Describing Teachers’ Conceptual Ecologies for the Nature of Science

This research focused on the interactionist conceptual ecologies of inservice teachers and how these ecologies influenced these teachers’ conceptual frameworks for the nature of science (NOS). The participants in the study were five teachers enrolled in a graduate course focused on NOS. Data included participants’ responses to open-ended and Likert scale surveys, interviews, writing prompts, and participant observations of classroom sessions. We propose a model of the interaction of the prominent components of teachers’ conceptual ecologies for NOS, one in which learning dispositions, understandings of the broad enterprise of science, and orientation to learning and learners are understood to shape teachers’ conceptual frameworks for NOS. The complex ties between NOS conceptions and goals, affect, dispositions, and beliefs speak to the inclusion of the bounded nature of science as a central aspect of NOS for practicing teachers. Teachers’ dispositions toward learning this construct are linked to their conceptions of the boundaries of science as well as their understanding of the role of NOS in their own teaching. We argue that a recognition of the bounded nature of science foregrounds actions of a teacher’s learning disposition, thus potentially minimizing the influence of their religious beliefs. C © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 90:874–906, 2006 Correspondence to: Sherry A. Southerland; e-mail: [email protected] C © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. TEACHERS’ NOS CONCEPTUAL ECOLOGIES 875