ILETES: Informal Learning Environments and Teacher Educaon for STEM Early Career Research Award AISL#1254075 Jennifer D. Adams, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

OVERVIEW This Early CAREER project is an integrated research and educaon project that OVERARCHING THEMES focuses on formal/informal collaboraons and acvies for STEM teacher educaon. This poster presents a) quantave survey findings based on inial • Teachers appropriated different aspects of informal science learning and theorecal framework and b) emerging qualitave findings of 1.5 years of an enacted them in their teaching in ways that they saw best met their ongoing dialogue between a group of new teachers who engaged in dialogues and • Aims for “learning to be students’ needs as learners and resonated with their idenes as shared teaching arfacts in relaon to classroom science teaching and learning • Informal science learning spontaneous…[for] students to find that the educators. and informal science learning and expanded framework on teacher learning and means creang a space where students could engage in work is interesng and • The definions of F, IF, and NF, as they play out in the lives of teachers identy. The central quesons that guide the laer are 1) how do teachers define science learning in different want to learn more… ways and at their own pace iniate their own learning do not fall neatly into matrix of learner objecve and approach, but informal science educaon and 2) how do they enact their definions in their it is hard to accomplish in • Methodological; he carefully rather converge and overlap in salient ways. teaching pracce? First the definions of formal, informal, nonformal learning are thinks about what he wants to the classroom but it is what you should do… accomplish and plans revisited, then using a framework of identy, agency, and learning to teach [creang] lifelong • Teachers developed idenes and corresponding agencies that related accordingly how he will afford ORCHESTRATOR STRIVER learners.” teachers’ experiences were restoried into narraves that describe how teachers his students self-direcon and to how they defined, adapted, and used ISE resources in their defined and adapted informal science learning in their classrooms and used their choice within the constraints of • Strived to be “more an assessment-based informal” through hands classrooms. noons of ISE to create equitable learning experiences for their students. curriculum. on acvies and student choice. • Common themes across teachers were: PHASE 1 QUANTITATIVE DATA • Hands-on acvies 69 K-12 teachers who currently teach in a large urban and are alumni from two • Self-directed learning university-based formal/informal programs for teacher educaon. Forty-three • Field trips (62%) female and 26 (38%) male; ages span 6 decades with 60% 21 and 35 y.o.; • Problem-based learning 83% (n=57) have post graduate degrees varied content areas. Instruments The WORKFORCE self-administered quesonnaire used for the analyses was the Informal Learning • Views science as a way of ADVOCATE • ISE as a way to get technical • Advocacy for meaningful science expanding their experiences; DEVELOPER experience in an vocaonal- Environment Survey, v.1 (Adams, O’Connor-Petruso & Miele, 2015). This survey adding enrichment to the oriented school; focused on • ISE as a way of expanding students’ experiences with instrument was pilot tested and has a strong Cronbach's alpha reliability standardized subjects. workforce development science coefficient of .955. The survey consists of 60 quesons and is divided into five • Advocates for meaningful • Described hands-on acvies in learning; resists administrave relaon to work-related skills • Novelty and creavity in teaching enactments parts: Part I) Demographics, Part II) Programs, Part III) Frequencies (which constraints • “Informal” also related to the • However, the degree to which teachers enacted these aspects and the measure the teacher’s “behaviors and pracces”), Part IV) Atude (which • Meaningful learning equals spontaneous and unexpected hands on acvies and field trips learning experiences in the learning experiences created based on these noons presented very measure the “teacher’s percepons of courses that were beneficial and classroom movang”), Part V) Teacher Identy (which again measures the teacher’s differently depending on the “kind” of teacher—the role that the “beliefs”), Part V) Movaon, and Part VI) Open-Ended Queson. Procedure: All teachers viewed themselves in relaon to their students. parcipants were asked to take the online survey located at hp:// globalskillsstudies.org. Data were collected over a five-week period. Analysis The research data were analyzed using IBM's PASW (Predicve Analycs Soware), v. 22. Descripve stascs and correlaons were run to ascertain frequencies and Figure 1: “Archetypes” of