Science education reformers call for a plethora of changes in K-12 classrooms, most of which fall to the classroom teacher to implement. Collins (in Foster, 1997) expresses concerns about the incredible burden the new movement to teach science for understanding puts on teachers. She says "these are conceptual burdens because teachers are being asked to change the image of what science is all about, to change the nature of their instruction, to change their role in the classroom . . ." (p. 11). The National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993) focus on inquiry teaching. They seem to assume a level of comfort exists among science teachers to handle laboratory equipment and procedures. These assumptions need to be investigated.

Roth, McGinn, and Bowen (1997) showed that between preservice teachers and eighth graders, eighth grade students outperformed the post-baccalaureate science majors in ability to represent data. Hodson (1993) asserted that "the only effective way to learn to do science is by doing science, alongside a skilled and experienced practitioner who can provide on-the-job support, criticism and advice" (p. 120). The Salish I study (Brunkhorst, Yager, Brunkhorst, & Apple, 1993; Salish Final Report, 1997) showed positive student outcome linkages when new science teachers had prior scientific research experience. Duggan-Haas (1997, 1998) expanded upon new teacher research experiences as cognitive apprenticeships. Ritchie and Rigano (1996) also extolled the virtues of laboratory learning as a cognitive apprenticeship. Their study showed that high school students working with university scientists were empowered to seek empirically viable knowledge claims, as they became independent researchers. Roth et al. (1997) indicated that a structural change is necessary in science teacher preparation because current preparation does not prepare teachers to teach standard scientific practices in the ways advocated by curriculum reform.

The National Commission on Teaching & America's Future identified major flaws in teacher preparation (1996); their report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, started from the premise that what teachers know and can do is the most important influence on what students learn. They suggested a reinvention of teacher preparation to organize teacher education around standards for students and teachers (p. vii). SWEPT: Providing Scientific Work Experiences for Teachers (Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education, 1995), and Ruckus and Luczak (1995) reported that immersion in science laboratories is an effective strategy in staff development for science teachers.

Varelas (1996) suggested that "we may do well to rethink the separation between content and methods courses in many teacher preparation programs" (p. 260). She noted the disparity between knowing from data and knowing from theory, two scientific levels of knowing. Varelas' study detailed the difficulty a science teacher had in differentiating between knowing from prior empirical evidence and knowing from developing conceptual, logical links between ideas and concepts. She stated that a teacher needs to bring this differentiation explicitly to students if he/she is to help them develop a clearer sense of knowing from the nature of theory as different from knowing from empirical data. Her study also exemplified the importance of discourse around scientific study if the hands-on activity is to facilitate meaningful learning.

In fact, according to Roth et al. (1997), Hodson (1993), Collins (in Foster, 1997) and Duggan-Haas (1997, 1998), teachers without a prior scientific research experience may be unable to teach by inquiry, for understanding, and by using discursive practices and scientific representations as recommended in curriculum reform. Duggan, Johnson, and Gott (1996) described the structure of science as substantive and syntactical. The substantive element of conceptual understanding included facts, concepts, laws, theories, and principles. These were the elements presented in lecture-type science courses. On the other hand, the syntactical structure (Duggan et al., 1996) included the procedural understanding gained from skills and the concepts of evidence. It is this latter that I argue is missing from the systematic preparation of science teachers. Currently, preservice science teachers are not expected to design experiments or to present evidentiary arguments, as real scientists do, in a systematic way as a part of their teacher preparation. How then can we expect them to teach K-12 students when they themselves have not experienced these skills and concepts of evidence? As Beisenherz & Dantonio (1991) state " . . . teachers cannot be lectured at, demonstrated to, and asked to regurgitate facts in course after course, semester after semester, and then be expected to teach the processes of science without having experienced them" (p. 44). This study proceeded with the assumption that cultural knowledge of science is not provided in classroom college science (Richmond, 1998). Therefore, preservice science teachers should mimic the part of a scientist’s training of "hanging around with" scientists who have varying degrees of expertise, in order for them to be properly enculturated into the science they will be expected to teach. Generally in laboratories, graduate students from novice to expert, along with science professors, share their knowledge with new apprentices. Much of this shared knowledge is "overheard" feedback to others. The purpose of this study was to determine if science teachers would have been interested in working in a scientist's laboratory during an apprenticeship while they were preparing for initial certification, if such an opportunity was available. The rationale for improving science teacher education is that if preservice teachers can get in the laboratory to work, they will benefit in numerous ways. They will be able to complete scientific tasks and possibly be taught by graduate students. They will also participate in the culture of science which can only be experienced around working scientists, their graduate students, colleagues, and others employed in the department (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Science department chairpersons at a large southeastern public university were asked to develop a list of tasks that they perceived preservice science teachers could do in scientists' laboratories prior to initial certification. The chairpersons were also asked to list benefits, which could accrue to the preservice teachers during such a laboratory experience. The lists were then developed into a survey to determine science teacher interest in the development of an alternative program for science education majors to include an apprenticeship with a scientist. The experience was to be conceived as an apprenticeship in science, much like many science majors complete as a part of their coursework through independent study courses offered at most colleges and universities.

