KSTF Young Scholars

Evolution is the unifying ‘big idea' of Biology; however, evolution is often barely mentioned or not taught at all in high school. The teaching of evolution is further complicated by science education reforms that have emphasized inquiry-based learning, in which teachers engage students in activities that resemble what scientists do. In inquiry-based lessons, beginning teachers are often challenged because they lack the necessary pedagogical content knowledge to interpret students' developing ideas and move them toward learning goals. Recent research has identified the myriad understandings students have about evolution; these ideas can be organized into ‘learning progressions' that map student ideas from naïve to scientifically accepted. Learning progressions can help beginning teachers more thoroughly understand students' understandings and misconceptions, thereby structuring their pedagogical content knowledge and making easier the implementation of scientific inquiry teaching.

The proposed research is a three-phase study that will explore the effects of an evolution learning progression on the development of beginning teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and student learning. The first phase of the study will involve the development of a learning progression, as well as pre- posttests of pedagogical content knowledge and student learning of evolution. The second phase will be a pilot study of the learning progression and pre- posttests with beginning Biology teachers. The third phase of the study will be a pretest-posttest control group experimental study to determine the effects of the learning progression on teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and student learning. The study will allow for the creation of important tools to scaffold Biology teacher preparation and induction in evolution, and will inform science education research about how learning progressions can scaffold the development of pedagogical content knowledge for beginning science teachers.