Pre-Service Education Working Group
Notes from April 19, 2007 PSEWG Telecon

Participants

Denise Smith
Matt Bobrowsky
Jim Lochner
Jennifer Grier
Lin Chambers
Cheri St. Arnauld
Rick Pomeroy
Stephanie Shipp
Christine Shupla
Debbie Stork
Laurie Ruberg
Bill Waller
Mike Odell
Art Hammon

Discussion began with the NSTA conference.
Christine described the Pre-Service short course on addressing space science misconceptions which was conducted by Mary Dussault, Erika Reinfeld, Laurie Ruberg, Stephanie Shipp, Christine Shupla, and Denise Smith:  NASA: Dealing with Student Teacher Space Science Alternative Conceptions

  • We decided to give this workshop at NSTA for pre-service education faculty because at other teacher educator conferences, Christine and Stephanie had been told that teacher educators come to NSTA and that there isn’t enough for them, and because teacher educators had shown a strong interest in this subject.
  • It was scheduled at 8 a.m. on the first day of the conference, and was part of the general NSTA and its audience was listed as college.
  • 18 signed up in advance, and 17 attended.
  • Unfortunately, none of the participants were pre-service faculty or pre-service teachers; two were involved in professional development for teachers.  Several participants were international.  The majority of the participants had very positive evaluations.
  • Overall, the workshop itself went very well.  
    1. Much of the material and strategies came from the “Beyond the Solar System” program.  
    2. We began with asking the participants to draw their own view of the Universe and then examined student drawings and observed video of student interviews.  
    3. We looked at some of the other types of tools to uncover student misconceptions, such as the multiple choice diagnostic tests, and examined some questions and asked the participants to predict not just the correct answer but how many students generally select the best answer. 
    4. We then examined some different strategies for addressing alternative conceptions — we looked at three different activities and discussed which aspects or qualities of those activities were useful for addressing misconceptions.  
    5. We ended with evaluation.
  • Notes and the workshop powerpoint will be shared with PSEWG members asap.

Rick Pomeroy then described the Data Inquiry workshop he conducted with Stephanie Shipp and Christine Shupla: Increasing Understanding: Using NASA Data for Authentic Science Inquiry with Preservice Education Majors in Your Introductory Survey Science Course

  • It was given as part of SCST (submitted by Tim Slater) and was attended by faculty.
  • It was short (30 minutes)
  • A cd of data sources, many of them NASA, was shared with the audience.  The focus of the workshop was in giving existing data sets to pre-service students as part of a project:  creating authentic inquiry experiences for the students, beginning with student-formulated researchable questions and concluding with students presenting their findings and making predictions for future data.
  • While we were unfamiliar with most of the audience (exceptions being Doug Lombardi and Janelle Bailey), they seemed interested and appreciative.  Rick felt that this group might be useful for the PSEWG to establish more connections with in the future.

Discussion then turned to the possibility of something at NSTA next year. 

  • The deadline for NSTA presentations has passed, but the SCST deadline for the 2008 NSTA conference is May 15th. 
  • PSEWG members who may be attending and might be able to plan on a presentation include: Mike Odell, Lin Chambers (or one of her group), Jim Lochner, Denise may attend.
  • Suggestion was made and agreed that we should first ask SCST what they might like to see/have presented, and to determine whether it would be possible to conduct a series of workshops rather than a single short session.
  • Other suggestions were to find connections to this group; Christine asserted that Tim Slater is a member of this group.

We then turned to other conferences and deadlines

  • ASP abstract deadline is May 14.  Laurie suggested a workshop on working with Pre-Service students and faculty.  Jennifer suggested we might use this ASP as an opportunity to grow the pre-service community.  Last year’s pre-service panel discussion had 20 participants.  We will address this possibility during the conference call on May 10th.
  • ASTE abstract deadline is June 29th.

Stephanie and Christine shared that the ROSES proposal for institutes for pre-service faculty was submitted, and thanked all those who had helped to contribute and refine it.

Next Telecon will be on May 10th.