Precollege Science Teachers Need Better Training

Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 2004 by Payne, John

Fortunately, ASSET'S record of student achievement is not unlike many of its sister programs, including the Dow-sponsored reform programs in Delaware and the El Centro, California, initiative, which is successfully leveling the science playing field for underprivileged Latino students.

Digging deeper

Although all of this is indeed good news, with the pipeline problem coming into sharp focus once again, we began to ask ourselves: If this kind of professional development is having such a positive effect on student achievement, could part of U.S. students' problem with science achievement have its roots in the way and extent to which elementary science teachers are being trained to teach science while they are in their college teacher training programs?

That was the central question posed by a national survey Bayer commissioned earlier this year. One component of our multi-faceted Making Science Make Sense program, an initiative that advances science literacy across the United States through hands-on, inquiry-based science learning, employee volunteerism, and public education, is an annual public opinion research project called the Bayer Facts of Science Education. Over the years, it has polled various audiences including science teachers, parents, and the nation's Ph.D. scientists about an array of science, science education, and science literacy issues. This year, in the Bayer Facts of Science Education X: Are the Nation's Colleges and Universities Adequately Preparing Elementary Schoolteachers of Tomorrow to Teach Science?, we put that question to those who know about the issue best: deans of the nation's schools of education who are responsible for training U.S. teachers and the country's newest generation of elementary teachers themselves.

What we found is both encouraging and disappointing at the same time. First, the bad news: The survey revealed that although deans believe science should be the fourth "R" and placed on equal footing with reading, writing, and math, science is still treated as a second-tier subject. And it is treated this way as much in college programs that train elementary schoolteachers as it is in elementary school classrooms. For example, the new teachers report that when they were in college, science received less emphasis than English and math in their teaching methods courses, a finding with which the deans concur. And many more new teachers and deans gave "A" grades to their English and math teaching preparation than to their science-teaching prep courses. Further, of all subjects, science is the one that new teachers say they wish had been given more emphasis in their teacher training courses.

Unfortunately, this all has a clear impact in today's elementary school classrooms. Consider: Most of the teachers polled say that, unlike the other core subjects, they do not teach science every day. second, fewer new teachers say they feel "very qualified" to teach science compared to the other basics. And, only 14 percent rate their school's overall science program excellent, whereas 30 percent rate it fair or poor.