ISL Teacher Idenes. Not meant to essenalize but to describe the different ways teachers present themselves in SUMMARY linkages. Results are reported as well as paerns among teacher identy relaon to ISL in the classroom. • In order to help all learners achieve science literacy, it is important to variables. teach teachers how to create equitable learning environments in their Quantave Results: Paerns in the survey responses indicate that ILE educated Phase 2: ILETES Teacher meeng: Collaborave Teacher Inquiry around Informal Science Learning and Science classroom and how to appropriate resources beyond the classroom for science learning. teachers a)have posive percepons of students as learners, b) are oriented Teaching in Urban Classrooms towards “construcvist” teaching and experiences that afford equitable science- • Teachers will adapt ISE resources according to the choices they make as A group of 10 new teachers were recruited to meet bi-for about 1.5 hours each over the course of 1.5 academic years. They shared learning, c) seek out-of-classroom learning experiences for students and, d) have teachers, their own experiences with teaching and the role in which arfacts of their teaching (student work, lesson plans, ideas, pictures and digital video recordings of their teaching enactments) for group hands-on oriented classrooms. they find themselves vis-à-vis their students. analysis and discussion. Meengs were also digitally recorded for later analysis. Two methodologies were used to inform the data Significant linkages (ranging from small to large) adhering to Cohen’s Coefficient • Teachers “voiced” their pedagogy in different, yet meaningful ways that analysis: narrave analysis and grounded theory (Charmaz, 2005; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The analysis of narraves (Polkinghorne, 1995) of Determinaon Guidelines (1988) were found between the teacher’s ILE were different from established descripons of informal science informed the trajectories of teacher identy-development including how they negoate the different contexts and instuons in which experiences and their instruconal pracces as measured by. Alumni from both learning. programs have implemented the resources they gained from their ILE experiences they learn to teach and ulmately do teach. The process of restorying, i.e. “reorganizing the narraves into some general type of into current curricula, including lesson planning and replicaon of ILE field trips framework” (Creswell 2007, p. 56) was used to determine how teacher identy develops across learning-to-teach contexts with a IMPLICATIONS for their students as well turn-keyed their experse of ILE project-based parcular aenon to the role of the informal science learning experiences in their teaching pracce. assessments to their students who now produce their own ILE project-based • It is necessary to begin to think differently about the relaonship assessments. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK between informal science learning and teacher identy; moving from

Significant linkages were found between the teacher’s atude towards their ILE Teacher agency and identy in relaon to self, place, pracce. teaching teachers to use resources towards thinking about how the help experiences and their philosophical and instruconal behavior as measured by a A framework that describes identy, agency, and learning to teach is salient for understanding the relaonship between informal science teachers appropriate and adapt resources to meet students’ needs thus Likert Scale: Agree/Disagree. Alumni from both programs strongly advocate ILE learning and classroom teacher identy. Through the process of learning to teach, a teacher develops identy in relaon to both the creang more opportunies for equitable science learning and experiences for their students for several reasons: both their content knowledge learning contexts and interacons with others in these contexts. Teachers enter professional learning with noons of what it means to • Thinking more about the meanings that teachers make of parcular and the content knowledge of their students increased as a direct result of these teach and be a teacher and shape these noons based on the contexts in which the they learn to teach and enact teaching and in relaon resources in relaon to their idenes and their self-perceived roles vis- experiences and implementaon of ILE resources into curriculum; teachers à-vis their students. believe that ESL/ELL’s (including special needs) will greatly benefit academically to others (students, colleagues, administrators, etc.) throughout a career. Through this process they develop agency in teaching; that is from these experiences. learning and knowing which resources to use, when, and why to teach these students. Defining teacher identy as “the ways in which a teacher represents