I hope to incorporate in my classroom, is to create a
community of learners. High school can be a tumultuous time in the lives of many
students and the pressure to “fit in” on a daily basis can be seen in the interactions
between students and their peers. This said, I believe it is important for my students to
feel as though the classroom is a support system of both their peers and their teacher. If
the students feel as though they are a part of a learning community rather than an
individual responsible for their own success, I believe more meaningful learning
opportunities will occur. (Monica’s account of good science teaching, at the beginning of
internship year)




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At the end of her internship year, once again, Monica described her goal as teaching science “in
an inquiry-based manner” while recognizing the demands of meeting the expectations such as
standards. She stated, “The content, although obviously aligned with the standards, must be
taught in an inquiry-based manner. The overall objective is to teach students, not chapters.”
Monica carried through her goals of participating students actively in scientific practices and
developing a community of learners from the beginning to the end of her program.
The role of classroom activities. The consistent theme in Monica’s stories about the
role of activities across two years was helping students to connect science with real world
examples or everyday experiences. At the beginning of her senior year, Monica described how
th

scientific methods that she experienced with her 7 grade teacher was meaningful in that it
allowed students to be active in their learning process (e.g., develop a question pertaining the
topic of inquiry), and to connect real world examples or experiences (e.g., insect dissection) with
scientific model. It was something that Monica would like to do in her own classroom.
As part of this unit, we also had to use the scientific method to develop a question
pertaining to the internal anatomy of the squid. I had been introduced to scientific method
before but only in worksheets that were basically fill in the blank. This time I actually
had to come up with my own semi-formal lab report…Tying this lesson to every day, real
world examples helped me to see why the scientific method was so important
Monica’s idea of making connection between science and the real world appeared again in her
account of good science teaching at the beginning of her internship year, but she described it in
detail including specific strategy. Monica wanted to develop similar case studies that were
introduced by the program “in order to demonstrate the connections between science and the
‘real world’.” At the end of her internship, Monica stated engaging students in the lesson using




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inquiry-based methods where “students are actively engaged in pattern finding.” Interestingly,
her description of “scientific methods” at the beginning of senior year was replaced into the
stories about inquiry-based methods at her internship year.
The role of students. Students’ active participation in activities was a consistent theme
in Monica’s stories across two years. At the beginning of senior year, Monica concluded her
analysis of the vignette of good science teaching stating, “I remembered what I had learned in
seventh grade because I had been an active participant rather than someone who could just repeat
facts.” At the beginning of the internship year, Monica highlighted the active role of students in
the process of learning from data as the characteristics of good science teaching:
Lab activities were the norm, and learning from your results rather than from what the
teacher told you should happen was not unusual. Although scaffolding will be a major
component of the learning process in my classroom, students will be expected to direct
their own learning through hands on experiences. (Monica’s account of good science
teaching, at the beginning of internship year)
At the end of the internship year, Monica again highlighted students as “active learners” saying,
“Students are working as active learners involved in their learning. The students will function as
the teacher in many cases by leading discussions, and presenting their ideas to their classmates.”
Adam: Teaching scientific knowledge that is applicable to students’ lives and the
fundamentals of science
Adam’s designated identities with respect to goals of teaching, the role of classroom
activities, and the role of students were analyzed (see Appendix 12 and Table 21).
Goals. Across the two years, Adam highlighted his goals in two folds. One was helping
students to learn scientific content and/through scientific methods, and the other was developing




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a safe learning environment. Adam stressed the applicability of the knowledge to students’ lives.
At the beginning of the senior year, Adam stated,
Students will have to learn biological basics and the scientific method. Students need to
have some level of biology specific content but they need to be able to think of what they
are learning in the rest of their lives. The use of scientific method in the classroom will
either give them the concept or continue to reinforce the idea. (Adam’s account of good
science teaching, at the beginning of the senior year)
Whereas the idea of scientific methods were replaced into inquiry-based method in the internship
year in Monica’s case, Adam seemed to hold his notion of scientific methods by the end of his
internship year. In his last account, Adam stated, “Becoming scientifically literate will allow
people to understand the world around them and apply their knowledge to new situations. The
scientific method forms the backbone of my instruction.” Adam also pointed out “develop a safe
and beneficial classroom to help students ” explain and understand natural phenomena as another
important goals in both the beginning of the senior year and the end of his internship year.
The role of activities. Adam consistently pointed out the lab as key activity in his
instruction throughout the two years but in a slightly different way. At the beginning of the
senior year, Adam pointed out the two roles of lab activities. One is motivational (“i.e., having
fun) and the other was helping students to get the big picture of the unit. For instance, Adam
stated,
The lecture portion of class will help the students get an idea of the “big picture” of what
they are learning. The labs will be fun for the students and we will discuss what they
should have gotten out of the experiments. In my experience, I know that labs can lose
the point of the assignment if the students lose focus. The students can also become too




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focused on each step of the experiment without knowing the background science theory.
Both labs and lectures are necessary to keep the class from becoming too monotonous.
At the end of the internship year, Adam specifically described two scientific practices
emphasized by the program (i.e., inquiry and application), and how each practice would provide
opportunity for students to develop their explanation. Adam stated, “These are plans that give
students experiences where they will have to make conclusions and develop the explanations
themselves; inquiry is effective in developing the science literacy skills that students need.”
The role of students. The roles of students in Adam’s vision statements were also fairly
consistent across two years. Above all, Adam emphasized the role of students as active science
learners who “formulate their own hypothesis”, “be able to ask both me or their peers questions”
(Adam’s account in the senior year), and “critically analyze data or theories and explain their
knowledge fits into the world around them” (Adam’s account at the end of the internship year).
Adam also highlighted students’ social interaction in their learning process in his accounts of
good science teaching at both the beginning of the senior year and the end of the internship year.
At the last vision statement, Adam described,
Students can transition effectively from class discussions to lab work. Students work
together on class goals. Students may have to take notes, conduct labs, critically analyze
data or theories and explain how their knowledge fits into the world around them.
Students are able to use technology to develop their content knowledge in my course.
(Adam’s account of good science teaching, at the end of the internship year)
Three candidates’ designated identities
The analysis demonstrated that the three candidates held relatively consistent designated
identities—the kind of teacher they wanted to be and the kind of practice they wanted to enact in




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their future classroom—throughout two years of their time in the program (see Table 21). David
was different from both Monica and Adam in that he assumed the authoritative, correct answer,
thus his goal was transferring that knowledge. On the contrary, Monica and Adam’s goal was
primarily focused on actively participating students in scientific activities. The comfortable
learning environment was key for student participation, and both Monica and Adam considered
developing comfortable learning environment as another important goal. All three candidates
wanted to see students’ active engagement in their future classroom in order to get students to
have some kinds of ownership of their learning. For David, students were depicted to have
ownership in the process of finding or receiving the correct information by being independently
engaged in activities. For Monica and Adam, students got to have the ownership of knowledge
by actively constructing their own explanation about natural phenomena or data.
Table 21. Three candidates' designated identities
David
Monica
Goals
• Guiding students to
• Engaging students in
get the correct
scientific practices
information in a fun
• Developing
and interesting way
community of
learners

Adam
• Teaching scientific
theory and/through
scientific methods
• Developing
comfortable learning
environment
• Making science fun
• Engaging students in
scientific practices

Roles of activities • Making science fun
• Helping students to
and interesting by
make connections
making connection
between science and
with student
real world
experiences (i.e.,
examples/experiences
making it relevant)
Roles of students • Actively engaging in • Actively participating • Actively participating
activities while
in scientific practices
in scientific practices
holding responsibility • Being a member of a
& peer interaction
of their learning
community of
• Learning from data
learners
• Developing their own
• Learning from data
explanation
• Developing their own
knowledge




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Discussion
This chapter examined the mechanism of beginning teachers’ learning to teach focusing
on classroom activity practices using three candidates’ cases. Candidates were provided
opportunities for learning from professional communities, including their mentor teachers and
the program by engaging in classroom activity practices. I examined two types of learning
outcomes (i.e., actual practice and interpretation of practice) produced through one teaching
episode at the last stage of the program using multiple sources of data, including written reports,
teaching video, teaching artifacts, and interviews with candidates, their mentors, and course
instructors. Monica and Adam’s episodes were selected by the candidates themselves after
informed about the purpose of this study. David cared less about selecting particular episode for
this investigation, and it was one of his lessons during his lead teaching period. Although the
interviews was focused on the teaching video of one teaching episode, it was evident that
candidates, their mentor teacher, and their course instructors’ stories about candidates’ self(s)
in/and practices (i.e., actual identities) reflected their accumulative observations throughout one
or two years of experiences with candidates. Both mentor teacher and course instructor
constructed their stories constantly comparing with and contrasting to the examples of
candidates’ other lessons that they observed.
The analysis of three cases showed that despite the fact that David was in a good position
to learn reform-oriented practices while getting consistent resources, ideas, and advice from both
professional communities, David was less successful in demonstrating his learning of reformoriented practice. On the contrary, Monica was successful in making use of resources and ideas
from the program, and developed reform-oriented instruction even though she was in a difficult
position where she had to respond to the contradictory resources, ideas, and advice provided by




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her mentor teacher and the course instructor. The close examination of the three cases indicates
that both candidates’ ways of understanding science for teaching and their identities played
significant roles in the process of developing certain classroom activities practices and their
learning from professionals. The following discusses how candidates’ ways of understanding
science for teaching and their professional identities affected in their process of learning to teach.
The Role of Candidates’ Ways of Understanding Science for Teaching
The candidates produced two learning outcomes as their responses to locally created
occasions for learning. One is their actual classroom practice and the other is their interpretation
of practice. The findings of this chapter demonstrated that candidates’ understanding of science
teaching affected candidates’ selection of classroom activities mediated by their highlighting and
coding of the resources, ideas, and advice for classroom activities.
Candidates like Monica and Adam appreciated the relationship between observation and
scientific theories or models, and they thought that scientific understanding was achieved by
making the connections between them. Their highlighting and coding of their classroom
activities and resources demonstrated that they projected their understanding of science for
teaching in their stories about practices and students’ understanding of science. Thus, they
selected the classroom activity that allowed them to help students to make the connections
between observation and scientific models. In Adam’s case, both school professionals and the
program provided him consistent resources and ideas for science teaching, and his Lion King
activity was the one that he got from his school. In Monica’s case, her mentor provided her
resources and ideas that were contradictory from the program, and Monica selected the resources
from the program over her mentor’s. Monica’s highlighting and coding of her classroom activity
was fairly similar to her course instructor’s, but significantly different from her mentor teacher.




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Although Monica was always respectful to her mentor teacher and picked up a couple
management skills from her, Monica actively sought out resources and ideas outside of her
mentor and selected the ones from the program when it was possible, such as the occasions for
learning requested by the program.
On the contrary, David saw science as authoritative knowledge to deliver. To David,
science was the ‘why’ part of the stories, thus, he tried to help students make the causal
connections between phenomena and the story of the reason why it happened. This ‘narrative’
way of understanding science for teaching was reflected in his highlighting and coding of
classroom activities, which was significantly different from both his mentor’s and his course
instructor’s. Despite the fact that David selected the classroom activity from his mentor who
modeled reform-oriented practice, David’s classroom activity practice, his highlighting, and
coding of the practices were focused on how this practice addressed his goal of transferring the
correct scientific knowledge while fixing up the wrong knowledge. The cases suggest that both
candidates’ actual classroom practices and their interpretation of practices were fundamentally
constrained by his way of understanding science for teaching because they selected the resources
and ideas for classroom activities based on their ways of understanding science for teaching.
The Role of Actual and Designated Identities
The three cases also indicated that the candidates’ learning to teach was the process of
closing the gap between actual and designated identities as discussed by Sfard and Prusak
(2005). The candidates’ actual identities were presented as collective stories about candidates’
self(s) in/and practices told by multiple people at the last stage of the program or after
graduation. Although there is no doubt that candidates’ actual practices might have been unstable
or evolved as their responses to day to day expectations, the data showed that the collective




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stories constructed through multiple people’s narrativatization tended to capture the patterns of
actual practices or reify aspects of practices while constantly comparing and contrasting their
observation at one episode with others. Sfard and Prusak discussed that the reifying quality
comes with the adverbs such as always, never, usually, and so forth, that stress repetitiveness of
actions (p. 16).
The three candidates’ stories collected several times for two years showed that all of them
brought strong momentum toward their designated identities—the kind of teacher they wanted to
be and the kind of teaching practice that they wanted to master, and their aspiration of being
certain kind of teacher was relatively stable throughout the two years of time when they were in
the program. David wanted to teach authoritative scientific knowledge in a fun and interesting
way by telling many relevant stories and actively engaging students in hands-on activities.
Monica wanted to be a teacher who would actively participate students in activities in a
cognitively challenging but socially and emotionally comfortable learning community. Adam
wanted his students to be capable of working on problems actively and independently while
interacting with their peers with a least amount of teacher’s help. The candidates’ stories showed
how each of them perceived the gap between their actual and designated identities. Depending
on candidates’ perceived gap between actual and designated identities, they positioned
themselves as learners of science teaching with respect to each professional in certain ways.
Their learning outcomes—classroom activity practices and their interpretation of practices—
were affected by their positioning because their choices of resources and ideas for classroom
activities shaped their practices.
Both David and Monica began with a fairly similar initial script of science teaching from
traditional teaching. But their designated identities as well as their ways of understanding science




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for teaching were significantly different each other, and their perceived their gaps between actual
and designated identities in a different way. In the case of David, David recognized that “What
I’m used to, from teachers I’ve had, is more of, like, the lecturing. Just spitting out information,
so it’s hard for me to break out of that.” What David wanted to do (i.e., his designated identities)
was actively engaging students in some hands-on activities and getting students to be
independent in finishing their work in order to guide students to get the correct answer.
However, students’ active engagement was focused mostly on procedural aspects in its nature,
such as “asking questions what they’re supposed to be doing” or “reading something off of a
board.” Although David recognized that he currently “feed [students] more information more
than what [he] would like to,” he was not lecturing the whole hour. He was also engaging most
of students in some hands-on activities, which was fairly close to his designated identities. He
made use of his mentor’s resources and worksheets for the most part. His positioning as a “laid
back”, “relaxed”, and “reform-minded” teacher seemed to be connected with his perceived gap
between actual and designated identities, which was not that far each other from David’s point of
view. David highlighted similarities of his practices to his mentor’s rather than differences, while
misinterpreting Mentor’s practices in a way of aligning with his designated identities. For
instance, David said, “Both like to tell stories, like personal stories that relate to things and allow
the students to do that too.” At a few occasions, David highlighted some differences from his
mentor (e.g., planning, re-teaching), but interpreted those differences mostly as the matter of
personal style or experiences. David might think that he was doing pretty much what his mentor
or his course instructor wanted him to do.
On the contrary, Monica’s stories suggested that she saw big a gap between her actual
identities and designated identities. Monica also expressed her dissatisfaction about her actual




137


identities (e.g., “got tired of lecturing”) and wanted to teach science differently as described in
her designated identities, which explained Monica’s positioning as a learner who actively sought
out resources and ideas from all the accessible resources. It was evident that Monica’s designated
identities affected her highlighting and coding of her mentor’s practices as well as other
resources and ideas. The major difference between Monica and her mentor teacher, highlighted
by Monica, was the nature of the classroom learning community created by Ms. S. Monica
aligned herself closely with the program and mostly selected the resources and ideas from the
program over the ones from her mentor’s, which led her to develop reform-oriented science
teaching practices at the end of her internship year despite her difficult position.
Adam’s designated identities aligned well with his mentor and the program’s vision to
begin with. Although Adam seemed to be less active in making use of resources from the
program, he luckily had access to the resources and ideas at his school placement that were
similar to the ones from the program in nature. There was a perceived gap between Adam’s
actual and designated identities, such as making a connection with students as modeled by his
mentor. Adam recognized the gap, and that was “the part that I wanted to develop further.” With
his relatively strong understanding of science for teaching, his designated identities that align
fairly well with the program’s vision, and the coherent support from both professional
communities, Adam was in a good position to learn reform-oriented practices and he
demonstrated it though his actual practices were less sophisticated than Monica’s.
In summary, the three cases showed that candidates’ understanding of science for
teaching affected (a) what they highlighted about their experience and classroom activity
practices, and (b) how they coded (i.e., interpreted) what they highlighted. Candidates selected
resources, ideas, and advice based on their interpretation of them; thus candidates who had ways




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of understanding science for teaching that initially differed from the program were less likely to
make use of resources and ideas from the program.
Candidates’ perceived gap between actual and designated identities, affected their
learning from their mentor teachers and their course instructors as they engaged in classroom
activities practice. Their perceived gap and strong momentum toward their designated identities
led them to position themselves as a learner of science teaching in certain ways with respect to
professional communities. They put a certain amount of effort to close their perceived gap
between their actual and designated identities while making their choices of selecting certain
resources, ideas, and advices from the professional communities.




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Chapter 5.
Findings II: Assessing and Responding to Students
Overview
This chapter illustrates the process that secondary science teacher candidates learn from
students through formative assessment practices while responding to deliberately designed
occasions for learning. Fourteen teacher candidates’ assessment practices were analyzed using
both candidates’ written analysis of and narratives on students’ work. Overall, six out of 14
candidates were successful in using information about students both to improve their instruction
and to suggest productive responses to their students through their assessment practices (i.e.,
providing quality opportunities for students to give information about themselves, identifying,
interpreting, and responding), but the other eight candidates were less successful in learning from
their students in a way of productively informing their practices. To further examine the
mechanism of learning, I selected the three candidates, Leslie, Susie, and Teresa, who worked at
the same or similar urban high schools with fairly traditional mentor teachers

26

but who

developed different kinds of assessment practices.
The analysis shows how both candidates’ designated identities—the kinds of teacher they
wanted to be and the kinds of science teaching they wanted to master—and their understanding
of science for teaching influenced the process of their learning from students through assessment
practices by having created for themselves occasions for learning that differed in nature.
Specifically, candidates’ designated identities affected their positioning with respect to two
professional communities (a) by having them highlight certain aspect of practices and resources
provided by professionals and (b) interpret them in a different way under the influence of their

























































26

See the detailed description of the three mentor teachers in the section of focus cases selection
in Chapter 3




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designated identities. The candidates’ different highlighting and interpretation influenced their
choice of assessment tasks/items that in turn generated vastly different types of student
responses. The candidates’ learning from students was constrained by the nature of occasions for
learning created by these different types of student responses. Similar to their designated
identities, candidates’ understanding of science for teaching also influenced the nature of
occasions for learning by causing them to select different assessment tasks or questions. Their
understanding also affected the candidates’ highlighting (i.e., identifying) and coding (i.e.,
interpreting) of student responses. As a result, the three candidates who worked at similar urban
high school contexts developed quite different assessment practices.
This chapter begins by presenting the 14 teacher candidates’ patterns of assessment
practices. It then follows the detailed description of the cases of three candidates—Leslie, Susie,
and Teresa. The description of each case consists of (a) stories about the candidate, (b) the nature
of occasions for learning, and (c) the candidates’ responses to the occasions for learning. The
mechanism of learning from students is discussed through the cross examination of three cases at
the end.
Fourteen Candidates’ Patterns of Assessment Practice
Again, two patterns were found in candidates’ assessment practice as the result of data
coding (see Table 22). One group of candidates, consisting of six out of 14 candidates, including
Leslie, Susie, and Monica, were successful in using information from students to both improve
their practices of science teaching and support students’ learning, which indicates that they were
successful in making a productive ‘feedback loop’ both for their learning of teaching science and
students’ learning of science. Leslie, Monica, and Susie were similar in that they were keen
observers and identified student responses in detail. Whereas Leslie in her senior year tended to




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be focused more on students’ scientific ideas than on the social aspect, Susie’s responses often
focused mostly on students’ social and personal aspect with the exception of her one teaching
episode.
Table 22. Fourteen candidates’ assessment practices
Responding to students with
specific strategies that address
students’ difficulties as science
learners
Candidates Interns Monica, Susie, Alisa
Seniors Leslie, Scott, Lisa
Providing
Assessment tasks reveal rich
opportunities
information about students as
(Types of
science learners
assessment tasks)
• Applying knowledge to
novel situations
• Developing explanations
about phenomena through
reasoning
Identifying
Students’ ideas, difficulties,
misconceptions, and/or partial
understanding
Interpreting
Interpreting student responses in
relation to teacher’s instruction,
students’ personal/missing
experiences, or social/cultural
resources
Responding
Suggesting specific ideas of
instructional modification that
addresses students’ difficulties

Responding to students with
broad and general motivational
strategies that are not directly
related to students’ difficulties
David, Teresa, Adam, Shannon
Mary, Kevin, Stella, Lynn
Assessment tasks reveal limited
information about students as
science learners
• Reproducing factual
information
• Displaying some skills or
procedural knowledge
Right/wrong
Complete/incomplete
Little or no information
Interpreting student responses in
relation to students’ attitudes,
attentiveness, behaviors,
personalities, and motivation
Suggesting general/broad ideas,
such as hands-on activities, that
are not directly related to
students’ difficulties manifested
in their responses

The other group, eight out of 14 candidates including Teresa and David, were less
successful in responding to students productively in the sense that their responses did not address
students’ difficulties as manifested in their work. In particular, this group of candidates
commonly described student responses using binary opposites such as right or wrong, correct or
incorrect, did complete or did not complete (ID-c & d: Shannon-100%, Mary 20%, Kevin 50%,




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and David 82%) or highlighted few to no student ideas (ID-f: Keven-13% and David 9%). Their
interpretations were mainly connected to student behaviors or motivational issues in classes (INg: Shannon 40%, and Mary 60%). At many times they did not make any further interpretation
about their observation (IN-l: Shannon 20%, Kevin 100%, and David 64%). Candidates’ ideas
for improvement in this group were broad and general for the most part, and were not directly
related to students’ difficulties (R-e: Shannon 100%, Mary 40%, Kevin 38%, Teresa 33%).
Examples of this type of response are “spending a little bit more time with it…because it is a
difficult part and students need more practice” or “giving them the framework of notes like the
teacher had.” Sometimes candidates in this group provided few to no responses (R-f: David 36%,
27

