WHAT SHO=
ULD
THE CRITERIA BE FOR STUDENTS BEING ACCEPTED INTO SCIENCE EDUCATION DOCTORAL
PROGRAMS?
Paul Jablon, Lesley University
Abstract
Must teachers entering doctoral programs have extensive, highly effective, inqui= ry teaching experience and demonstrated leadership skills, in addition to other more traditional entrance requirements? A study by the author of doctoral science education programs and of education departments across the country = who employ them appears to demonstrate a disconnect between the skills desired = by the employers and those attained in a number of the doctoral programs. This paper suggests that some of the reasons this occurs is because doctoral students are accepted into their programs without the requisite skills and understandings that can only be acquired from long-term, effective inquiry science teaching and leadership experience in particular socio-economic settings.
Introduction
At the core of the science pipeline leading to both scientists and engineers f= or the future and a scientifically literate general population are the univers= ity faculty with science education doctorates. These people create training programs for science teachers, lead school district science teaching reform= s, and conduct and lead research about effective practice in science education. They work at colleges and universities, in school districts in science leadership positions, and as administrators and educational directors in informal science institutions. Hence, these doctoral programs are essential= ly the linchpin in our country’s science and engineering future.
Given the multiplicity of the tasks that graduates of these programs are expected= to do, these graduates need to be equipped with both a breadth and depth of sk= ills and understandings in order to be successful in their future positions.
This raise= s two questions to those involved in doctoral science education programs:
1. = Do the doctoral programs provide both coursework and external experiences to equip students with these skills and understandings= ?
2. = Are there some skills and understandings about teac= hing and learning science that can only be learned by having engaged in long-term first hand teaching experience BEFORE having entered the program? Furthermo= re, are there some inherent personality traits that candidates need to have demonstrated that support effective science education leadership that canno= t be learned, but rather cultivated?
It is this second question that this paper will address.
Some things we know about the job requirements of sci=
ence
education doctoral program graduates
The most recent study of science education doctoral programs (Jablon, 2003) consisted of two parts, one that studied the actual 64 science education doctoral programs, and a second part that received surveys from 242 schools= of education at colleges across the country about the qualifications that they expected for science education faculty that they would hire and if they were finding qualified candidates.
Whether graduates of the programs were going to teach in an education department at= a college or university, teach in a science department at a community college= or four year undergraduate college, run a large district science program, or w= ork in informal science institutions, all would be expected to run staff develo= pment programs that demonstrate and engage science teachers in effective inquiry-based and STS science methodology. Even those who would be solely researchers, a rare few in this day and age, need to understand the complex mechanisms of inquiry and STS science teaching and learning contextualized within even more co= mplex systems that make up the schools and institutions which it occurs.
An underlying premise about this professional development whether it be methods courses at a college, or in-service work in a school district or with scien= ce faculty at a college is that the goal is to change the way that the majorit= y of science is to be taught moving faculty to engage students at every level in= an inquiry, STS, less is more approach to teaching and learning (Loucks-Horsle= y, et al., 1998). The goal is not to maintain the status quo of once a week cookbook labs along with a majority of lecture or discussion, but rather engaging students in all aspects of inquiry, doing science daily and then applying those concepts and skills= to social and technological decision-m= aking.
There are = two inherent parts of this process. The first is being able to demonstrate this type of teaching and learning situated within the institutional setting. The second is to understand and implement the effective mechanisms that allow t= his systemic change to occur, and to h= ave the leadership and inspirational abilities to undertake such endeavors.
Some
suggested qualifications for candidates entering science education doctoral
programs given these job requirements upon graduation.
As mention= ed earlier, this section assumes that there are many skills and understandings that can be learned while enrolled in the programs either through coursewor= k or field experience. This section will address those that either take extended time to acquire or are inherent to the candidate’s personality and are needed before entering the prog= ram. The following section will be divided into two parts. The first section lis= ts those qualities and experiences that are necessary for all candidates entering programs. The second section lists addition= al characteristics or experiences that make for an ideal candidate.
Suggested qualities and experiences necessary for all candidates
3.&n= bsp; Some demonstration of leadership and innovation wit= hin their institutions.
4.&n= bsp; A grounding in the natural sciences.
5.&n= bsp; An innate intelligence that allows them to deal with complex systems.
Suggested additional qualities and experiences for ideal candidates
6.&n= bsp; Effective classroom practice in urban or rural scho= ol teaching.
