Science Education

Programs for preparing science teachers in the United States are numerous–numbering about 1,250. These programs vary considerably, though most require a major in one discipline of science and a strong supporting area. The professional sequence varies greatly with smaller programs unable to maintain a faculty with expertise in science education per se. The programs generally consist of half the credits in science, a quarter in education, and a quarter in liberal arts requirements. In the 1990s the quantity of preparation in science and in science education increased–often making it difficult to complete programs as part of a four-year bachelor's degree program. Fifth-year programs that include more time spent in schools with direct experience with students are becoming the norm.

Historical Background

Early in the 1800s science teachers typically had no formal preparation; often they were laypersons teaching such courses as navigation, surveying, and agriculture in the first high schools. By 1870, with the emergence of the first teacher training colleges, some science teachers completed formal study of science in colleges. Qualifications for specific teaching, however, varied considerably across the United States.

In the early 1890s Harvard University required completion of a high school course in physics for admission. This spurred the beginning of the science curriculum in American schools. Ten years later Harvard added chemistry to its requirements for admission. Many other colleges and universities followed suit. High school science classes became gatekeeper courses for college admission–a situation that turned out to be a continuing problem for science in schools and for the preparation of science teachers.

By the end of World War II, the place of science in school programs had attained universal acceptance. Teacher education programs were standardized to include science methods courses and student teaching after a year of introduction to education and educational psychology courses. School programs were to provide functional science experiences, that is, skills and knowledge that students could use. Faculty at preparatory institutions became the chief proponents for a useful science program for students.

Science education changed in the 1950s as leaders and the general public demanded improvements to match the Soviet successes in space. National spending for improving school science programs and the preparation of science teachers were made a priority in the National Science Foundation (NSF). Scientists were called to provide leadership in the reform of school programs and the development of better-prepared teachers.

In the 1970s these national efforts to improve school programs and teacher education, including the goals for science teaching, were reassessed. The public had become disillusioned with the expenditures for science teacher enhancement and curriculum development projects. The NSF Project Synthesis effort established four new goals: science for meeting personal needs, science for resolving current societal issues, science for assisting with career choices, and science for preparing for further study.

In this climate the NSF established a new program to influence science teacher education directly. Called the Undergraduate Pre-Service Science Teacher Education Program (UPSTEP), its premises included the following:

1. Effective preservice programs integrate science and education and often require five years.
2. Science faculties are important ingredients in program planning, teaching, and program administration.
3. The preparation of an effective science teacher involves more than providing a student with up-to-date content and some generalized teaching skills.
4. Effective programs involve master teachers, school and community leaders, and faculty members.
5. Teacher education can be evaluated and used to improve existing programs.
6. Effective programs should include advances in computer technology, educational psychology, philosophy, sociology, and history of science.

Current Structure and Organization

Most of the 1,250 institutions that prepare science teachers start with the assumption that an undergraduate major in one of the sciences is a must. Many teacher education programs merely require science courses (typically about one-half of a degree program) and increase the number of methods courses and associated practica (experiences in schools) prior to student teaching. Many institutions moved to a five-year program and/or the completion of a master's degree before licensure.

In the 1990s the U.S. Department of Education funded studies, known as Salish I and Salish II, to discern the condition of preservice teacher education programs in the United States. Salish I was a three-year study of programs and graduates from ten different universities across the United States. The study's major findings included the following:

1. During their initial years of teaching, most new science teachers use little of what teacher education programs promote.
2. Few teacher education programs are using what is known about science as envisioned by the National Science Education Standards.
3. The courses comprising teacher education programs are unrelated to each other.
4. There are few ties between preservice and inservice efforts.
5. Support for teacher education reforms has been largely unrecognized and underfunded.

Salish II involved fifteen new universities, which agreed to alter some aspects of their teacher education programs and to use research instruments from Salish I to determine the effectiveness of the changes. Major findings from Salish II were as follows:

1. Significant changes in teacher education majors can be made during a single year, when part of a collaborative research project.
2. There is strength in the diversity of institutions and faculty involved with science teacher education.
3. Science instruction at colleges must change if real improvement is to occur in schools.
4. Collaboration in terms of experimentation and interpretation of results is extremely powerful.

