Teacher Learning and Informal Science Education

This book is situated in a study of learning to teach science, informal science education and identity. The study initially aimed to learn how teachers’ identities were influenced by teacher learning experiences in informal science institutions and sites.

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Teacher Learning and Informal Science Education chronicles Jennifer D. Adams’ teaching and research journey in informal science education. While the primary focus of the book is research on teacher learning and identity in informal science education, it contains bursts of reflections of Adams’ navigation of learning spaces from childhood visits to the museum, class trips as a high school teacher, designing and facilitating learning as a museum and teacher educator, and researcher. These learning interactions inspired research to learn how teachers’ identities and corresponding practices were influenced by informal science learning. What emerged was the ways that teachers transformed meanings, pedagogies, and enactments of informal science in ways that both resonated with their identities as social agents vis-à-vis the identities and needs of their students. Recognising the importance of historical context in current and ongoing educational inequities, this book offers a chapter that unpacks the colonial history of the museum and discusses the relevance for science teaching and learning today. With New York City as the backdrop, this book emphasizes the teaching and learning in an urban context with creative teachers who are passionate about their practice and their brilliant and diverse middle and high school students. This book offers theoretical considerations for designing learning experiences, with a research-to-practice emphasis, for teachers across formal and informal settings in ways that are attentive to and affirming of students’ and teachers’ identities and desires to utilize science education as a tool to create flourishing futures.