Teresa 8%) .
The Case of Leslie
Stories about Leslie
Leslie was a white female senior who was majoring in Biology. She was a fairly typical
teacher candidate who came from a nearby southern suburban area, and got into the teacher
preparation program in her junior year without any teaching experience. She was one of the two
candidates who participated in this study for two consecutive years from her senior to internship
year.
To begin with, Leslie held a vision of science teaching that was similar to the program.
In her account of “good science teaching” that she wrote very early in her senior year, Leslie
stated that she wanted to help her students “to see how science affects their everyday life”, “to
take what they are learning and use it to understand their own bodies, interests, and hobbies”, “to
use it to make good choices as they grow into adults,” and her lesson to “include tie-ins to

























































27
See the results of coding 14 candidates’ assessment practice in Appendix 13



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current events such as global warming, eating disorders and obesity, and cancer research” to
accomplish her goals.
While working at the diverse urban high school where classroom management was a big
challenge for most candidates, Leslie was keen on her students’ ideas and their understanding of
science. She said, “I guess teachers always think about, like, ‘Are their students getting it?’”
Leslie liked asking questions to students or getting questions from students because questions
allowed her to “pull information out of the students.” She also tried to bring many real-world
examples into her lesson to make learning science meaningful. She thought that the ways
students have been taught in their previous science classes were responsible for students’
perceptions of science, thus she wanted “to create an environment that would allow students with
all types of learning type to succeed.” Leslie enjoyed being with students in her classroom. Her
classroom was dynamic and interactive because students worked with their partners or as a
group, and asked her many questions. Leslie’s intern year mentor teacher, Mr. J., even joked that
he would mark down Leslie’s practices .5 out of 10 because she was “answering too many
questions for [students].”
Leslie was an active and conscientious participant in her methods courses. She took all
the assignments and comments from the instructors seriously, and asked instructors many
questions about the assignment templates as well as instructors’ comments on her plan to modify
her lessons. Her course instructor, Dr. G, described Leslie as “one of our top candidates.” Dr. G
said:
Dr. G: Leslie was really attentive to our templates that we laid out, what we wanted for
assignments. She is very attentive. If we made comments, [she was] coming and
asking questions about comment, even revising her unit or lesson plans, even if




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technically she didn’t need to revise it. She followed the templates that we laid
out very carefully.
While working with Mrs. F at this challenging urban high school in her senior year,
Leslie always took an initiative in finding resources and activity ideas that supported students’
understanding. Mrs. F. said, “[Leslie] would come to the discussions that she would have with
some suggestions or ideas already prepared.” Interestingly, Leslie asked her mentor teachers
many questions focusing on students’ thinking and their responses on the topic, such as “How do
you think the students are going to respond to this?” “Do you think they are going to struggle
with this?” when preparing her lesson. Mrs. F said:
Mrs. F: [Leslie] would have questions that she needed to have clarified or she would say,
“I'm not sure about this part; how do you think the students are going to respond
to this? Do you think they are going to struggle with this?” She would come with
questions specifically related to the lesson.
Leslie did not hesitate to go out of her mentor teacher’s ‘teaching repertoires,’ and to
bring outside resources into the classroom even in her senior year. For instance, Leslie selected
an inquiry lesson activity that she got from the program despite her mentor teacher’s initial
reservations about it. Mrs. F. described Leslie as a “strong” and “confident” candidate:
Mrs. F: I believe that Leslie was pretty strong in terms of being able to take an initial idea
and find a useable lab activity in her lesson…Leslie was more confident in the
activities she chose, in terms of whether or not they would work or if they were
appropriate, whereas other candidates would like a little more feedback.
Leslie was very respectful to her mentors, but she did not think of herself as “being my
mentor teacher ten years from now.” To Leslie, “science is the subject of discovery” by




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definition. She wants to help students “to better understand themselves and the world around
them,” even though students do not always see science this way. It was “My responsibility as a
teacher” to provide opportunities for students to find the science in their everyday activities and
to make connections.
Leslie: It is my job as a teacher to help students make the connections between science
content and real life. It is also my responsibility to provide opportunities for
students to find the science in their everyday activities, bringing a new awareness
that allows them to find value in, as well as take ownership of their learning.
(Leslie, Teaching philosophy statement at the end of internship year, italic is
added)
Leslie held the strong vision of science teaching (i.e., designated identities) that was well
matched with the program’s vision to begin with, and carried them through her experiences in
both the program and school placements over two years.
The Nature of Occasions for Learning for Leslie
Leslie’s mentor, Mrs. F, had 10 years of teaching experience at the West high school. She
herself graduated from the same teacher preparation program 11 years ago, and had worked as a
mentor teacher with four interns and several seniors from the program. Mrs. F’s science teaching
was fundamentally didactic in a sense that she intended to deliver authoritative scientific
information to students even though she liked to do hands-on activities. Mrs. F selected
classroom activities that would be “doable with large classes”, “relatively low in cost, but yet
still going to portray the concepts in a way that the students are able to connect the ideas with
what we are actually doing.” Both Mrs. F and Leslie valued students’ experiences and tried to




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bring them into their lessons in order to motivate students who often do not seem to care about
learning science.
As a mentor teacher Mrs. F was open to new ideas, and allowed Leslie to investigate new
resources and to try them out in her classroom. Even when Mrs. F had some reservations about
candidates’ approaches, she considered it as candidates’ “learning experience,” and she tried to
“provide them with whatever type of experience they would like” with her support. Therefore,
Leslie was in a position to try out her ideas and to develop her skills of science teaching in the
Mrs. F’s classroom while working with diverse students at this urban high school.
Leslie’s Responses to Occasions for Learning
In order to illustrate the characteristics of Leslie’s assessment practices, I first describe
Leslie’s assessment practices in one teaching episode in detail, then present the patterns of her
assessment practices that emerged from multiple data sources. I purposefully selected one
teaching episode produced at one common occasion deliberately designed by the program to set
up the comparison among Leslie, Susie, and Teresa. In this occasion, all candidates were asked
to plan and report one inquiry activity sequence along with embedded assessment activities.
They were guided to plan an inquiry activity that had the seven components: (a) establish a
problem, (b) questions, (c) data and evidence, (d) student explanations, (e) scientific theories and
models, (f) communication, and (g) lessons learned. Candidates had to analyze students’
responses with respect to each component using their embedded assessment tasks.
I first summarize Leslie’s inquiry activity from her stories of what happened. The
embedded assessment tasks or questions designed or identified by Leslie in her report were
italicized in the summary. Then follows my analysis about the four elements of assessment
practices: (a) providing opportunities for students to give information about them (i.e.,




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assessment tasks/questions), (b) identifying (i.e., highlighting), (c) interpreting (i.e., coding) and
(d) responding. The general patterns of Leslie’s practices identified from multiple sources of data
are presented at the end.
Leslie’s inquiry activity and assessment tasks/questions. The unit of Leslie’s inquiry
sequence was evolution by natural selection. As the objective, Leslie stated, “Illustrate how
genetic variation is preserved or eliminated from a population through natural selection.”
Following the guideline of inquiry activity sequences provided by the program, Leslie opened
the lesson by asking questions that reveal students’ general perceptions and prior knowledge on
evolution. She asked, “Do you believe in evolution?” “Give the definition of evolution in your
own words.” She had students formulate questions about evolution. Leslie engaged students in
two data collection activities. The first one was a toothpicks activity—students picking four
colored toothpicks in the grass of the schoolyard for one minute—that generated the data that
showed the survival of fittest and change in the population using different numbers of remaining
toothpicks. The second data collection activity was the bird beak lab that Leslie got from the
program. This bird beak lab produced data that showed differences in survival rate depending on
the types of food and the shape of beak. After this data collection activity, Leslie got students to
work in small groups to analyze their data and find patterns. She asked specific questions to
guide students’ data analysis and pattern findings, such as “What color of toothpick survived the
best? Why? What will the toothpick population look like in a few generations?” “How is the bird
beak lab alike or different from the toothpick lab?” Students had to explain their data by
responding to the question in their lab report: “How did the environments affect the shape of the
beak that could survive on each of the islands?” After students’ data analysis and explanation,
Leslie discussed Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and then finally she had her students




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explain evolution using the three key ideas of (a) natural selection, (b) over reproduction, and
(c) random mutation, including examples that explain students ideas, on a blank paper.
Analysis of assessment practices in the inquiry teaching episode. I analyzed Leslie’s
assessment practices manifested in this inquiry teaching episode with respect to the four
elements of assessment practices: (a) providing opportunities for students to give information
about themselves, (b) identifying (i.e., highlighting). (c) interpreting (i.e., coding), and (d)
responding.
A. Assessment questions/tasks. Leslie designed several embedded assessments to get
information about students throughout her inquiry activity as guided by the program. But the key
assessment questions appeared on the lab worksheet toward the end of the activity. Leslie’s
questions asked students to explain the mechanism of certain phenomena (i.e., change in
population) using scientific theories or models (i.e., evolution by natural selection). She provided
opportunities for students to use scientific theories or models developed from their inquiry
activities (i.e., toothpicks lab, bird beak lab) to explain data or observation that they collected.
Leslie asked, “How did the environments affect the shape of the beak that could survive on each
of the islands?”; “Explain evolution using the three key ideas of (a) natural selection, (b) over
reproduction, and (c) random mutation, including examples that explain your ideas, on a blank
paper.”
B. Identifying & interpreting (i.e., highlighting & coding). Leslie’s assessment
questions produced rich information about students’ ideas and their thinking. Leslie carefully
compared student responses with the ideal responses that she expected, and identified what
students knew, partially knew, and what was missing. For example, Leslie stated:




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The students all stated that evolution was a change in species over time. Many of them
were also able to explain what natural selection was; however, very few of them stated
that natural selection was the force behind evolution. Some students could not explain
natural selection the way it was described in the book or in the notes but they could give
great examples about how it works. [Leslie, Intern, Inquiry activity report]
In this account, Leslie interpreted students’ responses that included appropriate examples
about the mechanism of evolution positively although students did not describe “the way it was
described in the book.”
C. Responding & learning from students. Leslie suggested very specific ideas to address
students’ difficulties that they identified, stating that “I would give them a rubric that would help
students identify the important concepts as well as give them a problem to solve.” Leslie also
thought that the lack of clarity in students’ responses regarding the relation of a genetic change in
the process of evolution had to do with her unclear assessment task. Accordingly, Leslie noted
the importance of establishing a strong problem at the beginning of the inquiry activity sequence,
so that she will have students “try to come up with their own explanations to the problem at this
stage” to “dig deeper into students’ thinking” next time. Leslie’s narratives showed that she
received productive feedback on her instructional practices from students by engaging in this
assessment practice.
Patterns of Leslie’s assessment practices from multiple data. A total of four teaching
episodes collected throughout two years were analyzed to find the patterns of Leslie’s
assessment practice. Each teaching episode included at least one plan and one report. Two out of
four teaching episodes also included candidates’ interview about their teaching video. In addition
to the data from her teaching episodes, Leslie’s interview that was conducted using a clinical




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interview video in her senior year was also analyzed to triangulate the patterns of Leslie’s
assessment practices.
The results clearly showed that Leslie consistently provided quality opportunities for
students to give rich information about their scientific ideas or thinking by engaging them in
scientific practices (O-f: 67%) even from the beginning of her senior year. For instance, in her
lesson about DNA fingerprinting, Leslie had her students respond to the question of “why might
the non-coding regions of a person’s DNA be more variable than their coding regions of DNA
(think back to what you have learned about mutation)?” In another lesson about microscopes and
cells from her senior year teaching episode, Leslie had students observe onion and cheek cells to
find similarities and differences between plant and animal cells, and then use that information to
solve a problem of identifying an unknown material on the table. Her assessment questions
included types of questions that ask factual information, but those questions were asked in the
contexts of some investigation or application activity.
As the responses to Leslie’s assessment questions or tasks, students produced many
interesting answers that showed their ideas, misconceptions, and thinking process.

Leslie

identified students’ scientific ideas, including partial understandings or misconceptions from the
responses (ID-a & ID-b: 67%), interpreted students’ ideas in relation to the experiences provided
through her instruction or students’ prior experiences (IN-a & IN-c: 100%), and then suggested
specific instructional modifications that were directly connected to the students’ identified
difficulties (R-a: 67%) (see Figure 8 and 9). For instance, in her lesson about microscopes and
cells where students compared and contrasted plant and animal cells from the observation of
onion and cheek cells, Leslie identified a low achieving student’s difficulties in understanding
cell structure, highlighting misconceptions about the nucleus. Leslie stated, “My low achieving




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student, Cathleen, was unable to correctly identify a cell and a nucleus. She even had the
misconception that a nucleus was its own cell which she called a ‘neluic cell.’” (ID-a) She
thought that the misconceptions about nucleus might be associated with insufficient observations
about cells and nucleus provided with her instruction. Leslie stated, “I think it would have been
useful for me to point a cell and a nucleus on more than one kind of cell instead of just doing it
once during the demonstration.” (IN-a) She suggested providing more experiences for observing
differently shaped cells to help students find patterns among them. She said, “I would spend
more time looking at pictures of cells under the microscope…I think that for some students, it
would have been useful to practice identifying all kinds of different shaped cells and point out
that the nucleus is always inside a cell, never on its own and never its own cell.” (R-a) Leslie’s
responses were specific and tied to the difficulties that she identified in students. The analysis
suggests that Leslie was successful in learning from her students by engaging in this formative
assessment practice as demonstrated in this one teaching episode. The results of data coding of
all four teaching episodes showed the clear patterns of Leslie’s formative assessment practices
across two years (see Figure 8, 9, and 10).
The patterns of practices that emerged from her own teaching episodes were even
consistent with her approaches toward assessing and responding to Jeremiah during the interview
with a clinical interview video. In this controlled context where all candidates had to respond to
the same student in the video, Leslie identified accurately what Jeremiah did know and did not
know in great detail, including Jeremiah’s misconceptions about leaves and soil. For instance,
Leslie succinctly summarized, “He knows that you need air, water, and light; you need those
things, which is what you need for photosynthesis. He does know that it is not from the soil; he
just goes back to it. He knows the key ingredients and he knows that plants have something




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special that animals do not.” (ID-a) Leslie focused on Jeremiah’s misconception about leaves
and soil, and interpreted Jeremiah’s ideas as a sensible way of making sense about plants. Leslie
said,
I think it is just, because that is just the only thing that he could think about logically that,
in his mind, before he got to class, it is probably what he thought. And even though he sat
through X many days of listening about photosynthesis, he still is going back to what he
already knew, or already thought he knew (IN-c & IN-j) (Leslie, senior, Interview using a
clinical interview video).
As her response to the question of “What would you do as a teacher if you have a student
like Jeremiah?” Leslie suggested doing an experiment with students to address their
misconceptions: “I might do the soil experiment with them, just to kind of prove that [plants] do
not use soil. And then talk about we know that they need air, water, and light to survive; what are
they doing with the air, water, and light, too?” (R-a) Leslie’s response was focused on clearing
up students’ misconceptions that she suspected would be common in students of that age. The
following charts in figure 8 and 9 showed that which aspects were more or less highlighted in
Leslie’s assessment practices with respect to identifying (i.e., highlighting), interpreting, and
responding (i.e., coding). These charts were developed from the coding results. The relative
percentages of each aspect of interpretative codes (i.e., content understanding, social, and
behavioral/procedural) were calculated from the total number of coded units.




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Figure 8. Leslie’s assessment practice pattern in senior year (No response means the
candidate did not provide any interpretation or did not make any suggestions in the unit of
analysis)

Figure 9. Leslie’s assessment practice pattern in intern year




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Figure 10 Leslie's approach of assessing and responding to students
The Case of Susie
Stories about Susie
Susie was a petite Asian female intern who majored in Chemistry and minored in English
as a Second Language. Similar to Leslie, Susie came into the program in her junior year without
any teaching experience. Susie worked at the same school as Leslie, West high, but with a
different mentor. It should be noted that Susie worked with the same mentor teacher, Mrs. B, for
two years from senior to internship year, which was very unusual. When she participated in this
study, she was in her internship year, thus it was her second year of being in Mrs. B’s classroom.
Susie had a fairly similar vision of science teaching as the program though she used
different language. The kinds of science teaching that Susie wanted to do were engaging students
in “the thought process” through students’ collaborative activities in a classroom community




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while modeling scientists’ work in the scientific community. She said, “I think in all aspects of
the way I design the class, I try to emphasize that the process is much more important than the
right or wrong answer.” Susie likes to “have students work in groups, think-tank types of
activities, and have them share their answers” because “I feel that’s what people do in the
scientific community.” In her vision of good science teaching, Susie stated that her students
would be “working like scientists by fielding ideas and revising them as a team.”
Susie cared greatly about all students’ engagement in her lessons to begin with. In the
vignette of good science teaching that Susie developed at the beginning of her senior year, she
highlighted the inclusiveness of everyone in activities such as demonstration as one of the key
attributes of good science teaching. Susie was keen on students’ personal and social
characteristics, and frequently talked about how they played certain roles in their participation in
her classroom. For instance, during the interview she pointed out, “A lot of the students are very
competitive in this particular class, so I think that also plays a role in how the students behave in
class and how they participate.” While working with a diverse group of students at this urban
high school who mostly came from low resourced families, Susie positioned herself as someone
who provided care and nurtured her students as if she was their ‘mom’ at school. “[Students]
fight for my attention”; “They’re very needy”; “They are constantly asking questions and
wanting me to take them step by step by step through everything.” Susie said that a teacher ought
to “feed students after breaking the information into chunks that they can digest.”
As an intern at this diverse urban high school, Susie was not an exception in having
difficulties in managing a classroom. Susie treated her students with respect though, and made an
effort to reach all students, even when students challenged her. Susie’s mentor, Mrs. B, described
that Susie concentrated her efforts in “finding ways of reaching them instead of getting upset




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about it.” Mrs. B proudly said that Susie had “developed a safe classroom that the students feel
comfortable no matter who it is, and that there is a respect between student and teacher.”
Although both Susie’s mentor teacher and course instructor described Susie as a
“thoughtful” and “reflective” intern, Susie interacted much more actively with her mentor
teacher than the course instructor about her teaching practices. To the course instructor, Dr. R,
Susie was a “quiet” intern, although Dr. R found her “to be very reflective, thoughtful, willing to
think about her own practice and the kids.” On the contrary, her mentor teacher, Mrs. B, said that
Susie was “always curious as to the reasons behind the suggestions,” and asked many reflective
questions. Susie mostly relied on Mrs. B’s resources, and imitated her teaching strategies in her
daily practices throughout her internship. Interestingly, Susie was well aware of her ‘imitation’
of her mentor’s practices as indicated in this comment: “Our personalities are not quite the same,
and I’ve found that I’ve morphed a little bit into her personality, especially in terms of classroom
management because I’ve seen her be so effective and I’ve recognized that.” Susie used many
techniques and strategies that Mrs. B modeled for her, and used language very similar to that of
Mrs. B to explain her teaching practices. However, Susie also noted that there were some
differences between her and Mrs. B in terms of their ways of teaching science. Whereas Susie
likes to have students do group work and open-ended type activities (i.e., designated identities),
her mentor teacher didn’t like those activities because it made the class chaotic. Susie said,
I’m still like fairly similar to what she’s teaching, but I have felt more comfortable
putting in my own spin on things…I think what I do, that’s a little bit different from my
mentor teacher, is I take time to – like she doesn’t do a lot of the drawing pictures and
having them work in groups, and I like to do a lot of like think-tank types of activities
and have them share their answers, and she’s very much more, I think, concrete and




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wants – doesn’t like things that are very open ended. And at first I felt very like
uncomfortable doing that, and as I was planning and things I would try to avoid things
that like, because I thought maybe she would feel like that’s really unnecessary or that’s
really foolish or that’s you know whatever. But as the year went on I wanted to try
different things and try new ideas and, yeah, do things like that. (Susie at internship year,
teaching video interview)
Obviously, Mrs. B was not exactly the kind of teacher that Susie wanted to be. Susie was
also aware that the kind of science teaching that she wanted to master did not exactly match Mrs.
B’s instructional model. As her responses, Susie primarily imitated her mentor’s approaches
early in the internship, but as the year went on she was able to “try different things and try new
ideas.”
The Nature of Occasions for Learning for Susie
Susie’s mentor, Mrs. B, had approximately 20 years of teaching experience at the high
school level, including 13 years at West high school. Mrs. B collaborated with the program for a
long time as a mentor teacher, and Susie was her eighth intern. Her background was in medical
technology and clinical laboratory science, and she received a teaching credential after she got
her Masters degree in clinical laboratory science.
Mrs. B had a strong view about good science teaching that was easily characterized as
structured and skill-oriented. She confidently stated that her goal as a science teacher is helping
students to develop sets of ‘content-free’ life skills, such as organizational skills, communication
skills, and thinking skills, without any hesitation. From her point of view, “most of [her]
students are never going to use chemistry again,” but they will use those life skills. If they
develop those skills from her class, “they can learn the science at any time.”




