Collective (Un)Learning

A Self‐Examination of Science Teacher Educators' Evolving Translanguaging Pedagogy for Eliciting and Elevating Student Ideas

Bibliographic Data

ID21392715
AuthorsMaría González‐howard (0000-0003-3575-3937, Department of Curriculum and Instruction The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA, corresponding author), Karina Méndez Pérez (0000-0003-2818-3390, Department of Curriculum and Instruction The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA), Sage Andersen (0000-0003-4681-9671, SUNY Cortland Cortland New York USA), Carla Robinson (Department of Curriculum and Instruction The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA), Leticia Garza (Department of Curriculum and Instruction The University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA)
Year2026
Volume110
Issue3
Pages852-878
Publication date2026-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0036-8326 • E-ISSN: 1098-237X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/sce.70044
OpenAlexW7115060121
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited70

This study centers the idea that it is not just what science teacher educators (STEs) teach, but how they teach it, that matters. To prepare future teachers who can enact more equitable and transformative reform‐oriented science instruction with multilingual learners, research must explore what STEs are doing, and how, to develop preservice teachers' expansive views of language and understandings around the nuanced ways students might use their diverse language repertoires for sensemaking. Wanting to explore whether our instructional practices as STEs aligned to the translanguaging pedagogy we espouse within our bilingual elementary science methods course, we employed self‐study methodology to critically examine our own instruction across a semester, specifically in terms of how we engaged in the core practice of “eliciting student ideas.” Findings revealed particularities around the evolution of our translanguaging pedagogy with respect to this core practice, the extensive and intentional effort that went into designing learning activities strongly suited to facilitate our elicitation of PSTs' ideas in language‐expansive ways, and the vulnerable space that we had to hold, as individuals and as a collective, in order to (un)learn and carry out this work. These findings highlight the importance of STEs addressing their own continued professional growth, and of the power of collaboration in supporting this growth through self‐examination and loving self‐critique. Furthermore, findings suggest the importance of intentionally eliciting and elevating PSTs' ideas both implicitly and explicitly, and for needing to attend to the emotional and relational aspects of learning environments to support students' language use

Expansive · Multilingualism · Next Generation Science Standards · Science education · Teacher education · Teaching method · Transformative learning · Translanguaging · Multilingual Education and Policy · Science Education and Pedagogy · Second Language Learning and Teaching