The survey was developed in the following ways:

1. The natural science department chairpersons (biology, chemistry, geology, and physics) listed tasks that they would imagine preservice science teachers could do in a scientist's laboratory as undergraduates or as graduate students seeking initial science teaching licensure.

2. The natural science department chairpersons (biology, chemistry, geology, and physics) listed benefits to the preservice science teachers.

3. The tasks and benefits lists were compiled and redistributed to all chairpersons for additions, deletions, and indications of agreement.

4. Each chairperson was interviewed about the rationale for each item on the lists and about support for preservice teacher laboratory work, if survey results indicated student interest.

The survey was mailed to 167 teachers teaching in 20 of the counties and school districts closest to the university during the 1991-1992 school year. Close proximity to the university was the rationale for the sample because many inservice teachers in these surrounding counties had received their training at this university and they were thus perceived to hold similar interests to current and future local university preservice science teachers. The science teachers were all members of the state science teachers association, which generated a list of addresses for the mailing. Thirteen currently enrolled science education majors were also surveyed.

The teachers were told in a letter that accompanied the survey that an alternative program for science education majors was being proposed in which students in the program would have the opportunity to work in a scientists laboratory, for 6-10 hours a week with or without pay during the last two years of their four-year undergraduate science education program. They responded in terms of what they perceived would be beneficial to their life as a teacher.

When asked if they would have been interested in such an alternative program if the opportunity had been offered, most said they would do it for pay ($5/hour). About half said they had to work when they were in college. Comments from preservice teachers included,

• I’d be giving up work time for another job so I would need some monetary encouragement.
• Six to 10 hours a week is a lot of time to put in an already full schedule.
• I think this program is key for undergraduate science education majors – to give them the opportunity to have a part time job in a related field.

• The idea is attractive without the money. I still would love to do some of the things checked. I believe the program advocates hands on science.
• The experience is worth more than the pay.
• Money plus credits would be attractive to most. Research is great but you musts learn the facts first. Program has some great points and potential.
• I made $10/hour in 1965 as a lab assistant in genetics lab but it was the experience that was great. I would do it for $15 now just for the experience.
• This is an excellent idea. I would have thoroughly enjoyed having an opportunity to experience research. A future science teacher having these experiences will bring the science programs to "life" in our school system.
• I think this program is an excellent idea. I would like to have had an opportunity like this one.
• The opportunity to work with a practicing scientist is attractive within itself. Getting paid for doing something you like would be most beneficial.
• I think offering credit hours would be almost as attractive.

• Two years seems like too much to me. One year would be enough. Maybe serve in different labs during the time.
• While this idea would benefit a person who wishes to specialize in a specific area, a mini-program in many areas or fields would be more (valuable) to a person entering the classroom as a teacher.

Table 1. Science Teacher Characteristics (%, n = 113)*
 

Grade Taught	No. of Respondents	Subject	No. of Respondents	Years in Teaching	No. of Respondents	School Type	No. of  Respondents
6-8	30	Biology	70	never taught	13	Rural	64
9-12	70	Phys. Sci.	67	< 1 year	14	Urban	36
		Chemistry	37	> 1 year -- < 5 years	11
		Earth Sci.	32	> 5 years --  < 10 years	20
		Physics	25	> 10 years	55
		Ad. Bio.	25
		AP Bio	10
		AP Chem.	7
		Other	21

*Includes thirteen preservice teachers

Table 2 displays the opinions marked by the teachers of benefits of working with a scientist. One is struck at a glance at how positive all of the responses are. That is, all items listed by the science department chairpersons, as benefits that could accrue to preservice teachers were also perceived by the teachers to appeal to three fourths of them. Seven benefits were checked by ninety percent of the teachers. Among the items perceived to be most beneficial were providing "practical science" experience, providing more "hands-on " opportunities to do science, providing experience with data analysis and a research experience, and to expose me, a preservice teacher to modern science research.