herself through her views, orientaons, atudes, emoons, understandings, and knowledge and beliefs about science Selected References: Adams, J. D. & Gupta, P. (2015). Informal Science Instuons And Similarly as a direct result of their ILE experiences, alumni from both programs Learning To Teach: An Examinaon Of Identy, Agency And Affordances. Journal of have changed their instruconal methodology and now advocate the teaching and learning” (Avraamidou 2014, p. 826) allows us move beyond what is learned to focus more on the contexts in which the learner engages and allows us to ask quesons about who a teacher is and what does this means in terms of how she teaches Research in Science Teaching, DOI: 10.1002/tea.21270 Avraamidou, L. (2014). construcvist approach in addion to the inquiry approach for leaning science. Developing a reform-minded science teaching identy: The role of informal science Both groups also advocate the need for addional funding for ILE experiences. (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2011). In this sense, teacher identy is not an end product, but rather an ongoing process teaching and learning environments. Journal of Science Teacher Educaon, 25, 823-843. Charmaz, K. (2005). about self, others, resources, places, and pracces in different contexts, and who were are in relaon to others, “idenes are the part of Grounded theory in the 21st Century: Applicaons for advancing social jusce studies. In self that are defined by the different posions we hold in society” (Varelas 2012, p. 3). N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.) The Sage handbook of qualitave research 3rd edion. Formal, Informal and Nonformal learning definions: There are elements of F, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publicaons. Colley, H., Hodkinson, P., & Malcolm, J., (2002). IF, and NF (Mocker & Spear, 1982) in all learning contexts and when Identy and Agency Non-formal learning: Mapping the conceptual terrain. Consultaon Report, Leeds: aempng to make the disncon important to understand aspects and Agency is belief that the self is capable of effecve science teaching. This means making the right pedagogical decisions, adapng and University of Leeds Lifelong Learning Instute. Also available in the Informal Educaon interrelaonships of the learning approaches as situated in the contexts in which they occur (Colley, Hodkinson & Malcolm, 2002) using different resources to meet those pedagogical decisions, and having confidence in science content knowledge and engaging Archives: hp://www.Infed.org/archives/etexts/colley_informal_learning.htm Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitave inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. F The learner decides neither the learning objecves nor approach. This students in science learning. Through the process of learning, one gains capacity in these skills and begins to develop an identy largely defines K-12 learning and university degree programs and associated with competence in those skills. Depending on the learning contexts and one’s self-percepon in relaon to others, one starts Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers. Hofstein, A. & Rosenfeld, S. (1997). Bridging the cerficaon. to define themselves as “kind” of teacher, whether it is inquiry-based, hands-on, fun, hard, strict, etc. Important to developing agency gap between formal and informal science learning. Studies in Science Educaon, 28, IF The objecves are predetermined, however the learner’s approach is 87-112. Mocker, D. W., & Spear, G. E. (1982) "Lifelong Learning: Formal, Nonformal, self-directed, this would probably describe most visitor’s experiences in and a corresponding identy is being able to access and appropriate affordances available to be an effecve teacher (Adams & Gupta, Informal, and Self-Directed." Informaon Series No. 241. Columbus: ERIC Clearinghouse informal science instuons. 2015). Affordances include physical and intellectual resources, pracces, social and professional networks and other resources that shape on Adult, Career, and Vocaonal Educaon, The Naonal Center for Research in NF The learner determines the learning objecves and approach. This and enable teaching and learning. Through agency, teachers appropriate and adapt affordances available or, in a polyphonic bricolage Vocaonal Educaon, The Ohio State University(ERIC Document Reproducon Service describes the learning that happens through everyday conversaons (Schmidt, 2008), create new resources from exisng ones in order to create or maintain a parcular teaching identy. Agency allows one No. ED 220 723). and acvies and is oen closely related to learners’ cultures and communies. to transform how one uses affordances within and across sengs to expand and transform science teaching and learning opportunies Contact: [email protected] available.