This study explores the role of unconventional forms of classroom assessments in expanding minoritized students' opportunities to learn (OTL) in high school physics classrooms. In this research + ...practice partnership project, high school physics teachers and researchers co‐designed a unit about momentum to expand minoritized students' meaningful OTL. Specifically, the unit was designed to (a) expand what it means to learn and be good at science using unconventional forms of assessment, (b) facilitate students to leverage everyday experiences, concerns, and home languages to do science, and (c) support teachers to facilitate meaningful dialogical interactions. The analysis focused on examining minoritized students' OTLs mediated by intentionally designed, curriculum‐embedded, unconventional forms of assessments. The participants were a total of 76 students in 11th or 12th grade. Data were gathered in the form of student assessment tasks, a science identity survey, and interviews. Data analysis entailed: (a) statistical analysis of student performance measured by conventional and unconventional assessments and (b) qualitative analysis of two Latinx students' experiences with the co‐designed curriculum and assessments. The findings suggest that the use of unconventional forms of curriculum‐embedded assessment can increase minoritized students' OTL if the assessment facilitates minoritized students to personally and deeply relate themselves to academic tasks.
Abstract In teacher professional development (PD), grouping teachers with varying levels of experience can be a productive and empowering way to stimulate the exchange and co‐generation of content ...and pedagogical knowledge. However, less experienced teachers can face socio‐emotional risks when engaging in collaborative science content reasoning tasks with more experienced colleagues, and these risks may impact the collaborative experience of both parties and the learning environment in teacher PD. This exploratory case study examines the process of productively navigating socio‐emotional risks and interpersonal tensions encountered by a veteran and pre‐service physics teacher during one episode of discussing physics content. We use a single term, comfort‐building , to encapsulate discursive moves that result in increased feelings of comfort and safety by the participants. Comfort‐building includes moves that serve to mitigate social risk, ease tension, and avoid discomfort, as well as those geared toward finding common ground and co‐navigating challenges. These moves can carve out conversational space for teachers to more confidently face risks associated with being accountable to the physics content knowledge and engage in discipline‐based conversations more deeply. The presented case was followed by video‐stimulated individual interviews to determine how consciously the teachers connected their participation to explicit risk and comfort. This case study highlights an affective dimension for consideration in the continued study and facilitation of science teacher PD, especially programs that bring together teachers with a variety of backgrounds and skill sets.
Purpose
This paper aims to report findings for the following question, “What is the nature of high school students’ identity exploration as a result of exploring the role-possible selves of an ...environmental scientist and urban planner in a play-based course?” Projective reflection (PR) is served as a theoretical and methodological framework for facilitating learning as identity exploration in play-based environments.
Design/methodology/approach
From 2016-2017, 54 high school freshmen students engaged in virtual city planning, an iteratively refined course that provided systematic and personally relevant opportunities for play, curricular, reflection and discussion activities in Philadelphia Land Science, a virtual learning environment (VLE) and in an associated curriculum enacted in a science museum classroom. Participants’ identity exploration was anchored in targeted role-possible selves in science, technology, engineering and mathematics: environmental science and urban planning through in-game and in-class activities. This role-playing was made intentional by scaffolding students’ reflection on what they wanted to be in the future while thinking of their current selves and exploring novel role-possible selves.
Findings
In-game logged data and in-class student data were examined using quantitative ethnography (QE) techniques such as epistemic network analysis. Whole-group statistical significance and an illustrative case study revealed visual and interpretive patterns of change in students’ identity exploration. The change was reflected in their knowledge, interest and valuing, self-organization and self-control and self-perception and self-definition (KIVSSSS) in relation to the roles explored from the start of the intervention (starting self), during (exploring role-possible selves) and the end (new self). The paper concludes with directions to advance research on leveraging role-playing as a mechanism for fostering identity exploration in play-based digital and non-digital environments.