A discussi= on of each of the above:
1. True inquiry-based and STS science teaching experience at the expert level.
This is th= e one most important factor that should be considered for entrance. It entails a = set of skills and understandings that can be honed even further once in the program, but must be mastered before entrance. If graduates are to lead eff= orts to engage others in effective inquiry and STS teaching and learning strateg= ies, then they must first have mastered these skills themselves. Much of the literature about expertise in teaching suggests that this occurs with a min= imum of 8-10 years of reflective experience and that most teachers do not achieve this level even then (Wade, 1996; Berliner, 1986; Carlsen, 1999). In science this is further complicated in that a vast majority of secondary and college teachers are still doing cookbook labs once a week instead of the daily manipulation of materials mi= xed with discussion of student generated data from student designed investigati= ons and then comparing these with what the larger scientific community understa= nds. Applicants would at least arrive with a novice understanding of the multiple aspects of science including the large overarching concepts, the nature of = the scientific enterprise, science process skills and habits of mind. Therefore, applications should = not only ask for numbers of years of teaching experience, but student work samp= les and unit plans that demonstrate an = expert level of mastery.
This prese= ntly is not the case in most doctoral programs. Twenty one percent of the students = in doctoral programs had no teaching experience. The deans and department chai= rs answering the qualifications su= rvey expected the science educators to have K-12 teaching experience. On the oth= er hand, only 46% of the doctoral programs required any prerequisite teaching experience. A few of the other 54% that didn’t require any said that = it was informal policy to require it. None of this speaks to the quality of the teaching experience. Basically, those deans and department chairs seeking new science education faculty could only be assured that less than 50% of their faculty candidates with doctoral degrees in science education had any classroom teaching exper= ience and the programs that granted them their degrees had little or no knowledge= of the quality or approaches practiced in that teaching. It is unbelievable that programs that grant degrees to science teacher educators would not have as their primary criterion for admission that candidates be the science teachers with the most exempla= ry practice available.
2. Demonstrated effective
practice that engaged the previously
disengaged students.
This is si= mply a matter of graduates having a realit= y base for those teachers and school administrators with whom they will work who themselves are not being successful with the students that they are teachin= g. Before these individuals will truly engage in a workshop or class, allow you into their classrooms, or partner with you and your college or university i= n a science school change project they want to see your personal credentials of having successfully engaged students that are similar to their disengaged students.
3. Some demonstration of
leadership and innovation within their institutions.
These are personality traits that cannot be taught; they can be cultivated. If we are= to be successful as a profession in reforming science education practices at a= ll levels of schooling, then we need leaders who have demonstrated being risk takers. These individuals sho= uld have a broader scope of possibilities, a less limited vision of innovation,= and should have already begun instituting some of this in their own classrooms = and have begun to inspire others around them to join in this quest for better a= nd more effective practice (Washor and Mojkowski, 2006). Creating innovative organization requires innovators with demonstrated experience.
4. A grounding in the na=
tural
sciences.
This will = vary for those who are coming from college, secondary and elementary teaching. It wi= ll need to be determined what level needs to be accomplished before entrance, = and what can be remediated while in the program.
5. An innate intelligenc=
e that
allows them to deal with complex systems.
Schools ar= e complex systems and the skills and understandings that need to be employed to both envision and facilitate the method to change them requires a high level of systems thinking abilities. Some of this can be taught, but much of it is innate to the individual and has usually been demonstrated by an individual’s involvement in some school change endeavor or some volun= teer work in some external social justice organization. (Hall and Hord, 1987)
6. Effective classroom p=
ractice
in urban or rural school teaching.
Of these 1= 51 graduates in 1999, 44 % had experience teaching in suburban schools, 21 % h= ad experience teaching in rural schools, 28 % had experience teaching in small urban areas, and 7 % had experience teaching in large urban inner city areas (as defined by NSF as eligible cities for the Urban Systemic Initiatives gr= ant monies).
In both th= e survey of doctoral program heads and in the qualifications survey, it was clear that many of the graduates of the programs did not have enough teaching experience, particularly extended years of successful inqui= ry science teaching, and therefore did not have the credibility with practicing teachers either in graduate classes or in school change projects. An additi= onal dimension was added in inner city urban areas where virtually all those surveyed requested candidates who h= ad extended success in teaching science in the social milieu of these inner ci= ty areas.
