CREATE Science Seminar: Christa Haverly

Title: Developing Urban Elementary Teachers’ Responsiveness to Students’ Scientific Sense-Making.

Abstract: Traditional elementary science teaching is documented as limited, fact- and activity-based, and disconnected from students’ lived experiences and scientific sense-making. Responsive science teaching has the potential to disrupt this status quo in order to increase science literacy for students who have been historically marginalized in science and school science. However, responsive science teaching is challenging due to the nature of its uncertainty and how different it is from most teachers’ “apprenticeships of observation” (Lortie, 1975). In this talk, I will share findings from my research in which I studied urban elementary teachers’ responsiveness in their science teaching with a disciplinary lens on students’ science sense-making, as well as an equity lens on teachers’ orientations towards social justice. In addition, my findings illuminate the types of professional learning experiences which may support teachers with responsive science teaching and some constraints on teachers’ professional learning.

About the speaker:

Christa Haverly is presenting a work-in-progress lecture for the CREATE for STEM Science Seminar series. Haverly is a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University with over a decade of urban elementary teaching experience and several years of experience partnering with elementary school teachers. Her scholarship focuses on elementary science education, with particular attention paid to equity and teaching pedagogy. As part of this work, she has co-designed tools with teachers to help teachers and teacher candidates with planning, implementing, and reflecting on responsive science teaching practices.