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Mrs. B: Most of my students are never going to use chemistry again. Are they going to
use some of the organizational skills? Keeping a notebook? Are they going to
have to communicate with other people in a reasonable fashion? Are they going
to have to read and follow directions? Yes! So things that may not necessarily
seem like strictly science content that are more life skills are a lot of the things I
want to see the kids walk out my door with. If they walk out with those, they can
learn the science any time.
Mrs. B’s approaches to both teaching science and mentoring candidates were highly
structured and skill-oriented. Dr. R said, “It’s like having somebody from the military be your
teacher, not in a bad way, but in the sense of structure. [Mrs. B] was very clear about
expectations, she scaffolded things, she helped students, and she was always there for them.”
Susie also added, “I don’t know if this is even the right wording but this is the wording that [Mrs.
B] uses. She is good at training her students. So it’s very orderly and organized.”
Mrs. B’s approach to mentoring was highly structured and skill-oriented as well. Mrs. B
always monitored Susie’s practices in her classroom, and explicitly modeled all the small
techniques in detail to help Susie develop certain ‘skills’ of science teaching that work for Susie.
During the interview with Mrs. B, she proudly pointed out that the skills and techniques
manifested in Susie’s teaching video were those that Mrs. B and Susie had developed together,
such as cues and signs between Susie and students indicating when to participate, to stop, and to
proceed with whole class conversation. While working with Mrs. B for two years, Susie was
constantly exposed to how Mrs. B skillfully got all students to do their work through drill and
practice type problem solving activities under Mrs. B’s structured modeling. The two
professional communities (i.e., the teacher preparation program and the mentor teacher) that




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Susie had to respond to provided her with different resources for and ideas of science teaching
practice.
Susie’s Response to Occasions for Learning
Similar to Leslie’s case, I will illustrate the characteristics of Susie’s assessment practice
in inquiry teaching episode in detail, then present the general patterns of her assessment
practices. I first summarize Susie’s inquiry activity constructed from her stories of what
happened. The embedded assessment tasks or questions designed or identified by Susie in her
report are italicized in each summary. Then follows my analysis about the four elements of
assessment practices. The general patterns of Susie’s practices are presented at the end.
Susie’s inquiry activity and assessment tasks/questions. The unit of Susie’s inquiry
sequence was solutions. She stated that the objective was to “Describe how various factors affect
the rate of solution and solubility.” Susie opened her inquiry sequence with students’ discussion
after splitting the whole group in half. One half of the class was asked to list as many factors that
impact solubility (“What factors might affect how fast something dissolves?”) and the other half
to list as many factors that impacted rate of solution (“What factors might affect how much of
something can dissolve?”). Students had to come up with at least one factor through their
discussion, write them down, and submit them to Susie. Susie complied all the factors that
students came up with, and then assigned each student a factor (i.e., temperature, surface area of
the solvent, stirring, crushing.). Each student designed a lab that answered the question, “How
does …. affect solubility or rate of solution” using a sugar cube and water. After each student
designed a lab individually, Susie asked students to discuss their designs together as a class, and
addressed the issue of testing only one variable at a time and having control groups in students’
lab designs. Next, she assigned students different labs to test different variables using students’




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lab designs. Students collected data (e.g., counting sugar cubes or timing) while performing one
another’s labs. Susie asked students to write a lab report. This report asked students to “explain
how their factor impacted or did not impact rate of solution/solubility based on the data they
collected.” Students were asked in a discussion scenario how their factor impacted the solution
at a molecular level. Finally, she engaged students in a roundtable discussion about the factor at
a molecular level. During the roundtable discussion, Susie had each group provide a mini
presentation for the class that included: (a) what question their lab was attempting to answer,
(b) whether they were testing for rate of solution or solubility, (c) what factor they were testing,
(d) their data/lab results, and (e) conclusions that could be drawn from their data. Susie
wrapped up this inquiry sequence after having a whole-class discussion on the rate of solution
and solubility at the molecular level.
A. Assessment questions/task. In this inquiry activity sequence, Susie provided an openended opportunity for students to give Susie rich information about themselves, including their
understanding about designing experiments, engagement in scientific practices, and knowledge
of rate and solubility, by having students design a lab by themselves. Similar to Leslie, Susie’s
key assessment questions asked students to explain the mechanism of certain phenomena (i.e.,
solubility) using scientific theories or models. She provided opportunities for students to use
scientific models developed from their inquiry activities (i.e., solubility lab) to explain data that
students collected through their lab. Susie asked them to, “Explain how their factor impacted or
did not impact rate of solution/solubility based on the data you collected.”
B. Identifying & Interpreting (i.e., highlighting & coding). Susie’s assessment questions
produced rich information about students’ ideas and their thinking. Susie carefully compared
student responses with the ideal responses that she expected, and identified what students knew,




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partially knew, and what was missing. Susie identified the characteristics of student responses
while appreciating observation, patterns, and conclusions. She stated, “Some students did not
draw a conclusion, only stating the patterns they found. Some simply stated that as their factor
increased/decreased, the rate of solution/solubility went up/down.” Interestingly, Susie also
noted that students did not understand the integrated nature of scientific knowledge and
practices. She problematized students’ tendency of separating this scientific investigation from
developing scientific knowledge. She stated, “The idea of the need for research was absent,
therefore, students might have seen the process as simply validating a known fact.” Susie
interpreted this problem as her failure to provide scaffolding for students effectively as shown in
the following statement:
I feel that I did not effectively scaffold the process of scientific research. It seemed that
even while performing the lab, the students were convinced they knew the outcome and
results. As a result, they may have forced conclusions that were not properly supported
by their data. Also, I did not scaffold the process so that students were looking at the big
picture. Rather, they saw it as completing separate, unrelated tasks. The resulting
outcome was that the students were not able to critically analyze and piece together the
parts of the lab (the question they were trying to answer, the data collected and the
meaning and significance of their data). [Susie, intern, Inquiry activity report]
Both Leslie’s and Susie’s practices of identifying and interpreting indicate that the ‘science’ that
they tried to teach with this inquiry activity was neither a description in the textbook nor a
process separate from the content. It was an integrated body of knowledge and practice that
allowed their students to make sense of the world that they experience.




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C. Responding & Learning from students. Susie identified quality information about
students, including their difficulties in engaging in scientific practices, from the student
responses generated by her assessment tasks. Based on her interpretation of student responses,
Susie suggested very specific ideas to address the students’ difficulties that they identified. For
instance, Susie suggested ideas to help students to distinguish between dissolving time and rate
of solution as following:
For students that were assigned rate of solution, I would have included a question
that would require students to distinguish between dissolving time and rate of solution
(ex. As temperature increased, what happened to the time it took for the sugar cube to
dissolve. Followed by the question: What does this tell you about the rate?). [Susie,
Intern, Inquiry activity report]
Susie’s narratives showed that she received productive feedback on her instructional practices
from students by engaging in assessment practice. The biggest lesson that Susie learned from this
assessment practice was that “many students did not recognize the essence of science—
experiments are about answering questions.” She also highlighted that “students were
uncomfortable with the idea that their data proved that variables were unrelated” despite the fact
that “both conclusive and inconclusive results were equally valuable” in science. Therefore,
Susie drew out the following lesson:
I have learned that in order to scaffold students’ learning in an inquiry lesson, that this
idea must be discussed. It is important that students understand that we are forming
hypotheses, designing and doing experiments for the purpose of answering our inquiry- a
question we do not know the answer to. Data and results are not analyzed based on
correctness; they only help us answer our question by proving or disproving a correlation.




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If our results are inconclusive, it simply means we need to revise our design or
hypothesis- it still provides us with information that we can learn from. [Susie, Intern,
Inquiry activity report]
The analysis demonstrated that Susie was successful in both responding to students
productively and learning from students.
Patterns of Susie’s assessment practices. A total of two teaching episodes, including
the inquiry one, were analyzed to examine Susie’s assessment practice. The inquiry activity
sequence was the outcome of candidates’ responses to the occasions for learning deliberately
designed by the program with the intention of engaging candidates in reform-oriented teaching
during the last semester of their internship year. The other teaching episode was produced as the
outcome of a general occasion for learning during the spring semester of the internship year. The
data included Susie’s plans and reports of these two teaching episodes, and one interview about
Susie’s teaching video. In addition, the interview using a clinical interview video was analyzed
to triangulate the patterns that emerged from her own teaching episodes.
The results of coding of these two episodes indicated that overall Susie incorporated
various types of assessment tasks ranging from ones that generated simple and short student
responses to ones generating complex and long student responses. The kinds of opportunities
provided for students included reproducing factual information (O-b: 33%), displaying some
skills or procedural knowledge (O-c: 44%), applying models or principles to explain other
28

examples (O-d: 11%), and developing explanations through reasoning about data (O-f: 44%) .
However, the opportunities that required students to reveal complicated scientific ideas with

























































28
The total number of units of analysis was nine. Three of them were double coded because
those units include students’ multiple responses to several sub-questions. See the detail in the
Appendix 12.



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relatively long responses were mostly provided with her inquiry teaching episode. In the other
episode about atomic structure and subatomic particles, she got students to practice calculating
average atomic mass by following the equations (O-c), and asked, “In your OWN words, what is
an isotope?” (O-b), and “What is the relationship between an element’s isotopes and the
element’s atomic mass?” (O-b). In her inquiry lesson about solution and solubility, students were
“asked to design a lab in which they could find out how their assigned factor impacted the rate of
solution or solubility,” and then later they had “to explain how their factor impacted or did not
impact rate of solution/solubility based on the data they collected.” (O-f)
Not surprisingly, the two different types of assessment questions from two different
teaching episodes generated different types of student responses, which affected the other
elements of assessment practices from identifying to responding. In the general teaching episode,
Susie mostly identified whether students got right or wrong answers (ID-c) or completion of the
tasks (ID-d) in her unit report. She then interpreted that students’ wrong answers or incompletion
were associated with behavior issues (IN-g). For example, Susie reported about one lowachieving student, Alex, as following:
Alex did not have his pre-lab completed and was asked several times in class to get
started on it and finish it so he could get started on the lab. It appeared his lab partner
was doing most of the work. He simply wrote down whatever she was writing. As I tried
to ask him to explain the calculations he was doing, he was not able to explain it. In
addition, he did not have time to finish the questions in class and chose to leave them
blank. It appeared that he had absolutely no understanding of what was going on, beside
the fact that we were counting and weighing beans. (ID-d, IN-g)




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Susie’s ideas for modification of her instruction included “assign independent activities or
dividing the roles” for students to complete their work independently (R-d), and “find an
alternative way of presenting and lecturing” to make “kill and drill type of activities” less boring
(R-e). Her responses addressed some social dynamics in the classroom but were not directly
related to students’ difficulties. Things that Susie could learn from students through assessment
practice were constrained by the kinds of opportunities that she provided with her assessment
questions or activities.
In her inquiry teaching report as described above, however, she highlighted students’
ideas and their difficulties in understanding the topic (ID-a & ID-b: 100%), and interpreted it by
linking to her instructional approaches or students’ prior experiences (IN-a & IN-c: 67%), and
responded to them with some instructional strategies relevant to students’ difficulties. For
example, from students’ lab reports about solution and solubility in the inquiry teaching episode,
Susie identified that “some students did not draw a conclusion, only stating the patterns they
found…. Also, students, who were assigned to investigate the rate of solution, did not distinguish
between rate and time.” (ID-a) Susie interpreted this in relation to her instructional approach
saying “I did not scaffold the process…the resulting outcome was that students were not able to
critically analyze the piece together the parts of the lab.” (IN-a) Her response was very specific
and tied with the students’ difficulties that she identified. She stated, “For students that were
assigned rate of solution, I would have included a question that would require students to
distinguish between dissolving time and rate of solution (ex. As temperature increased, what
happened to the time it took for the sugar cube to dissolve. Followed by the question: What does
this tell you about the rate?).” (R-a) The analysis of the two teaching episodes showed that
Susie’s assessment practices were inconsistent and sensitive to the structure of assignment.




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During the interview using a clinical interview video, Susie identified what Jeremiah did
know and did not know accurately including his misconception about soil during the interview
(ID-a). Susie said, “I think that’s evident that [Jeremiah] understands that staying alive means
you need food and that’s how you obtain the food, from air, minerals, soil and light…[Jeremiah]
might have a misconception on how the soil plays into the process of plant growth because he
had said two different things.” Interestingly, she also highlighted that how the social
environment created by the interviewer’s strategy might have influenced Jeremiah’s feeling as
well as his responses.
The interviewer at the very beginning, I think that was very important for the student,
when [the interviewer] stated ‘don’t worry about being nervous’ and that kind of thing. It
made the student felt that this was a safe place where he could express his thoughts and
feelings and say I don’t know if he really didn’t know.
Susie interpreted Jeremiah’s dismissal of learning photosynthesis as the failure to make
connections between abstract ideas (i.e., vocabulary) and students’ prior knowledge (IN-c).
Accordingly, as her responses to Jeremiah, Susie emphasized the importance of helping students
to see the value of learning in order to persist in learning the abstract ideas. She suggested that,
“It’s important to go from bigger to smaller and not jump to an equation, or to vocabulary, or to
specific parts of a process before explaining the application first.” Susie’s responses to Jeremiah
were general and related to his difficulties to some degree, but may or may not address his
specific difficulties in understanding the role of soil and leaves in plants making their food.
In short, Susie’s approaches toward assessing and responding to students were sensitive
to the nature of occasions for learning, and specifically to the structure of the assignment. By
asking different types of questions, she provided variable opportunities for her students to give




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information about what they knew. When she received quality student responses, she was able to
use some of that information about students to provide productive feedback. Susie’s responses
were often grounded in general observations about students’ social aspects and patterns of
participation in the classroom (R-d: 44%) rather than interpretations of specific student ideas and
their difficulties with the topic (R-a: 33%) (See the Figure 11 and 12).

Figure 11. Susie's practice pattern

Figure 12. Susie’s approach of assessing and responding to students



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The Case of Teresa
Stories about Teresa
Teresa was a petite Asian female intern who majored in biology and minored in
chemistry. She came from California, and had teaching experiences in an outdoor setting in the
redwood forest in California, with students who mostly came from under-resourced families.
Teresa had a strong desire to be an urban science teacher to begin with, and applied to be placed
at an urban high school in her internship year.
Teresa thought that science should be fun and interesting to students as well as applicable
to their lives. She liked using hands-on activities, doing activities with objects as opposed to with
papers or worksheets, and “taking students off site and outside to do a cool activity” to get
students excited about learning science. Her experiences at the redwood forest in California
strongly resonated with her stories of teaching along with her challenges and frustration about
managing a classroom at the Central high school. She said, “My teaching style evolved from
being outside. So I think that being inside, it’s a totally, I have to learn a new teaching style
because the resources are different and how you teach is different.”
A critical part of Teresa’s ideas on science teaching involved getting students to have
embodied or first-hand experiences, such as being a part of the story of science (e.g., DNA
replication), seeing, touching, or feeling, just like she had done in California. However, to
Teresa, large class sizes and limited resources and a small space inside an urban science
classroom were big obstacles to teaching science in the way that she would like to teach. Teresa
said, “I would like to do more hands on things. But it’s really hard to do when you have so many
kids and the classroom management just gets really crazy”, “This year I think it’s been the
biggest thing that I’ve struggled with is classroom management…I feel like I have less resources,




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you’re inside a classroom with twice as many students.” Throughout her internship year, Teresa
worked hard to find and try hands-on activities, including activities she brought from California.
To Teresa, motivation was the biggest problem because there were many students who did not
seem to care about learning science at this urban high school. Teresa simply thought that “once
[students] start trying it, they will find it interesting,” and then they would learn. Accordingly,
she devoted herself to working with students one-on-one after school to get them to try it and
motivate them. Teresa’s mentor said that Teresa spent much of her time working with students
individually. However, Teresa’s classroom was not controlled, and there were, in her words,
“Usually like multiple crazy things going on.” During her instruction, most students did not pay
attention to Teresa. They just kept talking, moving around, and texting. Teresa talked over
students with a high pitch to make her soft voice audible because the class was so noisy and she
did not project her presence as a teacher. The course instructor, Dr. R, expressed her concern
about Teresa during the interview. Dr. R said, “I feel like [Teresa] had no control in the
classroom. Until the spring, she was really struggling…she let the kids walk all over her. They
did not respect her.” Dr. R also pointed out that Teresa “blamed students a lot” in her journals
while giving her “lip service” to the fact that the urban students needed to have more support, to
be guided, and to develop these skills.
Despite the obvious challenges of managing classroom and frustrations, Teresa did not
seek out any help or advice from either the course instructor or her mentor teacher. Teresa’s
mentor, Mrs. R. said, “I don't feel like Teresa ever really actively sought out anything [from
me]”, “ I don't ever remember Teresa saying, “can you help me with this?” or, “Do you have
anything for this?” She did a lot of work on her own.” Mrs. R expressed her concern about
Teresa with respect to the lack of communication. She said, “Honestly, my only concern with




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Teresa was that I didn't know what she was thinking, as far as her emotions…just not knowing if
she was happy or wanted more from me. I felt like I would offer, but she just always said, “No,
I'm okay.””
It was obvious that Teresa did not want to be a teacher like her mentor and did not think
of her mentor’s instructional approaches as effective. In particular, Teresa highlighted Mrs. R’s
uses of worksheets or papers, saying Mrs. R “does a lot of worksheets.” Teresa said, “[In
California] we didn’t have a whole lot of like paper things…my mentor does a lot of worksheets,
and I don’t think [students] were seeing it and visualizing it.” It seemed to me that Teresa’s
strong vision of ‘embodied instruction’ made her strongly object to “paper/worksheet oriented
instruction.” The resources and ideas from Mrs. R clearly did not match with Teresa’s designated
identities.
It was also the case with Dr. R that Teresa was not “taking steps to seek out help.” Dr. R
said, “I did feel most uncomfortable because the reports [Teresa] was turning in were not very
insightful. Her journals were really not very reflective. I worried about that because that kind of
environment can eat you alive.”
Throughout her internship, Teresa worked hard to enact her vision of science teaching
that originated from her experiences at the outside setting in California, but despite the offered
resources from both professional communities, she continuously came back to her previous
experiences and looked for hands-on activities on the Internet instead of making use of resources
and ideas from her mentor or the program.
The Nature of Occasions for Learning
Teresa’s mentor, Mrs. R, had eight years of teaching experience at the Central high
school ever since she graduated from the same teacher preparation program. She had been




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collaborating with the program as a mentor teacher for six years, and Teresa was her third fulltime intern. Mrs. R had worked with several senior candidates as well and was therefore familiar
with the structure and expectations of the program.
Mrs. R’s classroom is usually packed with students. Her lesson always begins with
journal questions to check students’ prior knowledge. The questions vary from simple-recall type
questions to thinking question. Mrs. R had a strong teaching voice and skillfully interacted with
students both individually and as a whole class. During the students’ work, Mrs. R walks around
the classroom to check out their progress and understanding. Mrs. R’s approaches to teaching
science were focused on illustrating the science content in the textbook with activities. She used
worksheets frequently, but she selected activities that allowed her to accomplish her lesson
objectives whenever she could.
As a mentor teacher and graduate of the same program, Mrs. R understood the design of
the program and its expectations of candidates. Mrs. R was very supportive and open to her
interns’ ideas. Mrs. R stated, “As with all of my interns, I always tell them that this is the time
for them to try an activity, because there's always a fallback.” Throughout the year, Mrs. R
encouraged Teresa to try any lesson or activity while providing critical support, such as making
sure to prepare the second activity or a back up plan. Mrs. R said, “[Teresa] did a lot of planning
by herself.” However, Teresa did not seem to take full advantage of being in Mrs. R’s classroom
despite “the free reign” given to her and Mrs. R’s attempts to reach out to Teresa. Dr. R said,
“[Mrs. R] was trying to be her mentor. I didn't know this until late fall, but her mentor said that
Teresa never shared her concerns with her even when she asked. So [Teresa] wasn’t
communicating with her mentor in ways that might have been helpful to her because she might
have gotten some helpful feedback and support from [Mrs. R].”




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In summary, Teresa was provided opportunities for learning from students through
assessment practices while working with diverse students at this urban high school with the
support of both her mentor and the program. However, she did not interact with the two
communities of practice as much as she actually could do even when she had difficulties and
needed help.
Teresa’s Responses to Occasions for Learning
Teresa’s assessment practices in her inquiry teaching episode are described in detail.
Then follows the patterns of Teresa’s assessment practice.
Teresa’s inquiry activity and assessment tasks/questions. Teresa’s inquiry sequence
was enacted as the start of the unit on bacteria. Teresa identified four state objectives before she
stated her own objectives indicating that she formulated her objectives based on the following
four state objectives:
B1.1C Conduct scientific investigations using appropriate tools and techniques (e.g.,
selecting an instrument that measures the desired quantity—length, volume, weight, time
interval, temperature—with the appropriate level of precision).
B1.1D Identify patterns in data and relate them to theoretical models.
B1.1E Describe a reason for a given conclusion using evidence from an investigation.
B1.1h Design and conduct a systematic scientific investigation that tests a hypothesis.
Draw conclusions from data presented in charts or tables.
Teresa’s objectives were: “Students will learn about bacteria, and viral disease mechanisms and
treatments, and use their knowledge to conduct a scientific investigation of antibacterial agents
(disinfectants and antibiotics) using appropriate tools. They will then use their data to make a
table and draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the disinfectants vs. the antibiotics.”