The inner = city colleges have left science education lines unfilled for years for lack of qualified candidates, and filled positions with candidates they still consi= der under-prepared for the responsibilities of a science education faculty in an inner city college. “In New York City alone, one of 25 cities, in 1996 there were six tenure track science education college positions open, eleven district science coordinator positions, and two informal science institution science education director positions available. A majority of these positio= ns were not filled, and any that were filled were filled with either temporary= faculty or under-prepared faculty”.
This picture becomes even more dreary when one takes into account the comments from many of the urban deans and department heads on t= he qualifications survey that in most= of their institutions there is either one or no full-time science educator (th= ey couldn’t find one with qualifications) and that between 70 and 88% of their science education sections are being taught by adjunct faculty.
In a simil= ar, but not as pressing manner, a majority of programs in rural universities felt t= hey did not have adequate faculty to meet their responsibilities. Although the populations in close proximity to the universities are small, rural universities service a much larger geographic area than urban or suburban universities and both the number and geographic distance of the school districts they work with adds to the enormity of their task.
7. Demonstrated practice=
using
STS and interdisciplinary approaches to science to create new portals of entry to science for students.
Some of th= e most successful methods of engaging previously disengaged students in doing and understanding science deeply has been through interdisciplinary and community-based project approaches. This extends STS teaching into taking action in the community and to including other subject area teachers in the= se projects. It takes an additional expertise to connect in a meaningful way w= ith other disciplines, in a way that is simultaneously meaningful to students, = and to have the skills to set up effective community based projects. Much of the skills in this complex matrix are learned through many years of reflective practice in the schools and their associated communities (Jablon and Born, 1993).
So why are we not getting candidates with these areas =
of
expertise?
Is this just a matter of
economics?
Extended r= esponses from doctoral program heads sheds some light onto this situation. Almost all felt that the number of high caliber applicants has become less over the pa= st 15 years. It was suggested that it is simply a matter of economics. Almost everyone cited the lack of high paying scholarships and assistantships, eit= her from NSF or from their home institutions. Either there are no stipends or t= hey are too low to attract higher paid public school teachers. Without these th= ere certainly cannot be full-time students, and many middle-age teachers with children in school cannot even afford to pay university tuition for part-ti= me study. Most school district-based staff upon receiving a doctorate would not only have this graduate school debt to pay back, but for those who had taug= ht for more than 10 years would need to take a substantial pay cut to go to a university as an assistant professor. Unlike medical schools and law school= s, universities don’t pay beginning assistant professors in education substantially more because of their successful pre-college teaching.
Although a= few assistantships become available if some faculty in a doctoral program have a multi-million dollar grant, these are limited and sporadic. There is not an ongoing community of research supported in science education by the National Science Foundation as there is in Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Geology and Engineering. These ongoing research communities are funded not only for the faculty member’s research, but also for a substantial number of full-= time doctoral students to assist in the research. It is ironic that there are probably more jobs presently available for qualified science education doct= oral graduates than in the other fields, yet there is substantially less money b= eing spent on supporting doctoral students in science education. It is even more ironic that some fields such as engineering and physics are seeking more undergraduate majors, yet the science teacher educators who could create be= tter elementary and secondary science teachers, and subsequently more college science and engineering majors, are not supported in their doctoral studies. There was a general belief among program heads that responded in the extend= ed response sections that NSF doesn’t have respect for the science educa= tion research community and that until there are more science educators in charg= e of policy decisions at NSF, this inequity in funding for research and assistantships will not change.
But is it only economics?
Nowhere in= the survey did any doctoral program head speak to a need for change in qualifications = for those entering their programs. All spoke to the issue of adequate GRE score= s, and adequate undergraduate GPAs, and a few for the need of some teaching experience, but none spoke to the creation of standards about demonstrated extensive, effective, inquiry teaching, or about demonstrated leadership ability within their schools and local or state science teacher organizatio= ns.
But there = is an even greater issue than a desire to have candidates with these qualities. T= here are simply very few teachers at the secondary or university level who truly engage in inquiry teaching at all, no less who have the other six additional qualities and experiences desired. In 1998, this author, in conjunction wit= h a doctoral student, surveyed forty-eight school districts in eastern Massachusetts for high school teachers who did any inquiry science teaching= and received a response about only two teachers. Although there were likely more who were never identified by their supervisors, given that Massachusetts is generally rated fairly high in science performance this does not bode well = for inquiry science teaching at the secondary level.
However, if science education doctoral programs don’t modify their criteria for e= ntry into their programs, actively seek out those effective inquiry practitioners that are there, and then find financial support to see them through these doctoral programs there will likely not be much movement in science educati= on reform in both the near and distant future.
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