Talking Science- It’s Not Elementary! Improving Elementary Pre-service Teacher Discourse Skills through a Scaffolded “Science Talks” Assignment

Abstract

Learning science requires communication between participants, however creating effective discourse for elementary classrooms has shown to be a difficult task. In this article, we highlight an assignment given to undergraduate elementary pre-service teachers concentrating in elementary science. Transcripts of elementary pre-service teachers’ (EPST) “Science Talks” have been reviewed and, over the course of three semesters of implementation, scaffolds have been put in place to provide EPSTs with strategies and tools necessary to better plan, implement, and evaluate science discourse. Initial findings, which point to the effectiveness of this assignment and the additional scaffolding, will be discussed. These findings have potential applications for teacher education programs as well as for in-service teacher professional development.

Keywords

• talk moves
• science discourse