Underpinned by a holistic, dynamic, and process-oriented view of teacher competences, this study provides an analytic hierarchy system of instructional design competence (IDC) for evaluating teachers' IDC based on the mental model of instructional design. Additionally, this study quantitatively explores the IDC characteristics and correlations of 118 preservice science teachers at Shanxi Normal University in China, who learned the ADTRE (analyzing, designing, teaching, revising, and evaluating/improving) instructional model, based on reflection and feedback. Using lesson planning (LP) scoring rubrics, we analyzed 113 lesson plans from 56 participants majoring in biological science and 57 in biological technology. We present the ADTRE model and discuss relationships between preservice science teachers' academic achievement and IDC. Major findings include a positive correlation between preservice science teachers' IDC scores and their course grades in Advanced Mathematics and Cell Biology and concept mapping skills. There was a negative correlation between preservice science teachers' IDC and course grades in Principles of Genetic Engineering and Technology, and no significant correlations existed between IDC and course grades for teacher education courses. Our findings reveal the nature of preservice science teachers' IDC, a potential for improvement in university teacher education curricula, and a need for further research.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in the rapid emergence of vaccines, the dual benefits of both science and technology have been lauded, while dominant, deficit-based narratives of vaccine hesitancy and mistrust in science and medicine by the general public, particularly minoritized populations, run rampant. In this paper, we argue for a counternarrative, where instead of erroneously positioning communities of color as the problem, the problem is reframed to consider what the scientific, technological, and science education communities need to do to become more trustworthy and transgress the persistent shortcomings related to racism and injustice. Specifically, in this position paper, we (a) discuss the interactions of science, technology, and society from the perspective of the nature of technology; (b) engage an understanding of how bias, access, and racism operate in and at the intersection of science, technology, and technological systems; (c) discuss implications of these ideas in science education; and finally (d) pose recommendations to counter alienation and racism with an emphasis on a sixth dimension, equitable, social justice criticality, for science-technology education. In conclusion, we make recommendations by centering a more equitable, social justice criticality of science and technology.
Math Circles are designed to allow students to explore mathematics using a problem-solving/inquiry approach. Many of the students attending our Math Circle are mathematically talented and curious. This study examines the perspectives of the students and their families in determining why students attend Math Circle, what they enjoy about Math Circle, and what they perceive as differences in Math Circle from their classroom mathematics instruction. Findings indicate that students and parents feel that our Math Circle offers more challenging work than students are finding in their regular classroom and that the Math Circle provides a scholarly camaraderie among participants.
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