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The Characteristic of Science PCK among Early Childhood Public School Educators in Northwest Ohio

Agil, Alaa Agil
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1594232216561792

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, Curriculum and Instruction.
Young children are naturally curious and will learn about scientific phenomena whether they are taught about it or not, which can lead to early misconceptions about science from an early age if they do not start with a solid basis in science. To construct a strong foundation of scientific knowledge, including scientific ways of learning and building knowledge, early childhood educators need to be prepared to cover scientific concepts on a basic but accurate level from the beginning of schooling. For early childhood teachers to help students build such a solid scientific foundation, they as teachers also need to have a solid grasp on the science content area as well as an effective pedagogical knowledge and a high degree of contextual awareness in order to teach scientific material at an appropriate level at the right time and in effective ways. The combination of content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and context knowledge that come together when a teacher puts their knowledge into practice is called pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Shulman, 1988), or more specifically science PCK in this particular content area. However, little is known about the science PCK of early childhood educators (Alexander, 2016; 2018). To better understand how early childhood educators describe and interpret their science PCK and how it impacts their teaching, this dissertation reports on a qualitative study based on interviews with three 2nd-grade teachers who cover scientific concepts in their lessons in Northwest Ohio. Transcripts generated from the interviews were coded, from which themes were developed. Based on the findings from this study, the following themes emerged: early childhood teachers’ interpretations of the application of PCK in teaching science are based on their prior experiences and knowledge; early childhood teachers use science PCK to make bounded choices; early childhood teachers use PCK to identify science learning opportunities during game and playtime, and early childhood teachers use PCK to creatively involve various materials in science lessons. The implications of these themes are discussed in greater depth in the final chapter of this dissertation.
Mark Templin (Committee Chair)
Leigh Chiarelott (Committee Member)
Susanna Hapgood (Committee Member)
Gaby Semaan (Committee Member)
113 p.
Education Philosophy; Science Education
pck

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Agil, A. A. (2020). The Characteristic of Science PCK among Early Childhood Public School Educators in Northwest Ohio [Doctoral dissertation, University of Toledo]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1594232216561792

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Agil, Alaa. The Characteristic of Science PCK among Early Childhood Public School Educators in Northwest Ohio. 2020. University of Toledo, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1594232216561792.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Agil, Alaa. "The Characteristic of Science PCK among Early Childhood Public School Educators in Northwest Ohio." Doctoral dissertation, University of Toledo, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1594232216561792

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

toledo1594232216561792
238
© 2020, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License The Characteristic of Science PCK among Early Childhood Public School Educators in Northwest Ohio by Alaa Agil Agil is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Toledo and OhioLINK.