Understanding How Elementary Teachers Characterize Science and Engineering Lessons and Their Connection to Practice

This study explored how 15 in-service elementary teachers participating in an online professional learning (PL) experience conceptualized and reasoned about teaching science and engineering and the ways in which they connected their understanding of these disciplines to classroom practice. Data included breakout discussions regarding five provided vignettes of science and engineering classroom activities, as well as teacher generated science and engineering practice posters, presentations, and whole group discussions. Our analysis revealed several consistent key (mis)conceptions about teaching science and engineering. Teachers often characterized engineering classroom activities as tasks where students should be building and solving a problem, while they characterized science as involving observation and learning content knowledge about a topic. When describing a vignette as engineering, teachers often used the words goal, problem, and purpose interchangeably. Additionally, we uncovered teachers’ misconceptions about science that do not align with the nature of science or science and engineering practices. This gap in how teachers make sense of classroom science and engineering tasks versus how they conceptualize science and engineering disciplines highlights a significant need to address in teacher education.