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Teresa opened her inquiry sequence showing an episode of a popular TV show, ‘House.’
This episode sparked students’ interest. It also illustrated the difference between virus and
bacteria with diagnostic medicine. After watching this episode, Teresa asked students when they
have used antibiotics and disinfectants in their lives. Teresa went over the pre-lab, and began her
inquiry lab. The lab was to compare the effectiveness between antibiotics and disinfectants using
two types of bacteria. Students were asked to develop a hypothesis as to what would happen if
they placed six different antibiotic discs and six disinfectant discs onto agar plates inoculated
with two different bacteria (i.e., E. Coli and B. Subtilis). Students performed the lab (i.e., plating
disinfectants and antibiotics discs on two agar plates inoculated with two different bacteria). The
following day, students measured the zones of inhibition, recorded the data in their own tables,
and analyzed individual and class data. Students wrote a lab report responding to the questions:
“Why the antibiotic plates were affective in inhibiting specific types of bacterial growth only, and
why almost all the disinfectants inhibited both types of bacteria pretty significantly.” Students
read the textbook, and found the answers of the questions of “how antibiotics inhibit growth and
how disinfectants inhibit growth or kill bacteria.” Teresa went over the lab report with students,
and had them turn in their worksheet.
A. Assessment tasks/questions. Teresa used several assessment questions in this teaching
episode, but similar to Leslie and Susie, her key assessment questions appeared at the end of the
episode, in her lab report. Teresa asked quite different questions from both Leslie and Susie.
Whereas both Leslie and Susie asked students to explain the mechanism of certain phenomena
using scientific theories or models with their ‘how’ questions, Teresa asked, “Why” questions, to
see if students could explain the reason why it happens. Specifically, she asked, “Why the
antibiotic plates were affective in inhibiting specific types of bacterial growth only, and why




174


almost all the disinfectants inhibited both types of bacteria pretty significantly.” She also asked
‘how’ questions, “how antibiotics inhibit growth and how disinfectants inhibit growth or kill
bacteria,” but she did not expect students to answer this question by themselves. She had
students find the answers from the reading with her hope that her students “make connections
from their reading.” Whereas Leslie and Susie expected their students to come up with their own
explanation using the scientific models and theories, Teresa had ‘the answer’ to the questions to
begin with. In the report, Teresa clearly stated the right answer that she wanted to see from her
students in the end:
In the end, I [Teresa] wanted [students] to answer the questions the following
way, but not until the end of the lab and the analysis:
Antibiotics inhibit the cell wall to prevent reproduction. They are usually specific
to one type of bacteria. That is why they are used as medication. They are specific, so
they don’t kill the other good bacteria that lives in our bodies…Disinfectants are
chemical agents that either kill or inhibit the growth of a wide variety of bacteria. They
interfere with cell processes like enzyme activities…Disinfectants use a combination of
mechanisms to kill a wide variety of bacteria, so they are used as surface cleaners and for
external use. They would harm the good bacteria inside of us and our cells if we ingested
it. That’s why we don’t drink cleaners. (Teresa, Intern, Inquiry activity report)
This account suggested that Teresa held a two dimensional, narrative way of
understanding science that conceived of science as stories or the ‘why’ part. She worked hard to
help students make the connection between a phenomenon and the reason why it happens. Thus,
she asked whether students knew the stories (i.e., What it is), or whether students could see the
connections (i.e., why it happens). In both cases, it was less likely for Teresa to get rich




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information from students because for the most part students did not remember the facts or did
not know ‘the right answer’ unless they had access to some authoritative sources, such as
‘reading’ in her inquiry activity.
B. Identifying & Interpreting (i.e., highlighting & coding). As expected, students
struggled to respond to Teresa’s questions in this inquiry episode. Furthermore, Teresa reported
that students had trouble measuring the zone of inhibition accurately, and produced “fairly
inconsistent data,” which would make it much more difficult for students to respond to Teresa’s
questions. Teresa identified that students had trouble in making connections and answering her
‘why’ questions even though they know what an antibiotic is and what a disinfectant is. It was
just puzzling to Teresa:
I really wanted them to be able to make the connections themselves at this point, but it
seemed to be really hard for them to do. They understood what an antibiotic was and
what a disinfectant was, and saw the patterns in their data, but then couldn’t put it all
together. (Teresa, Intern, Inquiry activity report)
Teresa interpreted students’ difficulties in “making connections” as the lack of critical thinking
skills or “training.” She stated, “I don’t know how I really could have. I think that I need to just
continue to try to push them to learn to think critically about things because they aren’t trained to
do that yet.” It seemed to me that Teresa conceived of it as a separate skill that students need to
develop to learn the content.
In addition, Teresa’s highlighting was focused on seeing if students gave her the right
answer or not. She positively interpreted the fact that students arrived at the “correct” and
“same” conclusions in the end:




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Overall, students did well on this [assessment question]. They seemed to have many of
the correct responses in the end. They struggled through the analysis of the experiment,
but were able to arrive at the same end conclusions, and see the connection between the
scientific models of antibiotics and disinfectants on bacteria. (Teresa, Intern, Inquiry
activity report)
With respect to her mechanism questions (i.e., how antibiotics inhibit growth and how
disinfectants inhibit growth or kill bacteria), Teresa noticed that most of students just copied the
mechanism from the reading, so “It didn’t really take a whole lot of thought.” But she interpreted
it as one success because students “learn the skill”:
The more important thing was that they learned the skill of looking up answers in
reading. This is a skill that we have been working on all year. They used to freak out
about having a page of reading in front of them and having to find the answers. They
wanted to just be able to look it up in a glossary and be done with it. We read it out loud
together though, and then they were supposed to find it on their own. Overall, they did
pretty well. (Teresa, Intern, Inquiry activity report)
To Teresa, finding answers in reading was an important skill for students to develop in order to
learn the content of science in readings such as textbooks.
C. Responding & learning from students. In contrast to Leslie or Susie, Teresa did not
make any specific suggestions to address students’ difficulties. The only response that Teresa
came up with was “just continue to try to push them to learn to think critically about things”
because she interpreted the problem as the matter of lack of ‘skills’ that students must have
developed separately. After the analysis of student work, she stated:




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Students will get frustrated. It’s really hard for ninth graders to try to critically
analyze things, and I am kind of convinced that Central middle schools don’t facilitate
critical thinking, because my students hate it. They get frustrated so easily and just want a
straightforward, “right” answer. It’s really difficult to find that line between giving
students too much information so they don’t think for themselves, and not enough so they
give up and start screwing around. [Teresa, Intern, Inquiry activity report]
The analysis suggested that Teresa was less successful in drawing out productive
feedback on her own instructional practices as well through her assessment.
Patterns of Teresa’s assessment practices. Other teaching episodes from the internship
year were analyzed to find patterns of assessment practice. The interview with a clinical
interview video was also analyzed to triangulate the patterns of assessment practice that emerged
from her own teaching episodes.
The results of data analyses suggest that overall Teresa was less successful in learning
from her students by engaging in the assessment practices. For instance, in her other teaching
episode about cell structure and function, Teresa asked only simple recall type questions (i.e., 12
multiple-choice questions about factual information on cells), which generated very limited
information about students and their ideas. In her report on her one student, Kathy, Teresa
mainly highlighted the student’s grades and her behavior issues, and concluded that Kathy
“didn’t learn anything.”
Kathy did awful on the test. She got the highest E in the class, but she told me she “threw
out” her study guide. I think that she had given up by the time test came… She is one
that I learned CAN NOT handle group work. She literally does not do anything academic
during that time. Her and Jeny’s grades just fell like crazy this unit because they were




178


messing around with Jack and Tim the entire time they had to work on their projects, the
labs and anything else. I was calling them back from their social worlds about 4-5 times a
day and separating them and trying to get them to go back and work with their groups,
but they were pretty defiant or just refused to work, so she didn’t learn anything. (codes:
ID-d, IN-g)
As shown in the example above, Teresa identified little information about students’ ideas or
nature of difficulties in learning the topic, and interpreted the result in relation to motivation or
behavior issues. Teresa’s responses to her students were straightforward, such as “not having
them do group work”, “go over everything with students” until students learn to complete
assignments without teachers telling them the correct answer (R-e). Teresa’s approach of
assessing and responding to students showed a similar pattern in her inquiry lesson as described
above. The opportunities she provided with her assessment items were mostly reproducing
factual information or reproducing canonical knowledge in the textbook (O-b). There was little
to be identified or interpreted from students’ responses. When there was, it was mostly
associated with students’ behavior issues (IN-g), and her responses were either too general or not
directly related to students’ difficulties (R-d & R-e). Across two teaching episodes, Teresa
mostly provided opportunities for students to explain the facts, laws, and theories that students
know or remember (O-b & O-c: 75%). She identified student answers focusing on right vs.
wrong or complete vs. incomplete (ID-c & ID-d: 33%), or in many cases identified little or no
information about students (ID-f: 50%). She interpreted students’ wrong responses mostly in
relation to student attitudes, behaviors, and motivational issues (IN-g: 50%) or did not make any
interpretation (IN-l: 33%). Teresa’s responses were general and often not directly related to
students’ difficulties (R-d & R-e: 50%) (see Figure 13).




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During the interview with Jeremiah’s video, Teresa did not identify Jeremiah’s ideas or
difficulties in understanding photosynthesis, although she appreciated a little bit Jeremiah’s
knowledge about plants. Teresa highlighted ‘what Jeremiah did not know’ more than ‘what he
did know,’ which was opposite to both Leslie and Susie’s cases. In addition, Teresa did not
notice Jeremiah’s confusion about the soil as the source of food (ID-b). To Teresa,
photosynthesis was school knowledge, and Jeremiah failed to understand it because “he didn’t
pay attention during photosynthesis [lesson].” (IN-g) Teresa suggested getting him interested
using his garden as a hook, and using hands-on activities (R-e). She stated, “The fact that he has
a garden is like super key. You can definitely use that as a means to like, well, first of all, interest
him, and secondly, build on those experiences that he’s had with the garden as far as like
teaching him functions of the plant. You know?” (R-e)
In short, the data suggests that Teresa was less successful in learning from her students by
engaging in the assessment practice that was deliberately structured by the program. Teresa
mostly asked recall-type questions that generated kinds of student responses that had limited
information about them. The other elements of assessment practices from identifying to
responding were necessarily constrained by the types of student responses generated with the
initial assessment questions. Teresa’s patterns of assessment practices were consistent across her
own teaching episodes as well as her interview with a clinical video. Despite the deliberately
designed occasions for learning from students, Teresa was less successful in learning from her
students (see Figure 13 and 14).




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Figure 13. Teresa’s assessment practice pattern



Figure 14. Teresa’s approach of assessing and responding to students




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Assessment Practices and Candidates’ Understanding of Science for Teaching
The analyses of both classroom activities and assessment practices indicated that Teresa
had a different way of understanding science for teaching from Leslie and Susie (see Table 23).
Similar to David, Teresa thought that science consisted of content and process, and the content
part of science was conceived as a story, the reason why, or the right answer produced by the
scientific community. Leslie and Susie’s understanding of science were similar to Monica’s in
that they saw science as the integrated set of knowledge and practices that enables students to
make sense of the world. I found that their ways of understanding of science were deeply
connected with candidates’ assessment practices, which made a significant difference in their
process of learning from students.
Table 23. Candidates’ understanding of science for teaching
Narrative Ways of Understanding Science for
In-depth Understanding of Science for
Teaching (Two-dimensional Model):
Teaching (Three-dimensional Model):
Teresa
Leslie and Susie
• Considering science as stories of/about
• Appreciating the relationship between
phenomena or scientific models; the
observation and scientific models/theories
answer, ‘why’ part, explanation
• Achieving scientific understanding by
• Achieving scientific understanding by
making connections between or among
making connections between observation
stories (“seeing the connection”)
and theory
• Scientific community as authoritative
• Scientific community as a model for
source of scientific knowledge
students’ classroom community
• Content vs. process (e.g., scientific
• Integrated understanding of scientific
method, problem solving skills)
knowledge and practices
• Making connections among topics
• Situating a topic in a unit with the
considering causal (logical) relationship
consideration of big ideas, key phenomena
or patterns of a unit
Whereas Leslie and Susie, who understood science as an integrated body of knowledge
and practice, tended to ask the kinds of questions that produced rich information about students,
Teresa, who understood science as a story or the ‘why’ part about the phenomena, tended to ask
questions that students were not able to answer. The differing nature of student responses




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generated from their assessment tasks/questions made a big difference in the following
assessment practice, from identifying to responding, as well as their learning from students.
Candidates’ identifying and interpreting were also affected by their understanding of science for
teaching. Whereas Leslie and Susie identified students’ difficulties in both (a) making
connections between observations and scientific theories or models, and (b) understanding the
integrated nature of scientific knowledge and practice, Teresa tended to focus on correctness of
the answer. Teresa was puzzled about students’ difficulties in ‘making connections’ between
phenomena and the reason why they happened, and interpreted that it was because students’ lack
of thinking skills. To Teresa, scientific content and skills were separated from one another
though students should learn both of them. As the results, Leslie and Susie’s narratives
demonstrated that they were successful in making productive formative feedback work for both
students and themselves, but Teresa was less successful in generating productive formative
feedback loop for both.
Learning from Students and Candidates’ Designated Identities
Leslie, Susie, and Teresa’s designated identities were examined from their stories about
future self(s) in/and practices. Their vision statements collected at the three time points for two
years—(a) at the very beginning of senior year, (b) at the beginning of the internship year, and
(c) at the end of the internship year—were used as the major source of data. The interview with
their teaching video conducted at the end of their internship was also used as supplementary
source of data. Their stories of future self and practices were coded with respect to (a) goals of
29

teaching science, (b) roles of activity, and (c) roles of students . Similarly to the three cases of
classroom activities, the coding results of Leslie, Susie, and Teresa indicated that each candidate

























































29
See the results of coding in Appendix12



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held relatively consistent aspirations across two years, that was aligned with their ways of
highlighting and coding practices and resources provided by professional communities (see
Table 24). In the following, Leslie, Susie, and Teresa’s designated identities are described with
respect to the three aspects.
Leslie: Making connections between science and students’ everyday experiences by
engaging students in scientific practices
Goals. Leslie’s vision statements collected from her senior year to internship year
demonstrated that Leslie continuously looked for ways of helping students to make connection
between science and student themselves. For example, in her senior year vision statement, Leslie
stated, “I want my students to see how science affect their everyday life. I want to help them take
what they are learning and use it to understand their own bodies, interests, and hobbies.” At the
end of her internship year, Leslie stated, “By teaching science, I am helping students to better
understand themselves and the world around them.” At the beginning of senior year, Leslie’s
goals were coded as both delivering content and skills (e.g., “remember some of the
information”) and engaging in scientific practice (e.g., “use it to make good choices as they grow
into adults”). Leslie was not clear how she would help her students to make that connection
through classroom activities besides bringing many real world examples, but in her last vision
statement that she wrote at the end of internship year, she described her ideas in detail with
specific examples. Leslie stated,
One of the most basic techniques that I use to help students make connections is
to start by drawing on my students’ own interests and giving them a chance to experience
science. For example, I discovered that many of my Biology students were interested in
medicine so I built my diffusion and osmosis unit, a typically dry and confusing unit, on




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discovering a treatment for patients with cholera. We modeled the intestine of a normal
person and the intestine of a cholera patient using dialysis tubing, salt and water, and then
recorded our results and made predictions about how to treat the patient. (Leslie at the
end of internship year, teaching philosophy statement)
Roles of activities. Leslie consistently pointed out the role of activities in relation to
content understanding in her three vision statements throughout two years. For example, Leslie
stated that students would “take what they are learning and use it to understand their own bodies,
interests and hobbies” (senior year), “connect big ideas to many examples” (at the beginning of
internship year), and be assessed through activities (at the end of internship year).
Roles of students. Leslie emphasized students’ group work and their active roles in
developing their own knowledge as a key aspect of her instruction in all the three vision
statements. It appeared that her ideas became specific as she got more experiences. She thought
that students could learn better by interacting each other, they could develop their own
understanding, and reveal their ideas and misconceptions. For example, at the beginning of her
senior year, Leslie stated, “Group work helps students who are struggling to learn from their
peers as well as allow students who are excelling to become even better by explaining what they
know to others.” In addition to students’ social interaction, Leslie’s vision statements in her
internship year described students’ development of their own knowledge through active
engagement in scientific practices, such as “identify patterns, interpreting observations,
discussing appropriate experimental methods, and evaluating the validity of conclusions.”
All students need multiple chances, and exposure to multiple learning styles, to
use the scientific process and develop their own solutions to a common problem. This
process includes learning to identify patterns, interpreting observations, discussing




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appropriate experimental methods, and evaluating the validity of conclusions. All of
these things allow students to take ownership of their learning as well as allow them to
grow as a person.
The roles of students were consistently described in Leslie’s vision statements focusing
on both social aspect and content understanding throughout the two years.
Susie: Engaging students in problem solving just like what scientists do
Goals. One consistent theme of Susie’s goals in her three vision statements was
‘problem-solving’ or ‘inquiring the world.’ Susie described her goals as helping students to
understand various real world phenomena just like what scientists do in her three vision
statements. At the beginning of senior year, Susie wrote a vignette of her high school physics
class where the teacher presented various phenomena about sounds by having orchestra students
demonstrate different pitches and engaged students in a problem. Students discussed what they
observed, and “how the demonstration showed that the shorter the length of the vibrating string,
the higher the pitch, thus the string vibrated faster than lower pitches.” Similarly, her vision
statement of the internship year described how she would teach ‘gas laws’ in a successful lesson.
This lesson would start by a series of demo, including “egg demonstrations and balloon
demonstrations.” Students would discuss their observation and formulate a problem for them to
solve. Students would come up with their own explanations about the patterns that they
identified. The teacher assessed students’ ideas before and after through various activities. And
finally students solved another problems by applying their understanding to other examples.
Susie wanted her students to see science as a ‘process’ or ‘tool’ for making sense of the world,
rather than the information to remember.




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In her last vision statement that she wrote at the end of internship year, Susie described
her goals focusing on developing skills. It was not surprising given Susie’s close relationship
with her mentor, Mrs. B and her appropriation of Mrs. B’s languages in her accounts.
Roles of activities. As described in the vignettes, Susie tried to incorporate many
demonstrations, engage students in observation and pattern findings to help students to make
connection between scientific concepts and real world examples. Susie highlighted the role of
activities that support students’ content understanding by engaging in scientific practices in her
vision statements throughout two years.
Roles of students. Students’ engagement in scientific practices (e.g., making
observation, finding patterns, explaining other examples applying the concepts) was consistently
highlighted in her three vision statements. In addition, students’ social interaction by engaging in
group work or whole class discussion was another key aspect emphasized by Susie in her vision
statements at her internship year.
Teresa: Motivating students to learn science by engaging in firsthand, hands-on
experiences
Goals. Teresa’s goals were mostly focused on motivating students to learn science by
engaging them in firsthand, hands-on experiences. While describing a vignette of good science
teaching at the beginning of senior year, Teresa described how she was into the class because she
“got to do a cool and practical experiments.” She also liked that the lecturer was interesting, so
the combination of lecture and lab could flow well. In addition, Teresa emphasized students’
involvement in community, and development of “critical thinking in regards to scientific
problems in the community” in her vision statement at the beginning of internship year. Teresa’s




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goals were stated mostly focusing on motivational and social aspects in her three vision
statements.
Roles of activities. Engaging students in firsthand, hands-on activities consistently
appeared in the three vision statements throughout two years. Teresa highlighted the roles of
those activities in two ways. One is motivating students to have them to “want to learn science,”
and the other is having students work together or work in group. In her last vision statement,
Teresa stated that engaging, hands-on lessons would “make students think critically about the
world around them” and make students do “scientific thought” without elaborating the meanings
taken by her.
Roles of students. In the Teresa’s three vision statements, students consistently
described as someone who would be motivated to learn science and actively engaged in
activities. For instance, in Teresa’s vignette of good science teaching that she wrote at the
beginning of senior year, students were described as the ones who led the experiments from
design to data collection with teacher’s help, and worked as a team to develop their own
hypothesis. During the interview conducted at the end of her internship, Teresa expressed her
aspiration of engaging students in various activities by taking them outside of the classroom,
although that was not something that she could do due to the large class size and limited
resources.




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Table 24. Leslie, Susie, and Teresa’s designated identity
Leslie
Susie
Goals
• Helping students to
• Engaging students in
make connections
problem solving just
between science and
like what scientists do
themselves (everyday
experiences)
• Engaging students in
scientific practice
Roles of
• Helping students to
• Helping students to
activities
make connections
make connections
between science and
between science and
real world phenomena
real world phenomena
• Assessing student
ideas
Roles of
• Actively interacting
• Actively participating
students
with both science and
in scientific practices
peers
• Engaging in group
• Developing own
work; actively
knowledge, using
interacting with peers
knowledge to explain • Developing their own
relevant experiences
knowledge

Teresa
• Motivating students
to learn science by
engaging them in
firsthand, hands-on
activities
• Motivating students
• Providing
opportunities of
group work
• Actively engaging in
hands-on activity
• Working with peers

Discussion
Fourteen candidates in this study were commonly provided opportunities for learning
from students while developing assessment practice with the support of the same reform-oriented
teacher preparation program. The data showed that only six out of 14 candidates were successful
in learning from their students by engaging in reform-oriented assessment practice. The other
eight candidates were less successful in making use of information from their students to either
improve their instruction or to provide productive responses to their students. I selected the cases
of three candidates to further examine the mechanism of learning. These three candidates worked
at similar urban high school contexts with fairly traditional mentor teachers with the support of
the same program, but developed different types of assessment practices. Whereas Leslie and




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Susie were successful in learning from their students to some degree, Teresa was less successful
in using information about students productively.
One important difference in the three candidates’ assessment practices was the nature of
opportunities that candidates created with their assessment questions. Whereas Leslie
consistently provided quality opportunities that generated interesting and long student responses
that showed students’ ideas and thinking, Teresa mostly asked factual, recall type questions that
asked to reproduce canonical scientific knowledge. Susie’s questions were distinctively different
in two teaching episodes. In one teaching episode, she only asked skills and practice type
questions, but in her inquiry teaching episode, she asked thought-provoking questions in the
context of investigating certain phenomena. Not surprisingly, candidates’ process of learning
from students was constrained by the nature and quality of student responses produced from the
assessment tasks or questions in the first place. The case of Susie was a good example that
showed how the differing nature of student responses affected candidates’ learning from
students. In her general teaching episode where she only asked skills and practicing type
questions, Susie mostly identified whether students got right or wrong answer, and interpreted it
in relation to their motivation or attentiveness. Therefore, her responses were also mostly
focused on addressing those motivational issues. On the contrary, in her inquiry teaching episode
where she got students to design a lab about the influence of certain factor on rate of solution or
solubility and to explain the results based on the data, she insightfully identified students’ ideas
and difficulties in detail, interpreted them in relation to the experiences and scaffolding provided
through her instruction, and then suggested very specific ideas to address students’ difficulties.
Given that the process of learning from students was greatly affected by assessment
tasks/questions, it becomes critically important to understand what made candidates design or




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select certain assessment tasks/questions among available resources provided by professional
communities. The close examination of the three cases suggests that candidates’ designated
identities and their understanding of science for teaching play important roles in their process of
learning by having candidates select different kinds of resources through their highlighting and
coding (i.e., interpretation). Similar to the cases for classroom activities, all three candidates
brought some strong momentum toward their designated identities—the kind of teacher they
wanted to be and the kind of practice they wanted to master. Leslie wanted to teach science
meaningfully by engaging students in scientific practices. Susie wanted her students to
experience science just like how scientists do in the scientific community through group work,
social interaction, and open-investigation. Teresa wanted to give students first-hand, embodied
experiences just like the ways that she did at the outside setting in California. Leslie and Susie’s
designated identities were well aligned with program’s vision of reform-oriented practices, but
Teresa’s did not match with the program’s vision. All three candidates’ designated identities did
not exactly match the models provided by their mentors on a daily basis whose instructional
approaches were fairly traditional. Interestingly, however, the three candidates highlighted
different aspects of their mentor’s practice of science teaching using their designated identities as
the reference, and interpreted what they highlighted in a different way while taking their
position. They made different choices in designing or selecting assessment tasks or questions
among available resources and advice provided by their mentor teacher and the program.
In Leslie’s case, her designated identities matched well with the program’s vision of
reform-oriented teaching. She aligned herself closely with the program, and consistently selected
resources and ideas from the program to design her classroom activities as well as assessment
questions. These resources that were not normally available to Leslie herself, enabled her to learn




