In this study, we explore how preservice secondary science teachers articulated their agency and structural awareness within racist-nativist policy and schooling environments that limit emergent bilingual students' opportunities to learn science. Our praxis-oriented analysis led us to characterize novice teacher participants' discursive…

Engaging children in argumentation-focused discussions is essential to helping them collaboratively make sense of scientific phenomena. To support this effort, teachers must listen and be responsive to students' ideas to move the discussion forward with the goal of reaching consensus. Given the complexity of this ambitious science teaching…

Definitions of modeling competence in science education do not yet include noncognitive factors. However, noncognitive factors are central to competence and might thus substantially improve our understanding of modeling competence. In this article, we analyze volition during preservice science teachers' engagement with a black-box modeling task…

Evolution understanding is often positively connected with magnitudes of evolution acceptance, whereas religiosity mostly interferes negatively. However, comparisons between studies and countries must be treated cautiously due to the diversity of used instruments and samples. This study aims to generate new evidence concerning the interplay of…

Lesson planning is a core part of teachers' professional competence. Written lesson plans play a significant role in science teacher education as a preparation for demonstration lessons during the final teacher certification exam. However, the few existing scoring rubrics on lesson plans are not particularly theoretically sound and are barely…

As part of learning to teach, teachers must learn to use a range of teaching practices. In this longitudinal study the authors explore how novice elementary teachers learn to engage in a set of high-leverage science teaching practices, such as "leading a science sensemaking discussion" and "setting up and managing small-group…

The increasing attention in science education reform documents to language and literacy, coupled with the growing linguistic diversity of United States classrooms, means that science teacher educators and researchers are facing an important task of preparing secondary science preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach a language- and literacy-integrated…

Engaging students in scientific argumentation is a hallmark of high-quality science instruction. Despite the importance of this practice, it is not a ubiquitous one within K-12 classrooms since scientific argumentation is complex and difficult to learn how to do well. In this study, we examined similarities and differences in how preservice…

Students possess alternative conceptions of many science topics, and these conceptions can act as obstacles for learning scientific concepts. In the field of biology education, students' alternative conceptions of evolution have been widely investigated. However, there is little research on how teachers diagnose and deal with these alternative…

Science teaching anxiety is negative emotion that inhibits a teacher's ability to start, proceed, or finish a science teaching task. Despite its detrimental effects on teachers' science teaching quality and practices, there is limited research on science teaching anxiety. To advance research in this area, there is a need for a psychometrically…

Nature field trips stand out as pedagogical experiences because of their benefits in science learning, even in early childhood education (ECE). However, previous studies have found that teachers often do not make use of their full educational potential. The present research offers a descriptive exploration of ECE prospective teachers' enactment of…

Several variables associated with motivation toward science learning in preservice elementary teachers, such as relevance to personal goals and self-efficacy, are important factors in preservice preparation. The main objective is to analyze the relationships of these motivational variables with the emotions of boredom and enjoyment, and with…

For some time, scholars who are guided by critical theories and perspectives have called out how white supremacist ideologies and systemic racism work to (re)produce societal inequities and educational injustices across science learning contexts in the United States. Given the sociopolitical nature of society, schooling, and science education, it…

These narratives explore what it might entail to begin school-university partnerships towards the goal of transformative social changes through the voices of two women scholars of color. Using two school-university partnerships as focal cases, we unpack the complexity, tensions, and possibilities that arise through collaborations driven by the…

Agency has been used as a lens to focus on how educators learn through pedagogical risk-taking, advocacy for curricular reform, and resisting policies that are not focused on the needs of students. We explored the role of agency as 65 preservice science teachers created learning opportunities for themselves during their clinical placements.…