There are some interesting differences of opinion among the inservice teachers and the 13 preservice teachers. The inservice teachers more than the preservice teachers evaluated all but one of the items higher. Among inservice teachers, 10 items were checked by 90 percent as a benefit, whereas only two items were valued in the ninetieth percentile by preservice teachers: provide more "hands-on" opportunities to do science and teach me how to improvise in a laboratory. The latter was evaluated 12 percentage points lower among the inservice teachers.

There are many wide gaps between how the inservice and preservice teachers perceive benefits of working with scientists. Gaps with more than 10 percentile points difference among the two groups are providing "practical science" experience (98 Vs 82), providing experience with data analysis (97 Vs 82), teach me to deal with negative results (91 Vs 82), help me experience the thrill, joy, and pleasure of science (91 Vs 76), help me be more "comfortable with science" (90 Vs 76), and every other item listed below the one which the preservice teachers rated as more of a benefit than the inservice teachers did: teach me how to improvise in a laboratory, mentioned earlier. Particularly noticeable as having the widest gaps are the last two items in the table: (help understand the connections between the sciences) with a gap of 34, and (give me a chance to design a research project), with a 19 point gap difference.

It seems that in almost every case, inservice teachers have more agreement with scientists (who created the items in the table) as to what benefits would accrue for preservice teachers if they had the opportunity to work in a long term association with a scientist, than preservice teachers do.

Table 2

Science Teacher Opinions Regarding Benefits of a
Preservice Science Teacher Apprenticeship Program with a Scientist (n = 113)

(% Agreement)                             Inservice(n=100)    Preservice(n=13)
________________________________________________________________________________
(96) Provide "practical science" experience      98                  82

(95) Provide more "hands-on" opportunities 
to do science                                    95                  94

(95) Provide experience with data analysis       97                  82

(93) Expose me, a student-teacher to modern 
science research                                 94                  88

(92) Help me to work with a team on a project    93                  88

(90) Teach me to deal with negative results      91                  82

(91) Provides a research experience              92                  88

(89) Help me experience the thrill, joy, 

and pleasure of science                          91                  76

(89) Provide an in-depth understanding of how a  90                  82
research problem is tackled

(88) Help me be more "comfortable with science"  90                  76

(84) Teach me how to improvise in a laboratory   82                  94

(82) Help me understand the "risks" of science 
and technology                                   84                  71

(79) Enable scientists to answer questions 
that I have                                      81                  71

(79) Enable scientists to help me do 
meaningful work                                  82                  65

(78) Help me understand the limitations 
of science                                       80                  71

(76) Help understand the connections 
between the sciences                             81                  47

(75) Give me a chance to design a 
research project                                 78                  59

Some teachers differed with the attributes listed by the scientists:

• I don’t think science is "thrilling," "joyful," or pleasurable". When students find this is the case after being told otherwise for twelve years, they change their major to economics or some other humanities major! Science is slow! Science is tedious!
• Great idea if "scientist" uses student properly and doesn’t look upon students as gophers or clean-up people. Very beneficial if run correctly.
• I have apprenticed before and many times the preceptor uses the apprentice with very little help, insight, etc. Also, research scientists in the pure science areas are not always good communicators or teachers. A poor lab experience could undermine someone’s career.

Table 3

Tasks Science Teachers Would be Willing to Perform in a Scientist's
Laboratory While a Preservice Teacher (n =113)

Total % Agreement*                        Inservice(n=100)    Preservice(n=13)
(94) Assist scientist with experiment           96                  90

(92) Operate scientific equipment               91                  98

(75) Assist graduate students with experiment   76                  80

(73) Do experiments of my own                   72                  80

(71) Make reagents                              72                  63

(69) Computer analysis of data                  72                  50

(69) Recrystallization, extraction, fractional 
distillation of organic compounds 
using column chromatography                     72                  50

(62) Operate gas chromat. & other analy 
chemistry instru.                               54                  50

(61) Operate optical and 
magnetic instruments (NMR)                      62                  62