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from her students effectively by designing quality assessment tasks. For instance, Leslie selected
an assessment activity from the program despite her mentor teacher’s initial reservations about it
during her senior year. Her inquiry activity during her internship year was one that she got from
the program as well. Even though Leslie said, “I don’t see myself as being [Mrs. F] ten years
from now,” she highlighted Mrs. F’s relationship with students and her knowledge on students in
her stories, and interpreted it as a useful resource for her to plan her lessons. Leslie said, “[Mrs.
F] has a relationship with these students already and so, she kind of knows how the classroom
works…so, it’s nice to know what your mentor teacher does to work with this particular group of
students.” The data showed that Leslie took advantage of being with Mrs. F by asking many
questions about students and their possible responses, and by picking up some practices that
allowed her to enact the kinds of practices that she wanted to do. Leslie’s assessment practices,
especially the opportunities that she provided for her students through application type activities,
was the outcome of her selection of resources. Leslie selected resources aligned with both her
designated identity and the program’s vision of good science teaching.
Similar to Leslie, Susie’s designated identities did not exactly matched with the models
provided by Mrs. B. But the nature of occasions for learning that Susie to which had to respond
was quite different from Leslie. Whereas Leslie was a senior who visited Mrs. F’s classroom
twice a week, Susie was an intern who spent all day with Mrs. B. It was her second year of being
in Mrs. B’s classroom at that time. Furthermore, whereas Leslie’s mentor was open to
candidates’ any attempt in her classroom, Susie’s mentor, Mrs. B had very clear expectations for
her intern and tried to provide structured experiences to develop her teaching ‘skills.’ While
comparing her teaching with her mentor’s, Susie said, “I think at the beginning of the year I was
pretty close to eight [out of 10 in terms of similarity with the mentor]. I was like pretty similar to




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my mentor teacher.” However, she was also aware of the difference between her designated
identities and Mrs. B’s practices. In particular, Susie highlighted the following aspects of
practices as key differences: having students work in group vs. everyone should be on task,
open-ended activities (e.g., think-tank, sharing answers) vs. structured and concrete. Susie
interpreted her mentor’s “management focused” practices as a reasonable choice given the
characteristics of students in her classroom.
I think for my mentor teacher, it’s as long as things are very structured it’s okay. I think
it’s very hard for her to watch me teach a class when everything is very chaotic and
people are talking and then not everyone is on task. And so in terms of designing a
lesson, I think she’s very much focused on the management aspect, which I completely
understand because for this particular group of kids that’s something that you do need to
focus on or the lesson kind of breaks apart. (Susie in the internship year, teaching video
interview)
As the responses to her occasions for learning, Susie primarily selected resources and
ideas provided by her mentor in her daily practice, which became the basis of Susie’s actual
identities—stories about current self(s) in/and practices. It allowed her to be successful in
working with challenging students in the urban high school with her mentor’s support. But Susie
slowly found the space where she could try the kinds of practices as time went by where she “felt
more comfortable putting in my own spin on things.” It seemed to me Susie’s two very different
patterns of practices between two teaching episodes captured well how she responded to the
different nature of occasions for learning while trying to close her perceived gap between actual
and designated identities. When she had opportunities of doing the kinds of practice that she
wanted to do, such as the inquiry teaching episode required by the program, she took advantage




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of it. It was a good opportunity for her to “put her own spin on it.” Susie asked different types of
questions during inquiry teaching episodes and successfully learned from her students.
In the case of Teresa, she had very strong momentum toward her designated identities
originating from her experiences in California. She repeatedly talked about first-hand, embodied
instruction in an outside setting, such as having students touch, feel, and being a part of it. Teresa
also noticed that the instructional models and resources provided by both her mentor and the
program did not match with her designated identities, but the ways that she highlighted and
coded the differences from her mentor teachers were different from both Leslie’s and Susie’s.
Teresa highlighted her mentor’s paper/worksheet driven instruction, and interpreted it negatively
because students could not see and visualize the content.
[In California] We didn’t have a whole lot of like paper things, we used cans to represent
everything. You know, like they were the different parts. So when I’m teaching, a lot of
things I’ll set up kids like, they’re the membrane or something they transport across the
membrane to give the visual for them. So this way is, my mentor does a lot of worksheets,
and I don’t think they were seeing it and visualizing it. So I was like, you know I really
want to do something that has the kids like put themselves into the idea of being part of
the pedigree, so that they can think of themselves as like, I’m this part of the pedigree and
this is how I would organize it. (Teresa, intern, teaching video interview)
Teresa highlighted her mentor’s paper or worksheet approach that was contradictory to
her aspiration of hands-on, embodied instruction (i.e., designated identities), and interpreted it
negatively because she did not think students can “see it and visualize it.” What Teresa
highlighted was clearly affected by her designated identities that were grounded in her previous
experiences, but the ways that she interpreted what she highlighted was connected to her




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understanding of science for teaching. From Teresa’s point of view, her mentor’s ‘paper driven
instruction’ was problematic because it failed to visualize ‘the content’ of science to students.
The content was the stories (i.e., stories about cell) that consisted of many pieces of information.
The content of science was something out there that students should remember and visualize.
Developing a new story was not a part of her ‘content’ of science. Teresa’s understanding of ‘the
content’ of science also accounted for the reason that she asked mostly recall-type questions in
her assessment practices. Given her understanding of science, the recall type questions were the
right questions to ask in order to see if students remembered the content through her assessment
items. The process of learning from students was constrained by the types of student responses
generated from assessment tasks or questions. Given Teresa’s understanding of science for
teaching, Teresa was not capable of asking quality questions that generated interesting responses
from students without reaching out to extra resources. Despite the fact that both her mentor and
the program made resources and ideas available, those resources were not selected by Teresa
through her highlighting and interpretation on the resources and practices provided by both her
mentor teacher and the program. She continuously went back to her limited personal resources
from California aligning herself closely to them, or looked up new resources on the Internet that
allowed her to enact her embodied instruction.
In short, the three candidates’ cases demonstrated that candidates’ designated identities
affected the process of learning from students by: (a) having candidates highlight certain aspects
of practices and resources provided by their mentors and the program, and (b) having them
interpret what they highlighted in certain way. The candidates positioned themselves with
respect to the professional communities based on their highlighting and coding, and selected
certain resources and advice to develop assessment questions or tasks. Accordingly, their




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designated identities led the candidates to start the process of learning from students at the
different places to begin with. Candidates’ understanding of science also played important roles
in the process of (a) designing or selecting assessment tasks and (b) interpreting student
responses and responding to them. Candidates asked students about the important ‘content’ of
science from their point of view. Thus the types of questions that candidates asked reflected how
they understand the ‘content’ of science.




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Chapter 6.
Discussion
The previous two chapters illustrate in detail the six candidates’ responses to the
occasions for learning along with the 14 teacher candidates’ patterns with the two focus
practices. The overall examination of the findings suggests that the two sub-groups of candidates
were either successful or less successful in making use of resources and ideas from the program
to develop both focus practices (see Table 25). Whereas Monica, Leslie, and Susie were
successful in learning from both professional communities and students in their development of
reform-oriented practices, both David and Teresa were less successful in learning from their
professional communities and students. The case of Adam was interesting because he showed
difficulties in learning from his students despite his enactment and interpretation of reformoriented classroom activities. This chapter discusses how and why teacher candidates develop
certain kinds of science teaching practices, based on my examination of the six focus candidates’
responses to occasions for learning. I argue that candidates’ learning of reform-oriented practices
is profoundly affected by their ways of understanding science for teaching and their designated
identities through their highlighting and coding (i.e., interpretation) of their experiences and
resources. In the following, I first discuss candidates’ understanding of science for teaching as
reflected in their practices and interpretation. Then I describe how candidates’ learning to teach
was connected to the process of authoring identities. Finally, I discuss how local contexts created
the different nature of occasions for learning for each candidate.




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Table 25. Fourteen candidates' patterns of the two focus practices
Reform-oriented practices
Traditional practices
Classroom activities
Monica, Susie, Leslie, Adam David, Teresa, Shannon,
(Learning from participation
Scott
Alisa, Lori, Mary, Kevin,
in communities of practice)
Stella, and Lynn
Assessing and responding to
Monica, Susie, Leslie, Alisa, David, Teresa, Shannon,
students
Scott, Lori
Adam, Mary, Kevin, Stella,
(Learning from students)
Lynn
Candidates’ Understanding of Science for Teaching Reflected in Their Practices and
Interpretation of Practices
The findings demonstrate that candidates’ ways of understanding science for teaching
play a significant role in their ways of responding to the occasions for learning deliberately
designed by the teacher preparation program. Two groups of candidates produced different kinds
of practices by selecting different resources, ideas, and advice from professional communities
based on their interpretation, which was profoundly constrained by their understanding of
science for teaching (see Figure 15).

Figure 15. The role of knowledge in the process of learning to teach




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Candidates’ understanding of science for teaching reflected in classroom activities.
The candidates who were successful in learning reform-oriented classroom activity practices,
such as Monica or Leslie, shared the program’s understanding of the nature of scientific
knowledge and practice. They thought that scientific understanding is achieved by making
connections between observations or experiences and scientific models or theories. They tried to
develop classroom communities where students actively interact with one another as well as with
the teacher in order to develop their knowledge in a social environment. While telling stories
about practices of teaching through their written reports, vision statements, and during the
interview, they highlighted the roles of students who “work together” and engaged in scientific
practices, such as “making observations”, “formulating questions”, “finding patterns” from
different examples, and “applying the knowledge” to real world examples. Their interpretation of
the roles of both students and activities was associated with their sense about success or failure in
engaging students in those practices to help students make connections between observation and
scientific theory.
The other group of candidates who were less successful in making use of resources and
ideas for reform-oriented practices, including David and Teresa, thought of science as
authoritative knowledge that consists of stories, the answer, the ‘why’ part or explanation.
Therefore, they conceived that scientific understanding is achieved by making connections
between or among pieces of information (i.e., story) to get the complete story or explanation.
Stories are ‘content,’ and there are sets of skills that students also need to learn from their science
class, such as “problem-solving skills”, “critical thinking skills”, “measuring skills”, or
“scientific methods.” In their stories about their teaching from multiple sources of data, these
candidates particularly highlighted the ‘visualizing’ role of activity—how the activity helps




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visualize the story that they want their students to “see” and “remember.” Their greatest concern
was the “boring” parts of lecture (i.e., telling the story, giving the explanation); accordingly their
interpretation of the roles of students and activities was mostly associated with the success or
failure of motivating students.
One noticeable difference between the two groups of candidates in their stories of
classroom activity practices was the substantial presence of the socioscientific interactions

30

in

their highlighting and interpretation of the goals of lessons, the roles of students and the roles of
31

activities . The group of candidates who were successful in making use of resources from the
program highlighted students’ social interaction and even considered it as one of their goals of a
lesson besides other cognitive goals. For instance, in the case of Monica, her main goal was
engaging students in inquiry, having them find patterns from the data as described in both her
written report and interview. In addition, she stressed her other goal of this lesson, “developing a
safe learning community,” pointing out how it is important for her to engage her students in
activities to achieve her cognitive goal. In the cases of the candidates who were less successful in
making use of resources from the program, there was little or no highlighting of the socioscientific interactions in their stories about science teaching. Multiple data sources showed that
the candidates who attended to the socioscientific interaction in the classroom appreciated the
nature of scientists’ work in a scientific community and made their efforts to model it in their
classrooms.

























































30
This term was coined from Cobb, McClain, and Gravemeijer’s (2003) discussion of three
distinct types of classroom social norm. By socioscientific interactions, I mean the types of social
interaction that are specific to science. Examples of socioscientific interactions are discussing
observations, working together to find patterns from the data, or sharing scientific ideas with one
another.
31
See the Appendix 7: The results of coding about classroom activities





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The cases of Monica and David demonstrate the powerful influence of candidates’
understanding of science on their practices and interpretation under different contexts. Monica,
who was provided contradictory ideas of and resources for classroom activities from the program
and from her mentor teacher, aligned herself closely to the program, and actively made use of
resources from the program. Her highlighting and interpretation of practices of teaching
demonstrated that she understood the nature of scientific knowledge and practices as provided by
the program’s language. On the contrary, David, who was provided coherent reform-oriented
ideas and resources from both his mentor and the program, did not select these resources or
advice while misinterpreting the program’s language. David had fundamentally different ways of
32

understanding science for teaching from Monica . These three candidates’ cases show that
candidates’ responses to the deliberately designed occasions for learning provided by their
mentor teachers and course instructors were constrained by their understanding of science for
teaching through their interpretation of resources and advice from the professional communities.
Candidates’ understanding of science for teaching reflected in assessment practice.
Candidates’ in-depth understanding of science for teaching also greatly affected their learning
from students through assessment practices. One key difference between the two groups of
candidates in their patterns of assessment practice was that with their assessment items or tasks
they provided different types of opportunities for students to give information about themselves.
Whereas the candidates who failed to make their feedback loop work (e.g., Teresa, David)
tended to ask recall questions about factual information or questions that ask to reproduce stories
in the textbook, candidates who were successful (e.g., Leslie, Monica) tended to ask questions
that reveal students’ thinking or reasoning. Learning from students start by providing

























































32
Whereas Monica had three-dimensional model, David had two-dimensional narrative model.
See the detail in Chapter 4.



201


opportunities with assessment items or tasks. Therefore, their use of formative assessment
practices for identifying, interpreting, and responding to students’ learning is necessarily
constrained by the nature of student responses produced with the assessment items or activities.
The candidates who thought of science as the content (i.e., authoritative stories, the ‘why’ part)
plus process/skills, ended up getting limited opportunities for learning from their students due to
the nature of student responses generated from their assessment questions. Furthermore,
candidates’ understanding also affected what they identified from student responses and the ways
that they interpreted them, which led them to draw out different lessons from their experiences
33

with students . For instance, whereas candidates like Leslie and Monica interpreted students’
inaccurate responses in relation to their incomplete experiences provided through their
instruction and so suggested providing complementary experiences with their instruction,
candidates like Teresa and David interpreted students’ ‘wrong’ answers in relation to their lack
of motivation and behavior issues, and suggested general motivational strategies. Even when
they got complicated responses from students, which rarely happened, they were puzzled by it
and interpreted students’ difficulties as the lack of ‘skills’ (e.g., critical thinking skills). In
summary, the program deliberately designed assignments as occasions to assist candidates’
learning from their students. However, candidates’ responses to the occasions, including their
design of assessment items, identifying and interpreting students’ work, and responding, were
profoundly constrained by their understanding of science for teaching.
The characteristics of understanding of science for reform-oriented teaching. The
data analysis indicates that there exists a specialized knowledge for teaching that strongly affects
candidates’ learning of reform-oriented practices. This knowledge is characterized as (a) depth of

























































33
See the detailed analysis of inquiry teaching episode in Chapter 5



202


understanding, (b) integration of knowledge and practice, and (c) attentive to socioscientific
interaction. First of all, the teacher who has this knowledge understands the nature of scientific
knowledge and practice—the relationships among observations, experiences, scientific
phenomena, and scientific models and theories. I envision this in-depth understanding as a threedimensional constructivist model in the comparison of two-dimensional narrative model. As
demonstrated in David’s, Monica’s, and Adam’s cases, candidates tried to make different kinds
of ‘connections’ as evidence of students’ understanding as reflecting their ways of understanding
science. The different types of connections, either simple two-dimensional causal connections or
testable and revisable three-dimensional connections, were strongly resonant in their
interpretation of practices (see Figures 16 and 17).

Figure 16. Two-dimensional narrative model: making causal connections


























































34
The images used in this picture are from Google images.



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34

Figure 17. Three-dimensional constructivist model: making testable and revisable
35
connections between observation/experiences and scientific models or theories
Second, this knowledge is integrative in that candidates understand the integrated nature
of scientific knowledge and practices, and its instructional representation through classroom
activities, such as inquiry or model-based reasoning activities. As emphasized by many
influential reform-oriented documents (NRC, 2000, 2007), understanding the integrated nature of
scientific knowledge and practice is essential for teachers to engage students in scientific practice
meaningfully. Candidates who were less successful in learning reform-oriented practices
frequently talked about teaching some kinds of skills (i.e., scientific methods, process, critical
thinking skills) separately from the content of science (i.e., stories, authoritative knowledge).
Despite the fact that the science education community has been making efforts to move beyond

























































35
This model is originated from Michigan High School Content Expectation, and modified by
myself



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this dichotomy, it appeared that this notion of teaching content, process, and, sometimes nature
of science as separate entities, still strongly appealed to many teacher candidates. Lastly, the
teacher candidates who have this knowledge see the parallel of developing scientific knowledge
through the socioscientific interactions in a scientific community and in a classroom learning
community. The candidates, like Monica, Leslie, and Susie, made their efforts to develop a
classroom learning community where students played the role of scientists and developed their
own knowledge through the socioscientific interaction while modeling scientists’ work in the
scientific community.
The six cases illustrated that candidates’ practices and interpretation of practices were
affected by their understanding of science for teaching mediated through their highlighting and
coding (i.e., interpretation), and their selection of resources. It seems to me that the gap between
the two groups of candidates in their ways of understanding science for teaching reflects the
current challenges that the science education community faces. From a certain point of view,
David was a pretty successful intern at his suburban high school, given that he was a fun and
humorous teacher, and covered the state standards, for the most part, that consisted of content,
process, and nature of science. Teresa worked hard to actively engaged students in a hands-on
activity claiming that she covered the process part of the state standards in her ‘inquiry’ lesson
even at this low resourced urban high school. Their practices ‘only’ failed to engage students in
the four strands of scientific proficiency, that is the goals of science education proposed by the
most recent reform-oriented documents (NRC, 2007, 2011) developed from numerous research
studies on science teaching and learning. As discussed in the literature review, the new goals are
based on a fundamentally different view on science known as ‘science-as-practice.’ Many of the
candidates of this study, including David and Teresa, had the traditional view on science that was




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aligned with the previous standards to some degree, but their practices of science teaching were
less successful in providing their students opportunities of engaging in meaningful scientific
practices.
Learning to Teach: Closing the Perceived Gap Between Actual And Designated Identities
in the Field of Influence
Sfard and Prusak (2005) discussed that learning is “closing the gap between actual
identity and designated identity” (p. 14). The six cases demonstrated that the candidates’ learning
to teach was the process of authoring professional identities while responding to the occasions
for learning in a way of closing their perceived gap between actual and designated identities (see
Figure 18). Depending on the perceived gap and their designated identities, they positioned
themselves differently with respect to the professional communities that they involved, which
affected their choice of resources and practices.
In this study, I posited that candidates’ actual identities were collective stories about
candidates’ current self(s) in/and practices told by multiple people. Actual identities reflected the
kinds of practice that candidates were currently capable of engaging in, but practices were not
the same as actual identities. Whereas candidates’ practices tended to be fluid and unstable
depending on time, space, and interaction with people, this study showed that the collective
stories about a candidate’s current self(s) in/and practices were constructed in a way of capturing
relative stable characteristics at certain point through the process of narrativatization. The stories
about six candidates demonstrated that candidates, their mentor teachers, and course instructors
narrativatized their current observations constantly comparing with and contrasting to their
previous observations on candidates’ self(s) in/and practices. In addition, candidates’ actual
identities reflected their understanding of science for teaching. Their understanding of science




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was one key personal resource that candidates drew on when they responded to their occasions
for learning. Designated identities were stories about candidates’ future self(s) in/and practices of
science teaching, the kind of teacher who they wanted to be and the kind of practice they wanted
to master. Candidates’ vision statements collected multiple times at different stages of the
program demonstrated that most of candidates held relatively stable aspiration of ideal teaching
practices over two years. In general, their stories of future practices came to be elaborated with
specific strategies and technical languages as they got more experiences. The candidates’
highlighting and coding in their stories about self and practices showed their perceived gaps
between actual and designated identities. Depending on their perceived gap and their
interpretation of resources and practices provided by professional communities, the candidates
positioned themselves as the learners of science teaching in certain way (see Figure 19).

Figure 18 Learning to teach: closing the perceived gap between actual and designated
identities




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For instance, Monica was a candidate who mostly had experiences of traditional science
teaching as a student, but who wanted to learn different ways of teaching science besides
“lecturing.” She said, “I don’t feel like up until college, none of my classes really focused on
inquiry or application as far as I can remember.” “I get tired of lecturing and [students] don’t like
lecturing.” As suggested in her accounts, Monica perceived significant gap between her actual
and designated identities. She also recognized deficiencies in her current practice that she wished
to correct. Monica actively sought out the resources to help her to close her perceived gap.
Monica wanted her students to feel “accepted for who they are” through the support system in
her classroom that she created. Her repeated highlighting of students’ social interaction and
positive interpretation of it reflected who she wanted to be as well as the way that she understood
science for teaching. Her designated identities, especially her attention to cognitively challenging
but socially and emotionally comfortable and safe classroom learning community, seemed to
lead her to align herself closely with the program, and she mostly selected resources and ideas
from the program to close the perceived gap between her actual and designated identities.
In the case of Teresa, who had teaching experiences in an out of school setting at the
Redwood Forest in California, she carried strong momentum toward teaching science with firsthand, embodied experiences (i.e., designated identities), as demonstrated in numerous examples
of her attempts to bring in outside, hands-on activities throughout her internship year as well as
her vision statements. While struggling with students in a challenging urban high school (i.e., her
actual identities), Teresa continuously looked for ideas and activities that matched with her
vision of embodied instruction. Teresa clearly recognized the gap between her actual and
designated identities. She said, “I think I need to refine my teaching style more. I mean I think I
know, I have a lot of like ideas and concepts [about teaching].” While making her efforts to close




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the gap, Teresa also looked for resources and ideas. Her highlighting and interpretation of the
resources were also affected by her designated identities. She mostly highlighted and negatively
interpreted her mentor teacher’s paper/worksheet instructional approaches that were
contradictory with her designated identities. The resources and advice from both her mentor
teacher and the program did not match her designated identities that had different prioritized
values. Teresa continuously went back to her own resources from California, or resources on the
Internet to close her perceived gap between actual and designated identities, instead of making
use of resources and ideas from both professional communities.
In the case of David, he carried momentum toward delivering authoritative stories of
science in a fun and interesting way, just as he was doing. In contrast to most of the other
candidates, David did not seem to see big a gap between his actual and designated identities.
Despite both his mentor’s and his course instructor’s concerns about his practice and the great
differences in their highlighting and coding between them and David, David narrativatized his
practice in ways that allowed him to depict his current practice as aligned with program goals or
the instructional models provided by his mentor. David constantly appropriated the program’s
language to label his procedural practices in his stories. He interpreted that his teaching style was
pretty “similar” to his mentor teacher because they “both like to tell stories, like personal stories
that relate to things and allow the students to do that too.” David’s positioning as a “relaxed” and
“laid back” teacher showed the ways in which David perceived a gap between his actual and
designated identities.
Candidates who actively made use of resources and ideas from the program tended to
share the program’s vision of good science teaching and to build their designated identities based
on that vision. They were those who took most advantage of resources and ideas from the




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program because of the alignment of their momentum toward their designated identities with the
direction of support from the program. This alignment accelerated their process of learning by
providing other tools and resources that are not normally available to candidates. For instance,
Leslie had a vision of good science teaching similar to that of the program at the beginning of her
senior year, including helping students apply science knowledge to students’ everyday lives, and
helping them to better understand their everyday experiences using science. Leslie actively
sought out ideas and resources that allowed her to enact her vision, and she mostly selected
resources and advice from the program over the ones available from the school professional
community across the two years. In her senior year, Leslie respected her mentor teacher but she
did “not see [herself] being a teacher like Mrs. F in 10 years from now.” In her internship year,
Leslie selected the resources and lesson ideas from a young science teacher in her school as well
as from the program over the ones from her mentor teacher, Mr. J, who had 38 years of
experience teaching in a traditional way. Candidates’ learning to teach was the process of closing
their perceived gap between actual identity and designated identity, being a certain kind of
science teacher while closely interacting with the people and selecting the resources and ideas
that aligned with their designated identities.




