Putting the Pieces Back Together: Challenges Recomposing Elementary Science Teaching

Elementary teacher educators endeavor to prepare prospective elementary teachers to teach science in ways which best support student learning. A well-documented challenge in teacher education is the disconnect between theory and practice which many programs have worked to overcome. One framework which has been used in many teacher preparation programs is practice-based teacher education which consists of three-parts: representation, decomposition, and approximations of practice. This framework has been studied in a number of contexts, but the ways in which prospective teachers recompose practice have not been fully explored. In this study, I examined the science teaching of three student teachers enrolled in the same teacher education program to understand how they enacted teaching practices from their teacher education coursework. Findings showed that each student teacher adopted a different, singular practice as their primary guide for teaching science rather than a more integrated and recomposed approach. This suggests that a more explicit focus on recomposition of practice is a necessary part of teacher education.