Modeling to Promote Academically Productive Discourse in Science Classrooms--A New Teacher Study

As our nation continues to transition into the Next Generation Science Standards, it will be important to take a closer look at teacher preparation programs. In particular, the language demands of the NGSS will require that teachers integrate approaches to open up opportunities for student to engage in productive, student-centered discourse. This study follows ten teachers into their first year of teaching to observe the impacts of a secondary science methods course focused on opening up student discourse through the a model-based pedagogical framework. Findings illustrate first-year teachers’ perspectives on the goal of student talk, as well as their perspectives on how models and modeling activities support student talk. The findings from this study offers recommendations on how teachers preparation programs might revise their programs to better align to the language demands of the Next Generation Science Standards