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Figure 19. The role of designated identities in the process of learning to teach
Contexts: the Occasions for Learning that Locally Created for Each Candidate
It has been well recognized that contexts play significant roles in candidates’ learning of
reform-oriented practices (e.g., Bianchini & Cavazos, 2007; Crawford, 2007; Darling-Hammond
& Richardson, 2009; Flores, 2006). It should be acknowledged that the role of contexts was not
fully investigated in this study. Rather, my deliberate choice of six focus cases—three from
similar suburban high schools, and three from similar urban high schools—made it possible for
me to focus on the roles of knowledge and identities in beginning teachers’ learning of practices
as the outcome of responses to their occasions for learning. Nevertheless, this study gave me
some insights on contexts—how the contexts for learning are generated for each candidate and
what roles they may play in the process of beginning teachers’ learning to teach.




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In this study, I consider context as “a field of influences” that candidates have to interact
with and respond to while traversing toward their designated identities. Candidates produce their
practices and interpretations of practices as the outcome of their responses to the deliberately
designed occasions for learning in a field of influences. Contexts made a big difference in the
nature of the occasions locally created for each candidate. Although the program deliberately
designed occasions for learning with the same structure of assignments for all candidates, not
surprisingly the actual occasions for learning locally created for each candidate were not the
same across candidates. The six cases showed that there were several factors that affected the
nature of these occasions, including (a) contexts of the school placements, (b) types of advice
from mentor and program, and (c) characteristics of mentoring.
First of all, the contexts of school placements make a difference in the nature of
occasions for learning because of the available resources, equipment, characteristics of student
communities, and the culture of school professional communities. For instance, the three
candidates in urban high schools had to respond to the lack of equipment, and high demands of
managing their classroom, which was not the case for the three candidates in suburban high
schools. Leslie’s mentor, Mrs. F, captured well the lack of resources accessible to candidates:
Mrs. F: We, as a department, are limited by the resources that we have available. We
barely have enough funds to run dissection specimens, let alone fix broken microscopes.
It’s frustrating when you have all these wonderful ideas and you're willing to put forth the
effort in terms of lab setup and cleanup, and then just not have the equipment or the
money available. (Mrs. F, Leslie’s mentor teacher at West high school)
Secondly, the types of advice from mentor and program also made a big difference in the
occasions for learning, as was demonstrated in both David’s and Monica’s cases. Depending on




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the mentors’ preferred instructional approaches, their understanding of science, and their
understanding’s alignments with the program’s vision, candidates experience more or less
tension in participating in both professional communities and selecting resources and ideas.
Finally, mentors’ openness to candidates’ trial and error also influenced the nature of
occasions for learning. For instance, Susie’s mentor, Mrs. B, had a very clear idea about her
mentoring, and she structured Susie’s experiences in her classroom systematically. Mrs. B
modeled the detail of skills and helped Susie to develop sets of skills that were the core of
learning how to teach science from Mrs. B’s perspective. The occasions for learning created for
Susie by Mrs. B were qualitatively different from many teacher candidates. Susie had to respond
to Mrs. B’s expectations as well as to her program’s expectations.
Certainly, contexts played an important role in candidates’ practices and interpretation of
practices by creating certain types of occasions for learning. However, candidates’ practices also
depended on the ways that candidates respond to the local occasions, and their responses were
profoundly affected by their knowledge and designated identities. This explains why “mentoring
itself did not fully explain the differentially enacted inquiry” (Crawford, 2007, p. 635).
Conclusion and Implications
This study investigated 14 secondary science teacher candidates’ mechanisms of learning
in the context of a university-based teacher preparation program. The 14 teacher candidates were
provided opportunities for learning from both professional communities and their students in
order to develop practices of science teaching during their time in the program. This study
focused on two key science teaching practices—(a) planning and enacting classroom activities,
and (b) assessing and responding to students—that are closely connected to learning from
professional communities and learning from students. As the conclusion, I present my model of




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secondary science teacher candidates’ mechanisms of learning constructed from the evidence
generated in this investigation. The implications on practice and research of teacher education
are discussed.
The Mechanisms of Secondary Science Teacher Candidates’ Learning to Teach
The teacher candidates’ learning of science teaching practices was a dynamic and
interactive process that involved candidates’ understanding of science for teaching, their actual
and designated identities, and the nature of the occasions for learning that were locally created
for each candidate. The candidates were provided opportunities of learning reform-oriented
practices at several deliberately designed occasions by the teacher preparation program. They
produced certain kinds of science teaching practices and drew out lessons from their experiences
as their responses to the occasions for learning.
The findings show that the candidates’ understanding of science and designated identities
led each of them to create different experiences for themselves. The candidates understanding of
science and designated identities affected their highlighting—what seemed salient to them in the
experience--and their coding—the ways in which they made sense of the aspects of experience
that they highlighted. Based on their interpretation on practices, resources, and advice provided
by the program, their mentor teacher, and their course instructor, the candidates made their
choices of classroom activities and assessment. So even candidates in the same program, with
similar mentors and contexts, created different experiences for themselves and had different
interpretations. The program and mentors have far more control over external occasions for
learning than they have over candidates’ subjective experience—and it is the subjective
experience that we learn from. All the candidates learned something about science teaching from
their subjective experiences while generating certain kinds of “formative feedback loops” for




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themselves through their highlighting and coding. Their highlighting and coding were mediated
by their understanding of science for teaching and their perceived gap between actual and
designated identities (see Figure 20).

Figure 20. The mechanism of learning to teach
This study gives us some insights on candidates’ success and failure in learning reformoriented practices through a university-based teacher preparation program. The findings indicate
that candidates who get the most benefit from the program are the ones who initially have a
strong understanding of science, and a vision of good science teaching shared by the program.
Because what candidates highlight in their experiences and resources, and how they interpret
what they highlight, are shaped by their understanding of science and their designated identities,
candidates who initially have a strong understanding of science as practice and designated
identities that match with the vision of the program actively make use of the resources and ideas



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from the program. By doing so, they create quality opportunities of learning from their students,
their mentors, and course instructors, and they are able to generate a ‘formative feedback loop’
productively in a way of engaging students in meaningful scientific practices. By contrast,
candidates who have limited personal resources and a traditional understanding of science tend
to be less successful in making use of resources and ideas from the program while failing to
highlight and interpret the resources and ideas as they are meant to be. Teacher preparation
programs deliberately designed occasions for learning for candidates with the hope of making
their formative feedback loop work productively for both themselves and their students.
However, as demonstrated in the data, many candidates actually were not capable of providing
quality opportunities for students to give information about students themselves in the first place
with their current ways of understanding science. They developed certain kinds of ‘expertise’ of
science teaching while creating their own feedback loop with their subjective experiences, but
this feedback loop was less productive for either responding to students’ difficulties in learning
science or adjusting their instruction in a way of better assisting students’ learning.
Implications for Practice in Teacher Education
The findings of this study that highlight the critical roles of both candidates’ current
knowledge and practice of science teaching and their designated identities in their process of
learning to teach provide us a couple of insights on curriculum and instruction of teacher
education.
First, teacher preparation programs need to develop sets of ‘practices’ of teacher
education to support candidates’ development of in-depth understanding of science for teaching.
Those practices should support candidates’ engagement of productive feedback loops. This study
showed that candidates who had a traditional view on science was less successful in creating a




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productive feedback loop for themselves given their current knowledge and practice of science
teaching. Specifically, it is less likely for those candidates to select high quality classroom
activity ideas or resources provided by the program or their mentor teachers as they are meant to
be, given that candidates’ interpretation are constrained by their current knowledge and practices.
For the assessment practices, it was also less likely for those candidates to ask quality questions
that generate interesting student responses that create ‘information rich’ occasions for learning.
Candidates learned from the subjectively created experiences while creating certain feedback
loop. Therefore, one key of assisting candidates’ learning to teach is to provide careful
scaffoldings at each step that involves in the process of creating feedback loops (see Figure 20
above), so to help candidates to engage in productive formative feedback loops. For example,
collective highlighting and coding about curriculum materials or classroom activities through the
activities of teacher education courses can be one way of expanding candidates’ individual
highlighting and coding to support their choice of classroom activities. With respect to
assessment practice, providing high quality assessment questions for candidates’ use can be one
possibility in order to initiate and expand their formative feedback loop. By engaging candidates
in the practices that help them to create a quality formative feedback look, we will be able to
better support them to learn from their students and the professional communities, and to develop
in-depth understanding of science for teaching.
The findings of this study also imply that we need to recognize and better support
candidates’ identity work. The six focus cases suggested that each candidate brought certain
images of good science teaching practice and science teacher that consisted of goals of science
teaching, activities, and students. According to the analysis of vision statements, their designated
identities were relatively stable throughout two years, and candidates positioned themselves




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differently depending on their perceived gap between actual and designated identities.
Candidates’ strong momentum toward their future selves is understandable given their
experiences through more than 12 years of schooling. In order to better respond and support their
identity work, first, both teacher educator and teacher candidates ought to recognize candidates’
designated identities (i.e., who they wanted to be), and how they perceived the gap between
actual and designated identities by engaging candidates in various activities that reveal who they
are, who they want to be as a science teacher, and what kinds of instructional practice they want
to master. Some kinds of special event or activities that provide inspiring experiences for
candidates to shift their momentums toward their future selves may need to be considered.
Implications on Research of Teacher Education
I close this dissertation by describing the implications for the future investigation of this
study and research on teacher education in general.
First, research on teacher education ought to provide powerful explanations about the
process of beginning teacher learning with empirically valid evidence in order to inform the
curriculum and instruction of teacher preparation program as well as the policy of teacher
education. However, the literature on teacher learning in the field of science education has been
dominated by what I called, ‘factor oriented research’ over the last several decades, which have
provided only limited explanation about the nature of difficulties in the complicated process of
beginning teachers’ learning to teach. The common popular notions of ‘observation of
apprenticeship’ (Lortie, 1975), ‘script of teaching’ (Stigner & Hiebert, 1998), or ‘previous
experience’ (e.g., Eick & Reed, 2002) accounted neither for all the facts that we observed in our
teacher candidates nor for the ways in which the key factors influence on the process of learning
to teach. I proposed one explanatory model to account for the complicated process of learning to




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teach using two analytical lenses—cognitive development and authoring identity. This
explanatory model, by definition, needs to be tested, revised, and refined with further evidence
with different cases in different contexts, in order to be used as a powerful tool for teacher
education community.
Second, this study showed one approach of documenting beginning teachers’ learning to
teach focusing on the practice of science teaching. The current challenges for research on
beginning teachers’ learning reside in the fact that researchers should address both conceptual
and technical issues for documenting teacher learning. Researchers should respond to the
questions of “What we mean by a good science teaching?” “What should be counted as evidence
of teacher learning and why?” Both issues are still subject to debate in the field of teacher
education, which makes the research on teacher learning incredibly difficult. In addition to the
conceptual issues, it is also challenging to parse out the practice of science teaching in a way of
describe, analyze, and document. Kennedy (2010a) reminds, “We have faced serious technical
problems in trying to translate our intuitive perceptions into precise terminology and reliable
measurement scales” (p.245). This study proposed a conceptual framework for beginning teacher
learning and learning outcomes focusing on the practice of science teaching. Various technical
languages were defined to describe and analyze the practice of teaching, such as the unit of data
collection, unit of data analysis, elements of practices, etc in order to document beginning
teachers’ learning outcomes in a empirically valid way. Both conceptual and technical aspects of
the methodology will provide researchers one grounding point to further discuss and develop
fine analytical tools for research on teacher learning.
Third, this study provides some insights on both potential issues and possibilities
regarding the design of research on beginning teacher learning. Research focusing on the practice




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of science teaching is a highly demanding work that requires great amount of time and energy
from both researchers and candidates in terms of data generation, collection, and analysis. The
more teaching episodes (i.e., the unit of data collection) are analyzed, the more reliable the
results would be. Multiple teaching episodes collected at different stages of program may also
allow researchers to trace candidates’ learning trajectories, including any shift of momentum in
their learning trajectories. However, given our limited resources, we must consider the tradeoffs
between the total number of teaching episodes and the quality of information of each teaching
episode. For example, if we allow candidates to select teaching episodes as evidence of their
learning with rationale, their choice and stories about their choice will give another layer of
information on their interpretation of practices. The time points of data collection can be also
considered as a way of enriching the information from one teaching episode. The teaching
episode at the last stage of program provided informants with opportunities tell stories about
candidates’ self(s) in/and practices while drawing upon their observation throughout the whole
period, which generated rich stories that captured reifying and significant aspects of candidates’
self and practices.
Finally, this study demonstrated how the processes of learning from students, mentor
teachers, and course instructors were significantly affected by candidates’ actual and designated
identities. Despite the fact that some researchers have attended to the issue of teacher identities,
the notion of teacher identity has been a messy construct that was less successful in providing
powerful insights on the process of learning to teach. In this study, teacher identities were
operationalized as ‘storied identities’ that consist of stories about both current and future self(s)
in/and practices. This operationalization was useful because it allowed me to capture the process
of learning to teach in the unique contexts of beginning teacher learning as discussed in the




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introduction, including the involvement of multiple communities of practice, multiple authorities
of good teaching practices, and degree of freedom for choice of resources. This study shows that
candidates bring strong momentum toward their future selves with them, and their designated
identities are relatively stable. What will be a better way of working with candidates who have a
strong momentum toward traditional teaching? How can we better recognize their identities and
identity work at the early of the program and during their time with us? How can we help them
re-consider their future self(s) and its projected meaning in their practices and students’ learning?
How can we provide opportunities of making a shift of their momentum in a productive way?
These are some of the questions that are critically important to respond to our candidates, and
possibly put us in a better position to support our candidates’ identity work.
This study shows the depth of challenges that the teacher education community faces.
The time of candidates’ work with us is relatively short in comparison to the time that they have
developed their designated identities. We have a very ambitious goal of equipping candidates
with reform-oriented pedagogy, but currently we do not have an ambitious pedagogy for teacher
education that supports candidates’ acquisition of this important knowledge for teaching and that
can powerfully influence their momentum toward their designated identities. However, the field
of research on teacher education is relatively young (Grossman & McDonald, 2008), and
researchers have already begun to produce quality research studies that shed light on our
understanding of beginning teacher learning. Despite the challenges that we face, I believe that
our ambitious pedagogy will be developed as we better understand beginning teachers’
mechanisms of learning.




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APPENDICES




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APPENDIX A

UNIT/LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE

TE 408: Lesson Plan and Report
Note: Titles and parts written in plain text are meant to be included in your final report.
Notes in red italics (including this one) are advice on writing the report that you can erase from
the final version.
• Your plans turned in before the lesson should include Parts I-IV.
• Your report turned in after the lesson should include revisions in Parts I-IV and
Part V.
Name:
Mentor Teacher:
Date:

Partner:
School:

Part I: Information about the Lesson or Unit
Describe the unit topic in which your lesson fits (e.g. genetics, forces), and the lesson topic
rd
(e.g. Punnett square, Newton’s 3 Law)
Unit:
Topic:
Type of Class
Choose the appropriate descriptors from the lists or substitute your own descriptions.
• Grade level(s): 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 High school basic elective/high track advanced (e.g.,
AP)
• Type of school: Urban Suburban Rural
• Tracking level: Untracked Lower track College bound Inclusion
Abstract
Write a short description (100 words or less) that provide a brief snapshot of the content and
activities of your lesson. Include information about what your students will do as well as what
you will do as a teacher. For example, in this lesson we will be doing a series of activities on the
types of clouds. As a problem, we will ask what types of clouds are visible today and what do
they mean for our weather. We will model with labeled pictures of different types of clouds and
then have students identify new pictures taken from websites for coaching. The homework (fade)
will be to answer the original question and include a drawing of the clouds.

Part II: Clarifying Your Goals for the Topic
This section lays out a general understanding of the topic at a level that is appropriate for
your students. Note that Big Ideas, Objectives, and Observations/Patterns/Models are rarely
covered completely in an individual lesson. If necessary, you should add material not included
in your lesson in order to develop a more complete picture of the content that you are teaching.



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It may be useful to use colors or italics to distinguish between content taught in the lesson and
experiences or ideas that are not included in this lesson, but help to complete the topic.
In this section you should feel free to copy from the website or from resources such as state
and national standards. Always include appropriate citations for any material you use. Modify
the text so that it matches your lesson.
Knowledge: Big Ideas
Describe the most important patterns, models, and theories for this topic in 300 words or
less. Use the language and ideas that you would like students in your class to be able to use. If
appropriate, copy language from Benchmarks for Science Literacy or the National Science
Education standards or other sources.
Big ideas are rarely confined to an individual lesson. If you are writing plans for a single
lesson, you may need to include ideas from other lessons to write a coherent statement of the big
ideas you want your students to understand.
Checklist for Big Ideas. Check to see if your big ideas meet the criteria below. Erase this
section if you feel that you have met all the criteria. If you are having trouble meeting some of
the criteria, use this section to explain your difficulties.
• Do you have a coherent summary of the most important patterns, models, and principles
for your topic? Big ideas should express the key patterns and explanations in student
language, not just name them.
• Have you used important ideas from Benchmarks for Science Literacy, the National
Science Education Standards, or the Michigan Content Expectations?
• Is the language (e.g., vocabulary level) appropriate for students in your class? Big ideas
don’t include every vocabulary word in the unit (though they should include the most
important ones), and they don’t have many specific examples. The language you use in
your summary of big ideas should be the language you would like your students to use.
• The word “students” does NOT belong in your statement of big ideas. Think of big ideas
as what you would like your students to be able to tell you after the unit or lesson is over.
Knowledge: Observations, Patterns, and Models/Principles
Use the table to explain how you will help students extend their experience and reduce it to
order. Use the table to list:
• Observations or data that you want your students to be aware of and work with. These
could be personal experiences or data that are collected during this lesson or data that
students get from demonstrations, websites, etc. They should be direct descriptions of
objects, systems, or events in the material world. Observations include:
o A list of examples that fit the patterns and models you identified in your Big Ideas.
o A list of variables or specific characteristics that students need to notice about the
examples. Some of the variables will be obvious characteristics of the examples;
there may be other important “hidden variables” that students need to be aware
of in order to see the patterns.
• Patterns that you want your students to see or be aware of in the data. Note that patterns
usually describe relationships among variables—the variables that students observed in
their examples.
• Models and principles that you want your students to use to explain or understand the
observations and patterns.
o Models explain patterns in terms of invisible mechanisms.




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o Principles are general rules, such as conservation of matter and energy, that all
models must obey.
Checklist for Observations, Patterns, and Models. Check to see if your observations,
patterns, and models meet the criteria below. Erase this section if you feel that you have met all
the criteria. If you are having trouble meeting some of the criteria, use this section to explain
your difficulties.
• Are your observations/experiences specific real-world objects, systems, or phenomena?
Observations focus on specific real-world objects, systems, or phenomena, not the
concepts we use to explain them. For example, “light-dependent reactions” and “light
independent reactions” are not good real-world examples for photosynthesis. Similarly,
“temperature,” and “convection” are not good real world examples for heat transfer.
• Are the observations experientially real to your students. They should be either systems
or phenomena that your students have already experienced or that you could help them
experience, first hand or vicariously. (This does not imply that your list should consist
only of examples actually included in your class activities.)
• Are the variables that your students will observe sufficient for them to see the patterns?
If not, do you have plans for how to make your students aware of the hidden variables?
• Do your Patterns describe relationships among variables that students will observe or be
aware of?
• Are your patterns explained by the models and principles—do the patterns serve as a
“bridge” between observations and models?
• Are your observations, patterns, and explanations connected to your big ideas? The key
models, laws, and theories in the big ideas statement should be listed in summary form in
the Patterns or Explanations column of your table.
Observations or
experiences
Goal
OPM

Patterns

Models and Principles

Relevant examples:
Variables:

Application: Model-based Reasoning
Inquiry: Finding and Explaining Patterns in Experience
Practices: Objectives for Student Learning
Use the table below to list one or two Michigan Objectives and one or two specific lesson
objectives that you will be addressing during this lesson. The Michigan Objectives should be
copied from the Michigan HSCEs (http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-14038924_41644_42814---,00.html) or GLCEs (http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-14028753_33232---,00.html). For each objective, use the second column to say what type of
objective it is.
You probably will not complete work on your objectives during a single lesson. Don’t worry
about that. We are more interested in longer term goals than in what students learn in an
individual lesson.




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Checklist for Objectives for Student Learning. Check to see if the objectives in your table
meet the criteria below. Erase this section if you feel that you have met all the criteria. If you
are having trouble meeting some of the criteria, use this section to explain your difficulties.
• Does each objective describe student learning—something that your students will be able
to do after the class is over—not just a teaching activity to be completed in class? For
example, “Conduct an experiment on plant growth under different environmental
conditions” is a good learning activity, but not a good objective. It doesn’t say what
students will learn to do as a result of conducting the experiments.
• Does each objective relate to a set of examples, not just a single example? For example,
“Explain how plants get their food” is a better objective than “Explain how an oak tree
gets its food.”
• Are your objectives connected with your Big Ideas and Observations/Patterns/Models?
Does each objective describe ways that you would like your students to connect
observations, patterns, and models or principles?
• Do you have a small number of objectives that describe significant learning? Do not
write too many small objectives. Even a unit that is several weeks long should be
organized around a small number of significant objectives.
Objective
Michigan Objective(s)

Type
Choose one:
Identifying SP
Using SP
Inquiry
Reflection/Social
Implications

1.

