Acceso usuarios
Luis Alberto D'Elia, Diane Wishart
The purpose of this work was to elicit the perceptions of science educators regarding enhancing opportunities to retain disenfranchised students in secondary schools. The article shows selective international perspectives on how teachers, university professors, and researchers in teacher education programs strive to support school completion for disenfranchised students. Interviews were conducted in Canada and Spain. Selective sampling was used in order to focus interviews on individuals with particular expertise on the topic and individuals who work in cooperation with colleagues engaged in similar work. Anecdotes, comments, and opinions from the interviews support the basic contentions in the article. The authors strive to bring insight and awareness into the importance of training science educators in the adequate pedagogy and in their engagement in high school programs that prepare students for college. The researchers conclude planning and delivering of a science program needs to start from the students’ experiences with the phenomena, and from their own connections to the subject and with the laboratory material. They also stress the importance of the role that higher education professionals play not only in educating high school science teachers in the adequate pedagogy for at-risk student retention, but also in engaging themselves in programs that prepare students for college.