(59) Make media (microbiological)               61                  50

(58) Do literature searches                     60                  50

(57) Make glassware                             54                  72

(50) Digital data aquisition and 
computer programming                            53                  37

(51) Serve as a research subject                48                  72

(49) Word Process scientific papers, 
data, abstracts, etc.                           50                  42

(41) Do routine electrical/ plumbing 
on scientific equipment                         42                  37

(5) Other

Highest among the desirable tasks are assisting scientists with experiments (94) and operating scientific equipment (92). Three fourths of all respondents would also assist graduate students with experiments, do their own experiments, make reagents, computer analyze data and use column chromatography. Over half of the teachers would do everything else on this list (which scientists prepared as appropriate tasks for undergraduate preservice science teachers), except for routine electrical/plumbing.

Teacher comments included:

• The activities listed would certainly lead to a well-rounded teacher who would feel very secure carrying her students into various lab experiences. Certainly wish I had been exposed!
• Scientific method is used in 6^th grade with students and this program would seem to have been very beneficial if I had the chance to do this during my college days. Exposure to a real lab would have been a great opportunity.
• You learn by doing, you would develop confidence in your ability to plan and execute tasks with the alternative program.
• This program addresses a single regret of my training for teaching – no practical experience.
• I believe that this alternative would be very attractive to some students going into the educational field, especially those of us who do quite a lot of lab work.

There is notable agreement among both scientists and science teachers regarding benefits that would accrue to teachers if they worked with scientists for an extended period of time during their preservice years. The fact that three fourths of all the teachers agreed with the benefits listed by the scientists supports this conclusion. In fact, teachers expressed real interest in such an opportunity in their written comments. The inservice teachers show stronger indications that they realize the benefits they would have from a nontraditional type of preservice scientific apprenticeship than do the preservice teachers. These results suggest that immersion in laboratory science for preservice teachers may be as effective as for inservice teachers. (Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education, 1995; Ruskus & Luczak, 1995); i.e., to these inservice teachers, it seems attractive to them in hindsight. The difference in perceived benefits by the two groups is probably because the inservice teachers, with their experience, now realize what they did not learn in college classrooms that is desirable in science teaching. That includes most of the items in Table 2. Preservice teachers agreed to the same high degree (94 percent) that opportunities for hands-on science would be a benefit. However, the other, lower valued items were still rated as benefits by most of them. Improvisation is valued highly among preservice teachers probably because they are beginning to realize that they will be called upon to do that and they lack experience; whereas, inservice teachers have figured out how to improvise with their years of experience in the classroom.

Comments from the teachers about the proposed alternative program support it:

• I believe that this alternative would be very attractive to some students going into the educational field especially those of us who do quite a lot of lab work.
• You learn by doing, you would develop confidence in your ability to plan and execute a task with an alternative program.
• I may be available to work with this alternative program next spring (from a preservice teacher).
• I like the idea. I think it would be worthwhile.

Science departments might consider opening some laboratory experiences and the expertise within individual scientist laboratories to some preservice science teachers. Lave and Wenger (1991) discuss the expertise within apprenticeships as being at many different levels. In scientists’ laboratories, these various levels are constituted by the graduate students who are at different places in their programs, even including post-doc positions that are frequently held, and also including research assistants and associates. All of these folks at varying levels of expertise could hypothetically be available to the novice (novice in science research) preservice teacher for discussion and engagement in laboratory activities. Indeed, the novice teacher could be assigned to work with a graduate student to assist in necessary tasks for the graduate student’s research. These types of tasks, mundane though they may be, are nevertheless authentic scientific endeavors and constitute part of essential scientific inquiry. The task assignments need to be accompanied by explanations of the long-term goal of the experimental work to the novice in order to establish and promote a growing understanding of the work of the laboratory. This understanding thus is inculcated by repeated execution of some laboratory tasks. All of the tasks listed by scientists in this study would be appropriate ones for the inservice teacher.

If science departments were to reconsider their role in the education of new teachers, the ideas suggested here might not be considered unreasonable when one considers how few (relative to elementary teaching or biology majors, for example) students elect secondary science teaching as a career. Most of these secondary science education majors concentrate in biology and seek certification and licensure in biology. In those states with a comprehensive certification, the largest majority is biology concentrators as well. Therefore, biology departments would be most affected. However, most university faculties have larger biology faculties than the physical science groups. At most, 12-15 biology majors desirous of teaching would be present from the freshman through the senior years at The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, thereby affecting fewer than that number of apprenticeship opportunities in a given year.