2.

Specific Lesson Objective(s)
1.
2.
3.

Part III: Classroom Activities
This section contains your plans for the activities that you will actually do in the classroom.
They should be real plans for real activities, not made-up plans that you will not actually carry
out.
Resources
Use the table below to describe and analyze at least three different resources (including
lesson plans, laboratory investigations, data sets, simulations, websites, etc.) that you considered
in developing your lesson. One resource can come from your mentor teacher; the other two
should come from other sources. We will work together as a class to develop sources and
criteria for judging the quality of resources.
Source and description of resource




Possible uses for your lesson

226


Strengths and weaknesses

Materials
List materials you will be using. Attach the files of materials that you have in electronic
form.
Checklist for Materials. Check to see if your materials list meets the criteria below. Erase
this section if you feel that you have met all the criteria. If you are having trouble meeting some
of the criteria, use this section to explain your difficulties.
• Have you included everything you will need to teach?
• Do you have the materials ready before your lesson?
• Have you attached files for materials that you have in electronic form?
Presentation materials (Overhead transparencies or PowerPoint presentations, etc): (attach files)
Copied materials (Handouts, worksheets, tests, lab directions, etc.): (attach files)
Pages in textbook: Book:______________________ Pages:_______
Laboratory materials: For the teacher or the class as a whole: (attach files)
For each laboratory station: (attach files)
Other materials: (attach files)
Activities
Describe the activities that you will be doing at three stages in the lesson: Introduction, one
or more Main Activities, and Conclusion. These may be based on your mentor’s lesson plans and
materials or on ones that you developed yourself. They should reflect, though, your best
understanding of what you will be doing. If you would have preferred to do something different,
describe what you would have done in the “Improvements in Parts I-IV” section below.
• Include important handouts or teaching materials, either as part of this file or separately.
• Share your plans with your mentor and course instructor in time to get comments before you
teach.
Checklist for Activities. Check to see if your activities meet the criteria below. Erase this
section if you feel that you have met all the criteria. If you are having trouble meeting some of
the criteria, use this section to explain your difficulties.
• Are your lesson plans ready in time for your mentor and course instructor to look at them and
suggest improvements?
• Do the activities address the goals you listed above? (If not, you should change the activities
or the goals.)
• Have you planned lesson introductions that will (a) connect this lesson conceptually with
earlier lessons and (b) prepare students for the activities of the day?
• Do your whole class activities meet the criteria we have discussed in class for examples,
explanations, opportunities for student participation, management, style/learning community,
and opportunities for assessment?
• Have you planned lesson conclusions that will (a) review the main ideas for the lesson, (b)
prepare materials and lab stations for the next group of students, and (c) connect this lesson
to the next one.
Introduction (-- minutes)
Describe introductory activities that will:
• Get the class off to a well-managed start



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• Make conceptual connections with previous lessons
• Help students anticipate problems and activities of the class
Main Teaching Activities (--minutes)
Describe teaching activities, including:
• Key examples, patterns, models or theories
• Key questions that you will use to start discussions
• What the students AND the teacher will be doing
• Embedded assessment activities that will indicate students’ understanding at different points in
the lesson
• References to materials you or the students are using during this activity
• Procedural details, including transitions, materials management, etc.
Conclusion (--minutes)
Describe concluding activities that will:
• Make sure students and materials are in order before students leave
• Help students review or summarize what they have learned
• Help students anticipate problems and activities of future classes




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APPENDIX B

ASSESSMENT ASSIGNMENT TEMPLATE

Part IV: Assessment of Focus Students
This section includes your plans for assessment of three focus students who have different
levels of academic success in your class.
Focus Objective
Choose one objective to focus on for your assessment and copy it here.
Developing Assessment Tasks
Include an assessment task that will reveal your focus students’ understanding of your
strand: their knowledge, practice, and discourse. This task might be a single question or a series
of questions. It might take many forms, including: (a) embedded assessment tasks such as
worksheets, journal questions, or lab reports, (b) questions or tasks for clinical interviews, or (c)
formal assessments such as test questions.
Include the actual task, don’t just describe it. If it requires special materials that cannot be
copied into this section, attach them as Appendices or separate files.
Checklist for Assessment Task. Check to see if your assessment task meets the criteria below.
Erase this section if you feel that you have met all the criteria. If you are having trouble meeting
some of the criteria, use this section to explain your difficulties.
• Have you included the actual questions that students will answer or prompts they will be able
to respond to?
• Will you learn from incorrect answers? Can your students respond in ways that show ways of
making sense of the topic even if they don’t know the scientific answer?
• Is the task relevant to the focus objective? Does it engage students in the practice described
in your focus objective?
• Would a scientist respond to the task with the concepts, patterns, or models that you are
interested in?
• Is the task worded in a way that will be clear to the students? Will they understand what you
are asking?
• Would a good answer to the task require students to relate some of the theories, patterns, and
examples from Part II?

Part V: After the Lesson Report
Complete this section after you have taught your lesson.
Story of What Happened
Choose 2 of the 6 focus aspects we have used for video and teaching lab analysis (examples,
explanations, student participation, management, teaching style and classroom culture, student
learning). Write a brief story of what happened when you taught the lesson (500 words or less)
that provides evidence about those two aspects. (See the middle column of the video rubric for
relevant types of evidence.)



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Aspect
1. How are the
real world
observations
and examples
used?

Data and Patterns
List of observations and examples
Sources of observations and
examples: demonstrations, stories,
student suggestions, etc.
List of explanations

2. How are the
List of representations: diagrams,
explanations
equations, verbal models, etc.
constructed or
given in this
Source of explanations: Teacher,
lesson?
students, ?.
3. What kinds of
opportunities
for
engagement
are provided
for students?
Who can be
left out?

Notes about who speaks and who
does not.
List of questions or other
opportunities to participate

Turn taking: How the teacher
chooses who will speak.

Judgments about Quality
Scientific appropriateness: Were the
examples scientifically aligned with the
key ideas of the lesson?
Interest and relevance: Were the
examples interesting and relevant to the
students?
Scientific appropriateness: Were the
explanations scientifically correct?
Comprehensibility: Did the explanations
make sense to everyone?
Connection to examples: How well did the
explanations connect examples with
models and principles?
Inclusion: How many people
participated? Were there patterns in who
spoke the most?
Meaningfulness: How meaningful was the
participation to the students?

Effectiveness of organization: Was it
4. How does the
always clear what students were expected
teacher
to do?
manage class Class organization: lecture,
Appropriateness of organization: Were
discussions?
discussion, small group, individual the activities organized so that the
work, etc.
purpose of the lesson was achieved?
5. What is the
Specific examples that exemplify the Effectiveness of teacher’s style: What
teacher’s style teacher’s style or approach.
aspects of the teacher’s style or approach
and the nature
are most and least effective?
of the
Evidence about students’ interest,
Nature of classroom community: Does the
classroom
engagement, cooperation.
classroom community have norms that
learning
favor student engagement and motivation
community?
to learn?
Purpose of lesson:
Appropriateness of purpose: Did the
teacher have a goal that involved
6. What is the
Student responses: List of specific
meaningful learning for the students?
evidence of
responses from students that
Usefulness of responses: Did the students
student
showed something about their
say or do things that helped the teacher
learning?
understanding
figure out how they understood the topic?
Correctness of responses: What did the
responses reveal about student
understanding?




230


Checklist for Story of What Happened. Check to see if your story of what happened meets
the criteria below. Erase this section if you feel that you have met all the criteria. If you are
having trouble meeting some of the criteria, use this section to explain your difficulties.
• Are the students (especially your focus students) actors in your story, not just an audience for
what you did?
• Does your story provide evidence about your two focus aspects?
• Does your story include information about your students’ activities and learning relevant to
the objectives you identified for the lesson in Part I?
• Does your story include the events, issues, or problems that were most important to you
personally and to your learning to teach?
Two focus aspects:
Story with evidence about those aspects:
Making Sense of Focus Students’ Responses
Descriptions of focus students
Choose three focus students who have different levels of academic success in your class.
Assign them pseudonyms and describe them briefly in the table below.
Pseudonym

Academic
Standing

Personal Description

Excellent Response or Rubric
Write an example of what you would consider to be an excellent response to your assessment
task from a student in your class.
Finding and Explaining Patterns in Student Responses
Describe your focus students’ understanding (i.e., their knowledge, practices, and discourse)
with reference to the focus objective and the relevant examples, patterns, and models or theories.
To do this, identify the key components of the “Ideal Response” you wrote in the previous
section. Describe how each focus student did with each component.
Support your description with evidence from their work and your interactions with them,
including your assessment task, written work they have done, informal conversations, their
participation in class, their approach to laboratory or field activities, etc. If at all possible,
include copies of the focus students’ work. You will not be graded on your students’
achievement, but on how well you analyzed that achievement.
Checklist for Analysis of Focus Students’ Understanding. Check to see if your analysis meets
the criteria below. Erase this section if you feel that you have met all the criteria. If you are
having trouble meeting some of the criteria, use this section to explain your difficulties.
• Have you provided evidence in the form of quotes or samples of your focus students’ work?
(If necessary, attach separate files or paper copies.)



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• Have you described how your focus students understand the objective: their experiences and
their ways of describing them, patterns that they see in their experience, their explanations of
those patterns, their practices in doing the activities described in your objective?
• Have you related their knowledge and practices to the scientific knowledge and practices
described in your big ideas and objective?
Improvements Parts I-IV
Go back to your lesson plan and identify 3 things you would change to improve the lesson if
you were to do it again. The changes can be in any part of the lesson plan. For example you
might decide that your objective was unrealistic, that you didn’t understand some of the big
ideas or you would reword them, that you need different experiences that are more interesting to
students, or that you would change the activities. Explain both why you think each part was
problematic in its original form and why you think your new idea is better. Your explanations
should include evidence from what happened. Also use whatever ideas from class you think are
pertinent. For example, you think your students had trouble with a worksheet because you
jumped from modeling to fading or you didn’t motivate students because they couldn’t see the
value in the task because it didn’t relate to their lives.
Improvements in Your Understanding of Science Teaching
Write briefly about some important thing that you learned that will help you be a better
science teacher in the future.

Attachments
If you have electronic files you are using with your lesson, either paste them here, or list
them here and upload them as separate files to the course Angel site.




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APPENDIX C

TEACHER CANDIDATES INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

The goals of this interview
The goal of this interview is to understand teacher candidates’ knowledge and practices of
science teaching, and their development of professional identity. In particular, we are interested
in two key science teaching practices—a) classroom activities as ways of representing scientific
knowledge and practices, and b) assessing and responding to students. This interview will be
conducted at the last stage of their senior or internship year after involving in multiple
communities of practice of science teaching. We will show a teacher candidates’ self-made
teaching video and ask questions of their practices and self as a science teacher. Interview
questions will be focused on candidates’ reflection on practices and their works. Questions
directly relating to course instructors will be excluded.

Strategies
To effectively assess teacher candidates’ knowledge and practice of science teaching while
revealing their values and positioning, interviewers need to be strategic in asking questions.
1. Interview will be divided into four segments: a) before watching video, b) watching the
first segment of video related to content, c) watching the second segment of video related
to students’ work, and d) wrapping-up questions.
2. Before watching video, the questions will be focused on a. candidates’ general responses
to the lesson and students in class.
3. While watching video segments, the interviewer will ask instructors to highlight and code
candidates’ practices with respect to the two focus practices.
4. Interviews will be focused on more candidates’ practices than candidates themselves.




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#1. Before watching video
Q1. [Broad opening question] Could you tell me about this class?
Q2. Tell me about this lesson.
Q2-1. Where did you get this lesson idea? Why did you choose it?
Q2-2. How did your mentor respond to this lesson? Did he/she like it or dislike it?
Q2-3. How was your relationship with your mentor in planning and teaching lesson in
general?
Q3. Did you have any concerns?
Q3-1. How did it affect on this lesson?
Q4. How did this lesson go?
Q4-1. Would you do anything differently if you teach this lesson again?
Q5. What materials (PowerPoints, worksheets, etc.) did you use in this lesson. Can you show
them to me?
Q5-1. Can you explain to me how you used these materials?
Q5-2. What do you think were their strengths and weaknesses?




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#2. Watching the first segment of video
The interviewer shows the segment that relates to ways of representing scientific knowledge and
practice to students through classroom activities.
Q1. Could you help me put this lesson in a context? What is the unit you are teaching, and how
does this lesson fit into it?
Q2. What are your more specific goals for this lesson? What were you trying to accomplish
there? [the same question to course instructor interviews]
Q3. You stated that …. is your specific goals for this lesson. How did you identify those goals?
Q4. How were you trying to do it? What kinds of approach did you take? [the same question to
course instructor interviews]
Q5. What do you like about your approach? Why? [the same one]
Q6. What do you dislike about your approach? Why? [the same one]
Q7. What are the best materials, strategies, or activities that you can think of to teach this topic to
students? Why?
Q8. Would you like to use them again in the future? What are the strengths and weaknesses?
Q9. Do you have other kinds of goals having to do with reasoning or skills or understanding the
nature of science that you are working on in this lesson even though they are not specific
content goals?
Q10. To what extent do you think you are successful at achieving your goals for students?
Q11. [Planned probes] Did you think about [some different ideas or resources that are more
likely tied to the reform-oriented instruction]?




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#3. Watching another segment of video
The interviewer shows the segment that relates to candidates’ assessment about students and
their responses about it. Typically this segment may involve in interaction between candidates
and students during small group discussion or whole group discussion, questioning, etc.
Q1. Do you have any comment about students that were in this classroom?
Q2. How well do you feel that your students were doing on this content? [common]
Q2-1. Can you explain to me how students responded to [particular questions in class or
on teaching materials]? What were the differences between more and less successful
students?
Q3. [recognizing] Did you notice any difficulty that students were having in?
Q4. [interpreting] Where do you think those difficulties came from?
Q5. [responding] How did you address the difficulty that students were having?
Q6. How do you think the ways that you interact with your students during the lesson? Do you
like the ways that you did? Why?
Q7. Is there anything that you dislike with respect to ways of interacting with students? Why?
Q8. How were you assessing about students or students’ understanding? [common]
Q9. Are there particular students in this video who really stand out for you? Why?
Q10. What do you think it would like to be a student in your classroom? What makes you think
so? [common]




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#4. Wrap-up questions (Professional identity)
Q1. [positioning with respect to TE] Are there ways the video reflects things that you learned
from TE courses or field instructors? [common]
Q2. [Positioning with respect to students & assessment] Are there ways the video reflects things
that you learned from your students?
Q3. [Positioning with respect to school professionals] Are there ways the video reflects things
that you learned from your mentor teacher? [common]
Q4. How would you characterize the teacher in the video? How did you look like as a teacher to
you? [common]
Q5. [identity] Does the video reflect the teacher that you hope to be?
Q6. Let’s say, we are using 10-point scale. 10 is the ideal teacher that you would like to be. How
would you score yourself now?
Q7. What are the differences? How would you explain the difference between 10 and your
score?




237


APPENDIX D

JEREMIAH INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
#1. Before watching video
[Introduction] This is a clinical interview video with a sixth grade student, Jeremiah. One of the
faculty members in science education interviewed him about photosynthesis for about 10
minutes. The purpose is to understand this student’s thinking about photosynthesis and plants.
(give participants, in particular non-biology majors, to ask questions about content while
conducting interviews)
[The announcement] From now on, we are going to show segments of this video and then ask a
couple of questions about the student as well as the interviewer.
#1. Name the parts of the plant and their functions [00:00-2:26]
Q1. [After the interviewer’s prompt question: Could you tell me what each of those parts does
for the plant?] How would you answer this question?
After looking at the rest part of this segment
Q2. [The analysis of J’s responses] What did you learn about this student?
Q2-1. How well do you think J understands the parts and the functions of plants?
Q3. [The goals of the interviewer] What do you think the interviewer is aiming for?
Q4. [After J’s comments about light and leaves] So what question would you ask next?

#2. How do plants get their food? Comparing plants and human beings [2:27-5:00]
Q1. [After the interviewer’s prompt question: Could you explain to me how a plant survives?
What kinds of things it does? Like how does it get its food?] How would you answer to this
question?
Q1. [After the interviewer’s prompt question: Compare the two - How would you compare with
the plant in the way you get and use food?] How would you answer to this question?
After looking at the rest part of this segment
Q2. [The analysis of Jeremiah’s responses] What are you learning about this student?



238


Q3. [The analysis of Jeremiah’s responses] What do you think this student knows about plants
and photosynthesis?
Q3-1. Can you give us the evidence?

Q4. [The analysis of the interviewer’s goals and strategies] What do you think the interviewer is
aiming for?
Q5. [The strategies of the interview] How is he trying to accomplish this?
Q6. [Critique about the interviewer] Let’s say that you had the opportunity to trade spots with the
interviewer, what would you do at this point in order to better understand the student?
#3. Remembering class unit on plants, Additional questions (Jeremiah’s garden), Planned
probe about photosynthesis [5:01-end]
Q1. [The analysis of J’s responses] What are you learning about this student?
Q2. [The analysis of Jeremiah’s responses] What do you think this student knows about plants
and photosynthesis?
Q2-1. Can you give us the evidence?
Q3. [The goals and strategies of the interviewer] Is there anything that you noticed with regard to
the interviewer’s goals or strategies?
Q4. [The analysis of Jeremiah’s responses] What kinds of information that you got from
Jeremiah are useful or problematic to you?
Q5-1. Why?
Q5. [Candidates’ perspective] Let’s say that you were the teacher in that situation, what would
you do with students like Jeremiah?
Q5-1. Why?




239


Q6. [Understanding about formative assessment: Identifying the goals of student learning] Let’s
say that you are going to teach plants and photosynthesis to the middle school students. How do
you identify your goals?
Q7. [Understanding about formative assessment: Evaluating students’ learning] How do you
evaluate students’ understanding about a topic that you are teaching? And when?
Q7-1. What are some other ways to evaluate student understanding except clinical
interviews?
Q8. [Understanding about formative assessment: Responding students’ learning] How would you
use with the information from the evaluation? What would you see in this video help you think
about it?
Q9. What are the best materials, strategies or activities that you can think of to teach that topic to
the middle school students?
Q9-1. Does anything that you saw in the video help you to think about those strategies or
approaches?
Q9. What did you learn about using clinical interviews as a tool for teachers?




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APPENDIX E

CODING SCHEME FOR CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Table 26. Coding scheme for classroom activities
Interpretiv Cod
Descriptive codes
e codes
es
Goals
Cognitive
G-b1 Reproducing factual information/canonical knowledge
Lower
G-b2 Getting some skills or procedural knowledge
level
Cognitive
G-c1 Using a model or principle to explain patterns or examples; using micro
Higher
level models (invisible) to make connection with macro scale visible
level
phenomena
G-c2 Developing explanations about the phenomena or solving problems by
reasoning through data
G-c3 Scientific reflection and social implication
Social goal G-s1 Developing a productive learning community where students can navigate
(these
various ideas, experiences, and cultural resources and take risks of being
codes are
wrong
applicable G-s2 Providing opportunities for students to interact with peers with the
only to
intention of supporting students’ learning
interview
transcript)
Highlighted role of students in activities
Procedural/ S-b1 Following the direction
behavioral
S-b2 Filling out the worksheet or taking notes
S-b3 Paying attention
S-b4 Giving answers to teachers' questions (passively)
S-b5 Getting things done
S-b6 Reproducing the process or mechanism
S-b7 Practicing problem or skills
S-b8 Remembering information
Content
S-c1 Thinking critically and analyzing it critically
understandi S-c2 Going through the thought process/ developing thinking skills
ng
S-c3 Making connections among concept, prior knowledge and new knowledge
S-c4 Observing and finding patterns by themselves
S-c5 Reasoning through data
S-c6 Asking questions that lead students to further investigate the topic actively
S-c7 Coming up with explanations grounded in evidence
S-c8 Developing their own knowledge/ building own ideas
S-c9 Understanding the purpose of activity and making connections




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Table 26 (cont’d)
Social
S-s1

Sharing ideas and communicating with others, for example, during wholeclass discussion
S-s2 Working together as a group/ helping each other
Highlighted role of activities (examples, observations, demonstrations, experiments, etc)
Motivation A-b1 Making content interesting or relevant
A-b2 Getting students excited
A-b3 Getting students to do something regardless of its role in understanding
content
A-b4 Getting students to remember new information
A-b5 Simple visualization of concept without making connection across scales
or phenomena
A-b6 Solidifying concept by confirming canonical knowledge
Content
A-c1 Getting students to think critically by solving problems (puzzles)
understandi A-c2 Representing phenomena or models to make connection among
ng
observation, patterns, and models
A-c3 Getting students to find some patterns
A-c4 Giving students experience that they can build knowledge on
A-c5 Making connection with previous or next lessons
Social
A-s1 Getting students to work together and help one another
A-s2 Getting students to see the value of learning the concept




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APPENDIX F

CODING SCHEME FOR ASSESSMENT PRACTICE
Table 27. Coding scheme for assessment practice
Elements of
Code
description
practice
Opportunities Content
O-a
a. Revealing prior experiences or knowledge
understanding
Procedural
O-b
b. Reproducing factual information
Procedural

O-c

Content
understanding

O-d
O-e

O-f
O-g
NA
Identifying

O-h

Content
understanding

ID-a
ID-b

Procedural

Content
understanding
NA




ID-c
ID-d
ID-e
ID-f

c. Displaying some skills or procedural
knowledge
d. Applying what students know/learn to
explain other examples
e. Developing explanations (arguments) through
reasoning about experiences without data analysis
or pattern finding
f. Developing explanations (arguments)
through reasoning about data/observations
g. reflecting on an/reveal their understanding
(mostly for teaching video)
h. Little or no opportunity (though ask
questions)
a. What students know and do not know
accurately (i.e. including partial understanding
and misconception)
b. What students know and do not know
broadly or inaccurately
c. Right or wrong answer
d. Completion or incompletion of work
(following direction)
e. Patterns of responses from multiple
students
f.
Little or not identified

