The elementary science teacher educators in this article set recognize the challenges that new science teachers face when they enter classrooms. They have developed frameworks and strategies aimed at helping the preservice teachers with whom they work become "well-started beginners" who are ready to address problems of science teaching. To do so,…

New views of proficiency in K-8 science that highlight the importance of engaging children in the discourses and practices of science have raised the stakes for elementary teachers and the teacher educators who prepare them. In this paper, a framework for teaching science as argument is presented. The framework is advanced as a means of addressing…

Preservice elementary teachers face many challenges in learning how to teach science effectively, such as engaging students in science, organizing instruction, and developing a productive learning community. This paper reports on several iterative cycles of design-based research aimed at fostering preservice teachers' principled reasoning around…

We use a 10-year program of research centered on iterations of one elementary science methods course as a vehicle for exploring three important and interrelated goals for the learning of beginning elementary teachers. These include learning about inquiry-oriented science teaching, using science curriculum materials effectively, and anticipating…

One hundred years after its conception, the scientific method continues to reinforce a kind of cultural lore about what it means to participate in inquiry. As commonly implemented in venues ranging from middle school classrooms to undergraduate laboratories, it emphasizes the testing of predictions rather than ideas, focuses learners on material…

Science teachers must adapt curriculum materials, so preservice teachers must develop beginning proficiency with this authentic task of teaching. What criteria do they use when they critique these materials in preparation for adapting them, when they develop the criteria themselves and when they are given a set of criteria from which to choose?…