Learning to teach physics through inquiry: The lived experience of a graduate teaching assistant

This investigation examines the difficulties encountered by one graduate teaching assistant as she taught Physics for Elementary Education, a large-enrollment, inquiry-based science course taught at a public Midwestern university. The methodological approach of hermeneutic phenomenology served as the lens to investigate the research question, ''What is the lived experience of a graduate teaching assistant as she learned to teach physics through inquiry to elementary education students?'' We summarize the findings in terms of the blending of two conceptual frameworks: orientations to science teaching and professional identity. We learned that fundamental beliefs about the nature of science support certain orientations, and if those beliefs remain unchallenged, then the orientation is unlikely to change. Finally, we discuss implications for strategies that may assist college-level instructors with changing their orientation to teaching science. 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 584-602, 2004 National policy documents in science education (e.g., Benchmarks for Science Literacy, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; National Science Education Standards, National Research Council, 1996) call for K-12 science instruction that is attentive to scientific inquiry. In response to this call for change, science teacher preparation programs have developed pedagogy courses that exemplify inquiry-based approaches (Bianchini & Colburn, 2000; Bryan & Abell, 1999; Hubbard & Abell, 2002), and to a lesser degree, university science departments have implemented science courses for elementary education majors that model inquiry (Abell, Smith, & Volkmann, in press; Southerland, Gess-Newsome, & Johnston, 2003; Volkmann & Eichinger, 1999). However, we do not know much about the difficulties college-level instructors face in teaching science through inquiry. This investigation examines the difficulties encountered by one graduate teaching assistant as she taught Physics for Elementary Education (PHYS 290), an inquiry-based science course at a

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