Fostering Preservice Teacher Identity in Science through a Student-Selected Project

Abstract

This article addresses the problem of authentic student engagement in the science classroom by incorporating a semester long research and writing assignment that enables students to investigate scientific topics related to strong personal, career, or health interests. Students practice self-reflexivity by journaling about their experiences in the course and with the assignment as the course unfolds. The article presents student voices from the journals to inform their discussion of their own reflections about the problems and promises of this assignment and demonstrates that teacher self-reflexivity requires acknowledging both successes and failures. This article helps us understand how reflexivity can be used to improve student engagement in general education courses, particularly those in which some students feel marginalized.

Engaging Social Science and Humanities Students in Community-Based Research on Nitrogen Oxide Pollution

“…However, during the pandemic in both Spring 2020 and 2021 the results were used as part of an environmental chemistry unit for a nonmajors course required for students in a B.A. program in urban education, where there was significant interest in being able to do the activity. , We anticipate reintroducing the activity itself in this setting and also in classes that meet in the summer when NOx levels can be particularly high.…”

Lorenzo’s Oil as a Vehicle for Teaching Chemistry Content, Processes of Science, and Sociology of Science in a General Education Chemistry Classroom

“…The other later assignment is a "big theme project" that students individually prepare during the course of the semester, including a culminating paper and presentation. 38 Many students write about health issues, often working from the organizing theme of the Chemistry and Life unit, which deals in part with the chemistry of nutrition. But some students use their big theme project to explore a disease related to a metabolic disease.…”

Gender Gaps in Collegiate Teaching Style: Variations by Course Characteristics

“…This perspective challenges all faculty to examine their teaching practices to help students personally identify with the material, an idea with a long history in feminist teaching (e.g., Maher and Tetrault 1994). By encouraging reflexivity and personal connection to the material, feminist scholars argue faculty will aid in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral connections that are necessary for students to become deeply engaged in the learning process (Champeau and Shaw 2004;Crawley et al 2008a;Wink et al 2008). Consequently, diminishing gender differences in teaching style would accompany greater instructional effectiveness (i.e., greater student learning) in contexts where faculty members of both genders were better attuned to power issues and positionality.…”