| Affiliations: | |
| Project Leader: | Luke Lyons lukelyons@tamu.edu Curriculum & Instruction |
| Faculty Mentor: | Carol Stuessy, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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Summer 2016 (complete) |
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Team Size:
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7 (Team Full) |
| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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Team Needs:
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Strong writers, ability to work with an interdisciplinary team, classroom experience (observations) is preferential, basic statistics knowledge. |
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Description:
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Elementary and middle school preservice teachers at Texas A&M University face the challenge of learning methods to foster a more student-centered and authentic learning environment. This is especially important in the science classroom of today. Upon graduation, all of these preservice teachers will have progressed to becoming fully certified teachers in Texas. Integrated within the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) are process standards that require students from Kindergarten through high school to plan and conduct their own investigations. Inquiry should be method of instruction that all teachers have a capability to use within the classroom, as well as it being a defined process standard within every grade of the science TEKS. However, preservice teachers convey an inability to conduct inquiry within the classroom, thus having an initial unenthusiastic attitude towards inquiry-based learning. This mixed methods study will measure preservice teachers’ attitudes towards science and inquiry-based learning. An embedded research design will be used with qualitative data embedded within a major experiential intervention that is encompassed in a larger quantitative study. Pre and post surveys, prior to and after an inquiry known as “Squishy Circuits,” will be used to quantitatively test and analyze the attitudes towards science and inquiry-based learning for pre-service teachers at Texas A&M University. The qualitative data will be embedded in this larger experiential intervention during the inquiry experience where observational data using the Math and Science Classroom Observational Protocol System (M-SCOPS) will be collected, along with post experience focus groups with the preservice teachers. |