In-Service and Staff Development Programs

A persistent problem has been the lack of articulation between pre-and in-service science teacher education. NSF support for in-service teacher education from 1960 to 1975 focused on updating science preparation in an attempt to narrow the gap. In fact, NSF efforts often tended to deepen the problem. The NSF assumed that science teachers needed only more and better science backgrounds and the NSF model was simply one of giving teachers current science information, which they were to transmit directly to their students. What was needed was a set of intellectual tools with which teachers could evaluate the instruction they provided.

According to David Holdzkom and Pamela B. Lutz, authors of the 1984 book Research within Reach: Science Education, effective science teachers must have a broader view of science and of education. They need to be in tune with the basic goals of science education in K–12 settings and be prepared to deal with all students in efforts to meet such objectives. H. Harty and Larry G. Enochs, in a 1985 article in the journal School Science and Mathematics, offered an excellent analysis of the form in-service programs should take, contending that such programs should:

• Have a well-defined, organized, and responsible governing mechanism
• Involve teachers in needs-assessment, planning, designing, and implementing processes
• Provide diverse, flexible offerings that address current concerns of the practitioner and that can be used readily in the classroom
• Include an evaluation plan of the individual components of the program and their effect in the classroom.

The content versus process debate continues and is counterproductive at best. Science cannot be characterized by either content (products produced by scientists) or process (behaviors that bring scientists to new understandings). Effective teacher education programs cannot be developed if science preparation focuses on content mastery and the education component focuses on process. Teachers must learn to use both the skills and processes of science to develop new knowledge of both science and teaching. They need to use the research concerning learning, such as the National Research Council's 1999 book How People Learn.

In the late 1990s NSF initiated new programs designed to improve in-service teachers–and later preservice teachers as well. These systemic projects were funded at approximately $10 million each in about twenty-five states. Later urban, rural, and local systemic projects were conceptualized and funded. Teacher education programs involving several college/university situations were also funded to relate in-service efforts directly to the preparatory programs. These collaborations often tied institutions together in order to share expertise, faculty, and program features.

Major Trends, Issues, and Controversies

Major trends in science teacher education include:

• Extending the pedagogical facet of the program over two calendar years with extensive school practica provided as places to try new ideas
• Replacing four-year bachelor's programs with five-year master of arts in education programs
• Using the National Science Education Standards for visions of goals for all students, effective teaching strategies, content and curricula features, assessment strategies, and staff development
• The extensive collaborating of all stakeholders (administrators, parents, community leaders, and all teachers across the curriculum) for reform efforts
• Broadening the view of science to include the human-made world (technology) as well as natural science, science for meeting present and societal challenges, a focus on inquiry as content and skills that characterize science, and the history/philosophy/sociology of science.

Some of the major unresolved controversies include:

• Limiting the number of institutions preparing science teachers
• Teaching teachers, over a five-year program, in the same manner that they should teach
• Using the four goals for school science to prepare teachers to internalize the National Science Education Standards, including experiencing science as: an investigation of natural phenomena, a means for making sound personal decisions, an aid in public discussion and debate of current issues, and a means of increasing economic productivity.

Optimism for even greater successes with meeting the goal of scientific literacy for all is a central focus for science teacher education. Certainly the new Centers for Learning and Teaching that NSF began funding in 2000 are designed to help. By definition they combine preservice and in-service science education–making the two seamlessly connected. They require a common research base while also assuring that a major effort of the center will be to extend that research base. They must design and implement new doctorate programs to prepare future leaders. The history of science education is replete with identification of current problems, new ideas for their resolution, major national funding (since 1960), and then almost immediate abandonment after initial trials are not successful. The current challenge facing science teacher education is whether there is adequate national commitment, determination, and know-how to realize the visions elaborated in current reform documents.