Originality/value
This paper leveraged VLEs such as games as forms of play-based environments that can present players with opportunities for self-transformation (Foster, 2014) and enculturation (Gee 2003; Shaffer, 2006) to support learner agency and participation in a constantly changing society (Thomas and Brown 2011). The authors introduce and apply novel theoretical and methodological approaches to the design and assessment of play-based environments and address pertinent gaps in the emergent area of learning and identity in VLEs
In this mixed-methods study, the students’ perceived STEM career identity was tracked quantitatively and qualitatively to investigate the extent to which a one-week summer camp has influenced their ...individual and social perceptions. Perceived STEM career identity was presented as a conceptual framework and model which categorized changes in one’s STEM career identity as individual and social perceptions. This model was a result of an extant literature review and was used for guiding data analysis. Projective Reflection (PR) theory of identity exploration was used as a theoretical and methodological framework to capture changes in students’ perceptions in the beginning (starting self), in the middle (exploring role possible selves), and at the end (new self) of the summer camp. In this dissertation work, which was part of a bigger study, eighteen students’ STEM career identity changes were investigated through multiple data collection methods. Embedded concurrent mixed methods design was used for data analysis and presenting the results. The summer camp, which was a form of informal learning environment, was designed with a NASA space-themed curriculum to motivate students in STEM careers. These students were from a non-profit school located in the Northeastern part of the United States, in an area populated with African Americans and families with low socioeconomic background. There were 11 male and 7 female students in the camp where they were put into three groups of astrobiology, astrophysics, and astroengineering. The results of this study showed that students’ interest/motivation was significantly increased as a result of exposure to summer camp activities based on quantitative results. Qualitative results not only showed the same trend but also specified that students started with objective-based interest and career-based interest based on their initial understanding of the STEM careers. Over time their interest became deeper, which was translated into motivation. The students’ self-efficacy was also increased both in qualitative and quantitative analysis to a point where the students could specifically talk about their interests in STEM or lack of interest in them and what they want to pursue in the future. Finally, the students’ social perceptions, which were comprised of role models and social support showed to be less susceptible to change comparing to individual perceptions (e.g., interest/motivation and self-efficacy). This last finding was also supported in both qualitative and quantitative results.
This research project applied Projective Reflection (PR) as a theoretical and methodological framework to facilitate learning as identity exploration. PR was used to iteratively design and implement ...three versions of Virtual City Planning, an augmenting virtual learning environment (AVLE) course in a science museum classroom to support high school students' exploration of role-possible selves in STEM. In-game and in-class, student data were examined using Quantitative Ethnography (QE) to interpret unique trajectories of student identity exploration. This article reports two cases which supports integrated shifts in students' knowledge, interest and valuing, self-organization and self-control, and self-perceptions and self-definitions in the first iteration of the 9-week AVLE course. The article concludes with future directions to advance research on learning and identity in VLEs.
In teacher professional development (PD), grouping teachers with varying levels of experience can be a productive and empowering way to stimulate the exchange and co-generation of content and ...pedagogical knowledge. However, less experienced teachers can face socio-emotional risks when engaging in collaborative science content reasoning tasks with more experienced colleagues (Finkelstein, Jaber, & Dini, 2018), and these risks may impact the collaborative experience of both parties and the learning environment in teacher PD. This descriptive case study examines the process of productively navigating socio-emotional risks and interpersonal tensions encountered by a veteran and pre-service physics teacher during one episode of discussing physics content. We use a single term, comfort-building, to encapsulate discursive moves that result in increased feelings of comfort and safety by the participants. Comfort-building includes moves that serve to mitigate social risk, ease tension, and avoid discomfort, as well as those geared toward finding common ground and co-navigating challenges. These moves can carve out conversational space for teachers to more confidently face risks associated with being accountable to the physics content knowledge and engage in discipline-based conversations more deeply. The presented episode in this study was followed by video-stimulated individual interviews to determine how consciously the teachers connected their participation to explicit risk and comfort. This case study highlights an affective dimension for consideration in the continued study and facilitation of science teaching communities of practice, especially ones that bring together teachers with a variety of backgrounds and skill sets.
Providing high-quality professional development for teachers with diverse backgrounds and classroom experience is a challenging task. In this work, we investigate the Illinois Physics and Secondary ...Schools (IPaSS) partnership program, which provides instructional resources and a network of support for high school physics teachers through a partnership with the University of Illinois. IPaSS aims to address disparities in physics instruction by equipping teachers with university physics curricula and equipment adapted to fit the context of their high school classrooms. IPaSS' professional development design and facilitation draw inspiration from the Communities of Practice (CoP) model with a responsive facilitative approach in the design and enactment of professional development. Using interviews and surveys from 14 physics teachers, we studied the extent to which the program has responded to teachers' diverse needs while supporting their participation in physics teaching CoP. The results revealed that this model of responsive professional development -- conceptualized as being attentive and adaptive to teachers' needs -- has created very positive perceptions of the program for the teachers involved and fostered pedagogical and instructional support, professional growth opportunities, and social or personal benefits of community involvement for them. The results also demonstrated that mutual peer support has gone beyond the dynamics of the Communities of Practice framework, not only from more to less experienced but also in the reverse direction. In addition, the case study of the program revealed that taking a responsive approach can potentially facilitate teachers' transitions from being peripheral members to becoming active participants in the community.
