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Effective K-12 STEM teachers are essential to the critical analysis of real-world issues and can contribute to the democratization of our society. Thus, we engage pre-service math and science teachers in communityfocused STEM project-based learning (C-STEM-PBL) so they can integrate community assets, voices, and needs into their pedagogical practice. In this context, pre-service STEM teachers engage K-12 students by connecting STEM-related issues to their personal and community experiences. Further, this place-based, high context approach creates opportunities for critical analysis; so, students might push against the injustices that affect the community. This model presents access to the third space of teacher development, one with the potential to engage urban situated STEM teachers in the community.
Keywords: teacher education program, STEM education, community, urban schools
RESEARCH QUESTION
How do pre-service STEM teachers enact community-centered project-based learning pedagogy in urban marginalized settings?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Humanizing pedagogy (Bartolomé, 1994), culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2009), and what it means to be a community teacher (Murrell, 2000) anchor the work of C-STEM-PBL. Teachers practice humanizing pedagogy by interacting with their students with care and fostering independence, resilience, and persistence. Thus, teachers see, hear and integrate student voices into their classroom community (Bartolomé, 1994). Culturally relevant pedagogy is grounded in 1) supporting student learning through pedagogy, 2) cultural competence, 3) socio-political consciousness that has potential for critical reflection and action (Ladson-Billings, 2009). Murrell (2000) defines a community teacher as the following. "A community teacher develops the contextualized knowledge of culture, community, and identity of the children and their families as the core of their teaching practice.... A significant part of this context is the candidate's own cultural, political, and racial identity. These determine how central or peripheral they are concerning the core practices of a group or community that result in the successful development of children and youth" Murrell, 2000 pg. 340.
Given these theoretical frames, we support teacher learning through enactment and critical reflection tied to theory. Engerström (2001), notes that learning takes place in the doing and the tensions that exist in that space. Preservice teachers learn when they enact and reflect within the complexity of the university and field spaces. Kretchmar and Zeichner (2016) propose the 3rd generation of teacher preparation, one that connects the framework of a...