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Table 27 (cont’d)
Interpreting
Content
understanding

IN-a

IN-b
IN-c
IN-d
Social

IN-e

IN-f
Behavioral

IN-l
R-a

R-b

Content
understanding

R-d

Behavioral

R-e

NA




NA
Content
understanding

Behavioral

Responding

IN-g

R-f

Explaining about student responses while
a. Making connection with teacher's instruction
or specific (missing) experiences
b. Making connection with missing
experiences in general
c. Making connection with students’ prior
experience/background knowledge
d. Making connection with personalities or
working patterns
e. Making connection with home backgrounds,
language, family, and cultural resources (e.g.,
foster care, recent immigrant family)
f. Making connection with social interaction in
classroom (e.g., group dynamics)
e. Attributing to students’ attitudes,
attentiveness, and behaviors (e.g., learning
disability)
j. No interpretation
a. Specific ideas of instructional modification
which is connected with identified issue (student
difficulties) (e.g., suggesting additional
experiences such as an experiment)
b. Specific ideas of instructional modification
that do NOT address student difficulties
d. General ideas of instructional modifications
which are related to students’ difficulties (e.g.,
helping them to see the value of learning about it)
e. General ideas of instructional modifications
which are not directly related to students’
difficulties (e.g., more hands-on activity, making
it relevant, spend more time on it)
f. Little or no responses

244


APPENDIX G

THE RESULTS OF CODING ABOUT CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
(INTERPRETATION OF PRACTICE)
Table 28 Monica's highlighting of classroom activity practice
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Content
understanding

2

9

5

Social
Procedural

1
0

5
2

3
0

Monica
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Procedural
Social
Goals

Role of
students

Role of
activity

Content
understanding

Figure 21. Monica's highlighting of classroom activity
Table 29. David's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students




Role of activity

Content
understanding

2

3

Social
Procedural/behavioral




0
0
2

0
12

0
5

245


David
100%
80%
60%

Procedural/
behavioral

40%

Social

20%
0%
Goals

Role of studentsRole of activity




Figure 22. David's highlighting of classroom activity
Table 30. Susie's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Content
understanding

1

5

0

Social
Behavior

1
0

8
2

2
4

Susie
100%
Behavior

80%
60%

Social

40%
20%

Content
understanding

0%
Goals

Role of studentsRole of activity

Figure 23. Susie's highlighting of classroom activity




246





Table 31. Teresa's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of Role of
students activity
Cognitive
1
1
2
Social
1
2
4
Behavior
2
5
1

Teresa
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

Behavior
Social
Cognitive
Goals

Role of
students

Role of
activity

Figure 24. Teresa's highlighting of classroom activity




Table 32. Leslie's highlighting of classroom activity (senior year)
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

3
0
0

12
0
2

4
0
1

Leslie (senior)
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of studentsRole of activity

Figure 25. Leslie's highlighting of classroom activity (senior year)




247





Table 33. Leslie's highlighting of classroom activity (intern year)
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

1
0
0

3
1
0

3
0
2

Leslie (intern)
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students Role of activity




Figure 26. Leslie's highlighting of classroom activity (intern year)
Table 34. Adam's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

1
0
0

12
5
0

4
1
0




Adam
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students Role of activity

Figure 27. Adam's highlighting of classroom activity



248





Table 35. Scott's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

2
0
0

7
0
1

1
0
0

Scott
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students Role of activity




Figure 28. Scott's highlighting of classroom activity
Table 36. Shannon's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

0
0
1

1
0
2

1
0
2




Shannon (intern)
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students Role of activity

Figure 29. Shannon's highlighting of classroom activity



249





Table 37. Alisa's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

0
0
1

2
2
3

0
0
8

Alisa
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students

Role of activity




Figure 30. Alisa's highlighting of classroom activity
Table 38. Lori's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

2
0
0

2
0
1

1
3
4

Lori
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students Role of activity

Figure 31. Lori's highlighting of classroom activity




250





Table 39. Lynn's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

0
0
1

1
0
1

0
0
3

Lynn
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students

Role of activity




Figure 32. Lynn's highlighting of classroom activity
Table 40. Stella's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

0
0
2

1
1
5

2
0
4

Stella
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of students

Role of activity

Figure 33. Stella's highlighting of classroom activity



251





Table 41. Kevin's highlighting of classroom activity
Goals
Role of students
Role of activity
Cognitive
Social
Behavior

0
0
2

0
0
0

0
0
8

Kevin
100%
80%
60%

Behavior

40%

Social

20%

Cognitive

0%
Goals

Role of
students

Role of
activity

Figure 34. Kevin's highlighting of classroom activity




252





APPENDIX H

DAVID’S WORKSHEET: DNA REPLICATION ACTIVITY




253


APPENDIX I

MONICA’S WORKSHEET: INCOMPLETE/CO-DOMINANCE ACTIVITY

Easter Egg Genetics Lab
In this lab, the outside of the egg represents the organism’s genotype and the jellybeans inside
represent the organism’s phenotype. Each half of the egg represents one allele (ex. if the egg has
two red halves, the genotype is RR). Read through the scenarios below and complete the
problems and questions.

Purple and Green Eggs (Purple = P ; green = p)

Bugs Bunny wants to be romantic so he brings
his girlfriend Lulu Bunny two flowering plants. One of the
plants is homozygous dominant for purple flowers and the other
is homozygous dominant for green flowers. In the spring Bugs
plants the flowers outside and by the end of the summer he
realize that the plants have reproduced. Create a Punnett square and record the genotypes and
phenotypes of each offspring.
Purple Plant – Genotype:_______ Phenotype:_______
Green Plant – Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 1 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 2 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 3 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 4 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
How does this type of inheritance relate to Mendel’s Law of Dominance?
If Bugs allows the F1 generation (the offspring in the Punnett
square above) to reproduce, what will be the genotype and
phenotype ratios of their offspring?
Genotype: _______PP: ________Pp:________pp
Phenotype:




254


Red and White Eggs (Red = R ; White = r)
Roger Rabbit is homozygous dominant for red fur. His wife Lola Rabbit is homozygous
recessive for white fur. They produce four offspring. Create a Punnett square and record the
genotypes and phenotypes of each offspring.
Roger – Genotype:_______ Phenotype:_______
Lola – Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 1 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 2 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 3 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 4 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
What would the genotype and phenotype ratios be if two pink
rabbits mated?
Genotype Ratio _______ RR: _______Rr: _________rr
Phenotype Ratio

What are some differences that you see between this type of inheritance and the
dominant/recessive pattern you saw last week?
Can you think of any examples of this type of inheritance that you’ve seen before? If so, what
have you seen?

Orange and Blue Eggs (Orange = O ; Blue = B

One day Rabbit and Pooh were combing the forest
for honey pots when they saw a nest of baby birds up high in
the tree. On the edge of the nest are the new hatchling’s
parents. One parent is homozygous for blue feathers and the



255


other is homozygous for orange feathers. Create a Punnett square to discover what the offspring
looked like.
Blue Parent – Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Orange Parent – Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 1 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 2 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 3 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
Offspring 4 - Genotype:_______
Phenotype:_______
What are some differences that you notice between this type of
inheritance and the dominant/recessive pattern you learned about
last week?

Can you think of any examples of this type of inheritance that you’ve seen before? If so, what
have you seen?




256


APPENDIX J

ADAM’S WORKSHEET: PEDIGREE NOTES
Pedigree Notes

Affected Males:

Affected Females:

Normal Males:

Normal Females:

Parents and children:
Siblings:
Twins:




257


APPENDIX K

ADAM’S WORKSHEET: COMPLETE THE PEDIGREE
Name:
Complete the Pedigree
Write the genotypes next to the following pedigree to show how the filled individuals are
affected by a phenotype that is controlled by a homozygous recessive genotype and the empty
individuals are unaffected. Ignore the question marks.




258


APPENDIX L

THE RESULTS OF CODING OF DESIGNATED IDENTITIES THROUGHOUT TWO
YEARS
Table 42. David's designated identities from senior to intern year
The beginning of The beginning
senior year
of the internship
year
Goals
Delivering
2
3
content and
skills
Engaging in
scientific
practices
Developing
learning
environment
The role of
Motivational
2
students
Content
understanding
Social
1
The role of
Motivational
7
2
activities
Content
1
1
understanding
Social




259


The end of
internship year
1

3
1

Table 43. Monica's designated identities from senior to intern year
The beginning of The beginning
The end of
senior year
of the internship internship year
year
Goals
Delivering
content and
skills
Engaging in
1
3
3
scientific
practices
Developing
1
4
learning
environment
The role of
Motivational
students
Content
1
3
3
understanding
Social
1
2
1
The role of
Motivational
1
activities
Content
2
1
NA
understanding
Social
Table 44. Adam's designated identities from senior to intern year
The beginning of The beginning
senior year
of the internship
year
Goals
Delivering
2
3
content and
skills
Engaging in
scientific
practices
Developing
learning
environment
The role of
Motivational
2
students
Content
understanding
Social
1
The role of
Motivational
7
2
activities
Content
1
1
understanding
Social




260


The end of
internship year
1

3
1

Table 45. Leslie's designated identities from senior to intern year
The beginning of The beginning
senior year
of the internship
year
Goals
Delivering
content and
skills
Engaging in
3
3
scientific
practices
Developing
1
learning
environment
The role of
Motivational
students
Content
1
understanding
Social
1
1
The role of
Motivational
2
activities
Content
4
1
understanding
Social
Table 46. Susie's designated identities from senior to intern year
The beginning of The beginning
senior year
of the internship
year
Goals
Delivering
content and
skills
Engaging in
1
1
scientific
practices
Developing
1
learning
environment
The role of
Motivational
students
Content
2
3
understanding
Social
2
The role of
Motivational
activities
Content
1
2
understanding
Social




261


The end of
internship year

2

4
1
1

The end of
internship year
1

2
1

Table 47. Teresa's designated identities from senior to intern year
The beginning of The beginning
senior year
of the internship
year
Goals
Delivering
2
1
content and
skills
Engaging in
scientific
practices
Developing
1
learning
environment
The role of
Motivational
1
students
Content
(2)
understanding
Social
2
1
The role of
Motivational
1
activities
Content
understanding
Social
2
2




262


The end of
internship year
2

1
2

APPENDIX M

THE RESULTS OF CODING ABOUT ASSESSMENT PRACTICES
Cohort I
Table 48. David's assessment practices
Individ Characteristi
Data
Unit Opportun
Identifyi
ual/gro cs of student
source
#
ity
ng
up
responses
correct/simpl
1
b
I
c
e
correct/simpl
802 UP1
2
b
I
c
e
incorrect/sim
3
b
I
c
ple
correct/simpl
4
b
I
c
e
5
b
I
mixed/simple
c
6
b
I
incomplete
d, f
G

8

d

G

d

G

f

G

11




b

10

Jeremiah
's int.
Teachin
g video
intervie
w

7

9

804
Inquiry
Report

d

G

correct/simpl
e

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

l

e

l
g
c
?
l

b

c

f

c

l

d

c

l

f

b

l

f

c

l

f

12

a

g

e

13

d

g

b

14

f

b

b

inaccurate/co
mplicated
mixed/simple
inaccurate/co
mplicated
correct/simpl
e

263


Table 49. Monica's assessment practices
Data
source

Unit
#

Opportun
ity

Individu
al/group

1

b/d

I

2

b/d

I

3

b/d

I

4

b

G

5

f

G

6

b, f

G

7

b, f

G

8

d

G

9

d

G

Jeremiah
's Int
Teachin
g video

inaccurate/si
mple
accurate/co
mplicated
correct/simp
le
correct/simp
le
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated

10

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

b

f

R-d

b

d

b

e

a

a, f

a

b

a, f

a

b

a

a

d

l

d

b

l

f

a

a

a

a

802 UP1

804
Inquiry
Report

Characterist
ics of
student
responses
incorrect/si
mple
mixed/simpl
e
correct/simp
le

c

a

G
G
G

a
a
a

a
a

a
a
a

14




11
12
13

G

a

a

d

264


Table 50. Susie's assessment practices
Data
source

b, c, d

I

b, c, d

I

b, c, d

I

f

G

5

f

G

6

c

G

7

f

G

8

d

G

9




1

4

Jeremiah
Teachin
g video

Individu
al/group

3
804
Inquiry
Report

Opportun
ity

2

802 UP1

Unit
#

f

G

Characterist
ics of
student
responses
accurate/co
mplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
no response
generating
ideas
generating
ideas
inaccurate/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

b

l

R-e

c, d

g (?)

d

g

d

b

a

a

a

l

d

a

c

d

a

a

a

a

l

a

a

a

d

c

e

a/d

d

10
11

G

a
NA

12

G

b

265


Table 51. Teresa's assessment practices
Data
source

b (?)

G

2

b (?)

I

b (?)

I

4

b (?)

G

5

b (?)

I

6

b (?)

I

7
8

i
i

G
G

9

c

G

10

f

G

11

b

G

12
Jeremiah
Teachin
g video

Individu
al/group

3

804
Inquiry
Report

Opportun
ity

1
802 UP1

Unit
#

b

G

Characterist
ics of
student
responses
% (grading
level)
% (grading
level)
% (grading
level)
incorrect/si
mple
No response
% (grading
level)
No response
No response
inaccurate/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
accurate/sim
ple
accurate/sim
ple

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

c

d, g

b, d

d

c

g

f

g

f

g

f

g

f
f

g
l

f
e

b

l

d

a

b

d

f

l

e

c

l

e

g
l
d/g

e
b
e

l

e

G
G

b
b
b

16




13
14
15

G

f

266


Respond
ing

Cohort II
Table 52. Leslie's assessment practices
Data
source

2

b, f

I

b, f

I

4

b

G

5

b

G

f

G

a

G

8

a

G

f, d

G

b, d

G

11

b

G

12

b, d

G

13

b

G

14

b, c

G

15

d

G

16

d

G

17




I

10

804
teaching
video
intervie
w

b, f

9

804
Applicat
ionRepo
rt

1

7
804Inqui
ryReport

Individu
al/group

6

TE407
LP2

Opportun
ity

3

TE407
LP1

Unit
#

d

G

Characterist
ics of
student
responses
correct/simp
le
inaccurate/si
mple
inaccurate/si
mple
correct/simp
le
incorrect/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/si
mple
generating
questions
accurate/co
mplicated
accurate/sim
ple
inaccurate/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/si
mple
accurate/sim
ple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

c

c, g

f

d

a

a

a

a

a

b

a

a

a

a

b

a

a

b

e

b

a

a

a

a, f

a

b

l

a

b

a

a

b

l

d

b

l

b

l

a

a

a

a

e

a

a

a

l

a

18

G

NA

a

g, a

a

19

G

NA

a

NA

a

267


Table 53. Shannon's assessment practices
Characterist
Data
Unit Opportun Individu
ics of
source
#
ity
al/group
student
responses
mixed/simpl
1
f
I
e
407 LP1
correct/simp
2
f
I
le
mixed/simpl
3
f
I
e
inaccurate/si
4
b
G
407 LP2
mple
inaccurate/c
5
f
G
omplicated
407
I
6
Jeremiah
I
7

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

b, d

g

e

c, d

l

e

c, d

g

e

b, d

a

e

b, d

b

e

b/c
b

i/k
c/i

d
d

8
407
Teachin
g Video

I

c/d

g/i

d

9

G

a

a

e

10

G

a

a

a

b

l

f

l

d

d

l

d, e

a

l

d, e

f

l

b

NA

l

e

c

l

b

a

a

a

b

G

b, c

G

14

f

G

15

c

G

c

G

17




G

16

804Teac
hingVid
eo
intervie
w

b, f

13
804
Applicat
ionRepo
rt

11
12

804Inqui
ryReport

b

G

18

inaccurate/c
omplicated
accurate/co
mplicated
NA
inaccurate/c
omplicated
incorrect/si
mple
incorrect/si
mple
incorrect/si
mple

G

268


Table 54. Adam's assessment practices
Data
source

G

2

a

G

b

G

b

G

5
6

d
d

G
G

7

c

G

8

d

G

9

d

G

10




b

4

Teachin
g video
intervie
w

Individu
al/group

3

804
Applicat
ionRepo
rt

Opportun
ity

1
804Inqui
ryReport

Unit
#

d

G

11

e

G

Characterist
ics of
Identifyi
ng
student
responses
correct/simp
f
le
generating
f
question
correct/simp
d
le
inaccurate/si
c
mple
Not reported
c
Not reported
c, f
correct/simp
c
le
correct/simp
b
le
inaccurate/c
f
omplicated
accurate/sim
d
ple
inaccurate/c
omplicated

269


b

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

l

d

l

e

l

f

l

e

l
g, l

e
f

c, f

e

f

e

l

e

l

e

b

e

Table 55. Alisa's assessment practices

G

accurate/sim
ple

e

G

3

e

G

c

G

b

G

6

f

G

7

f

G

8

f

G

9

b

G

10

e

G

11

e

G

12

b

G

13

b

G

14

b

G

15




b

5

Teachin
g video
intervie
w

Individu
al/group

4

804
Applicat
ion
Report

Opportun
ity

2
804Inqui
ryReport

Unit
#
1

Data
source

Characterist
ics of
student
responses

d

G

16

correct/simp
le

incorrect/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
accurate/co
mplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
accurate/sim
ple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
accurate/sim
ple
correct/simp
le
Correct/sim
ple
Correct/com
plicated

G

270


Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

b

l

d

b, d

a, g

d

b

b

a

c

a, f

a, b

b, c

g

a, b

b, c

g

d

b

l

e

b

g

e

b

l

d

b

a, b, g

d

b

b

a

a

a

a

c

l

a

a

l

a, b

b

l

a, d

d

accurate/co
mplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated

Identifyi
ng

g

b

Table 56. Mary's assessment practices

TE407
LP2
Jeremiah
Int.

Opportunity

Indivi
dual/g
roup

1

d

I

2

d

I

d

I

4

e

G

5

TE407
LP1

Uni
t#

3

Data
source

d

G

Characterist
ics of
student
responses
correct/simp
le
incorrect/co
mplicated
incorrect/co
mplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
mixed/comp
licated

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

c

g

e, d

b

g

b

g

a

a

d, e

a

a

a

1
2

I
I

b
b

h
N/A

d
e

3

I

b

k

b

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

a

l

E

b

l

c

l

a

l

c
c
f

l
l
l

c

l

Table 57. Kevin's assessment practices




I

2

d

I

d

I

d

G

5
6
7

c
c
c

I
I
I

8
Jeremiah

d

4
TE407
LP2

Opportunity

3

TE407
LP1

Uni
t#
1

Data
source

Indivi
dual/g
roup

c

G

Characterist
ics of
student
responses
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
incorrect/co
mplicated
mixed/comp
licated
N/A
N/A
N/A
mixed/comp
licated

1
2
3

a
a
a

271


g

E
E, b
a
a
e

Cohort III
Table 58. Lori's assessment practices
Uni
t#

Opportunity

1

c

I

2

c

I

3

c

I

4

g

I

5

f

I

6

d

I

7

g

G

8

f

I

9

d

I

10

g

I

11

f

I

12

f

G

13

Data
source

Indivi
dual/g
roup

d

I

408 LP1

408
3Days

Teaching
Video
Interview




Characterist
ics of
student
responses
Inaccurate/c
omplicated
accurate/co
mplicated
Inaccurate/c
omplicated
Argument
through
reasoning/in
accurate &
simple
developing
a model;
inaccurate/c
omplicated
incorrect/co
mplicated
inaccurate/si
mple
accurate/co
mplicated
correct/com
plicated
accurate/co
mplicated
accurate/co
mplicated
accurate
correct/com
plicated

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

a

a, g

e

a

l

a

d

a

l

a

e

a

a

a

a, j

a

l

a

a

a

a

a

l

b

l

a

l

a

14

G

b

a

NA

15

G

a

a

a

272


Table 59. Scott's assessment practices
Uni
t#

Opportunity

1

d

I

2

d

I

3

d

I

4

O-d

I

5

O-d

I

6

O-d

I

7

O-d

I

8

O-d

I

9

Data
source

Indivi
dual/
group

O-d

I

408 LP1

408
3Days




Characterist
ics of
student
responses
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
accurate/co
mplicated
incorrect/co
mplicated
Correct/sim
ple
correct/com
plicated
correct/simp
le
correct/com
plicated
Correct/sim
ple

273


Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

a

l

D, a

a

l

a

l

ID-a

IN-a

ID-d

IN-l

ID-a

IN-l

ID-d

IN-l

ID-b

IN-l

ID-a

IN-l

R-a

a/c

Table 60. Stella's assessment practices
Uni
t#

Opportunity

1

b

I

2

b

I

3

b

I

4

a, b

I

5

b

I

6

b

I

7

b

I

8

c

I

9

a,b

I

10

b

I

11

b

I

12

b

I

13

c

I

14

a,b

I

15

b

I

16

b

I

17

b

I

18

Data
source

Indivi
dual/g
roup

c

I

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

c, d

l

B

c, d

g

E

c, d

g, b

d

l

e

d

l

a

b

i

d

l

d

g

d

l

f

l

c

g

d

g

c

g

d

l

d

l

a

c

l

b

d

l

b

d

g

19

c

b

NA

20

c

g

a

408 LP1

408
3Days

Teaching
video
interview




Characterist
ics of
student
responses
correct/simp
le
incorrect/si
mple
incorrect/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/si
mple
inaccurate/si
mple
No response
inaccurate/si
mple
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/si
mple
correct/simp
le
inaccurate/si
mple
accurate/sim
ple
accurate/co
mplicated
inaccurate/si
mple
accurate/sim
ple
accurate/sim
ple

274


b

a

b

Table 61. Lynn's assessment practices
Uni
t#

Opportunity

1

b, c, d

I

2

b, c, d

I

3

b, c, d

I

4

b, c

I

5

b, c

I

6

Data
source

Indivi
dual/g
roup

b, c

I

Identifyi
ng

Interpret
ing

Respond
ing

b, c

l

E, d

b,c

l

c

l

c

g

b

g

c

g

7

a

l

?

8

c

c

?

408 LP1

408
3Days

Teaching
video
interview




Characterist
ics of
student
responses
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
inaccurate/c
omplicated
Correct/sim
ple
incorrect/si
mple
incorrect/si
mple

275


E, d

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276


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