Very few new teachers typically come from chemistry, physics, and or earth science majors. These latter three science departments would be minimally affected if even one student from freshman to senior year sought such an opportunity to work in the laboratory in their field.

Science teachers have very little experience knowing science from evidence and distinguishing it from knowing science from theory (Varelas, 1996). Varelas describes science as a practice, a culture, and a social activity. Science as a practice is described as centering on the interplay of theory and data. Science as a cultural activity is characterized by specific tools and artifacts such as diagrams, tables, graphs, terminology, and so forth. Scientists collaborating and working closely together for the advancement of their field characterize science as a social activity.

The benefits and tasks listed by scientists in this study and accruing to preservice science teachers are authentic science practices, according to Varelas' schema; and they emulate a cognitive apprenticeship in the practice of science. Lave and Wenger (1991) amplify a modern apprenticeship as situated learning in a legitimate peripheral participation, one that is non-adversarial with regard to bosses or managers. Changing the person is not central to the enterprise of learning in a situated learning situation; instead, engagement with others in the practice of the discipline is the primary concern. Lave and Wenger describe legitimate peripheral participation as engagement in social practice of participation as a way of belonging to the larger social enterprise or community, which in this case, is science. They suggest that participation has multiple sites, is varied, and that there are more and less-engaged and inclusive ways of participating in a community. They add that changing locations and perspectives are part of the "actor’s" learning trajectories, developing identities, and forms of membership (in the community). They go on

Over half of the respondents in this study reported that they worked to support themselves during the time they were studying to be teachers; therefore, it may be prudent to consider ways science departments could employ these students during their undergraduate years. Preservice science teachers are essentially science majors. In some universities they may major in science education, or a science degree may be required before admittance to the college of education such as in Holmes Group colleges and universities. These preservice teachers should be treated as the elite, just as science majors who aspire to become scientists are treated. Science departments and science educators should develop opportunities for interactions with scientists; paid teaching assistantships could be offered to students who have distinguished themselves in a science course. Undergraduate science education students who qualify for work-study programs would benefit from placement in a science lab (or labs) for the duration of their college experience and financial need. Whatever the case may be for individual colleges and universities, initial science teacher preparation should include an apprenticeship in authentic science as a required part of the program.

Preservice science teachers should be provided with undergraduate research opportunities just as those opportunities are provided to students majoring in science, many of which are funded by national funding agencies (Lanza & Smith, 1988; Siebert, 1988). Traditionally in universities, undergraduate independent study courses are reserved for "majors," defined as those students going to graduate school in the discipline or to medical school. Scientists have a unique role in the preparation of science teachers (Skoog, 1985; Yager & Penick, 1987), and they are the only ones who can provide legitimate peripheral participation via an apprenticeship-like experience in science. Science faculty should look at the small pool of preservice science teacher students as the developers of the science pipeline. The next generation of the "science pool " depends on the current preparation of preservice teachers. Science educators should work collaboratively and diligently with scientists to provide these kinds of opportunities for preservice science teachers and moreover, they should be built into the curriculum. The responses of the teachers to this survey give some ideas upon which to begin dialogue among these two groups who are responsible for the education of new science teachers. Science education reform at the K-12 levels will not occur without major revisions of the preparation programs for the teachers of K-12 students. Preservice teachers need mentoring by scientists in unique ways. Science teachers must not be the underserved in science any longer.

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Duggan-Haas, D. (1998). Two programs, two cultures: The dichotomy of science teacher preparation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, April.

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Claudia T. Melear worked for three years for a scientist, Don G. Ahearn, when she was an undergraduate doing various tasks such as typing abstracts in square boxes and assisting with the scientist’s FDA contract work.  She majored in biology and then got her M Ed. at Georgia State University in science education.  She taught in a public high school for seven years, leading many students to science fair and symposium competition.  Dr. Melear attended The Ohio State University, working for the chair of the general biology program, Russell V. Skavaril, for her dissertation work.  This work included evaluating learning styles of non-majors in biology.  Her passion has always been to promote more informal interaction among scientists with preservice teachers because she feels this is the way she came to understand the nature and processes of science.

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