Building Awareness Needs, Opportunities, and

Best Practices in Pre-Service Teacher Education

Rick Pomeroy

University of California, Davis

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Student Teacher Conversation

Insert joke here

Education is a Black Box

Input Output

Garbage in Garbage out

Carbon

Charcoal

Coal

Graphite

Diamonds

Education

Prior Experiences

Informed populace

Scientists

Teachers

Instruction

Education

Prior Experiences

Trained Workforce

Instruction ?

Education

Learning

Building Awareness Needs, Opportunities,

and Best Practices

in Pre-Service Teacher Education

Guiding Questions

• Are there different approaches necessary for elementary and secondary science teachers?

• How can we mitigate science phobia among elementary teachers?

• What are the key areas of space science content knowledge for pre-service teachers?

Needs

• 17-28% of Science Teachers lack full certification– Greater numbers of elementary teachers

lack science certification or understanding

• Anticipated shortfall of science teachers– Programs to increase science teachers

include loan forgiveness, bonuses, second and third career applicants

Overview of Pre-Service Education

• Who is teaching science?• What does it take to become a certified

teacher?• How long do science teachers stay in the

profession?• How can we address science phobia? • How can the EPO community participate in

Pre-Service TE?

Opportunities K-12

• To promote engagement

• To increase career interest

• To promote engagement • To increase career interest• To take the opportunity to focus on learning

Opportunities-Undergraduate

• To increase interest

• To promote career potential

• To increase interest• To promote career potential• Take the opportunity to improve teaching

and learning

Opportunities Pre-Service

• Promote activity based science instruction

• Improve teacher content knowledge

• Promote activity based science instruction

• Improve teacher content knowledge

• Collaborate to improve student learning through theoretically sound pedagogy

Best Practices

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Best Practices

• What can we put into the box?

• Specifically, how can the EPO Community work with Pre-Service Education to make diamonds instead of charcoal?

What can we do?

• Start with what “students” know• Engage “students” (at all levels) in

challenging, pedagogically sound instructional techniques.

• Promote authentic Inquiry• Use formative assessment to guide

instruction• Carefully determine what “students” have

learned

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• And why do you think they are very smart?

• They do well.• What do you mean by they do well? Why

do you think that?• Why? • You said that they participate. So if I

participate would that make you think I am doing well?

• They have more confidence.• It sounds like doing well is related to

having some sort of interaction with you.

How do we know???

• Which students are doing well?• Ahh, Nico, Ryan, and ahhh Jason are

doing well, I get a lot of participation from them

• So because they participate they are doing well?

• No, But for some reason those stand out, Alexis and Kelly are very smart too.

How do we know???

• Which students are doing well?• Ahh, Nico, Ryan, and ahhh Jason are

doing well, I get a lot of participation from them

• So because they participate they are doing well?

• No, But for some reason those stand out, Alexis and Kelly are very smart too.

• And why do you think they are very smart?

• They do well.• What do you mean by they do well? Why

do you think that?• Why? • You said that they participate. So if I

participate would that make you think I am doing well?

• They have more confidence.• It sounds like doing well is related to

having some sort of interaction with you.

Black Box Theory

Prior Experiences

Informed populace

Scientists

Teachers

Instruction ?