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In order to teach science effectively, teachers need a strong background in science content as well as an understanding of productive methods of teaching. This includes inquiry-based learning that will cultivate conceptual development of science concepts with their students. Furthermore, it is imperative to use student-focused activities in high-needs schools to engage all students, particularly students of color, in the learning process. As a result, faculty from the teachHOUSTON Program and the Department of Physics at the University of Houston produced a Physics by Inquiry course to engage middle school and high school preservice teachers in interactive, inquiry-based teaching pedagogies for physics. This chapter provides an overview of the course. It also highlights the benefits of including such a course in a STEM teacher education program.

In this chapter, we discuss ways to create optimal conditions that enable K-12 learners to experience and practice science by engaging in inquiry as an essential practice in EcoVoices, an urban environmental education program based in Los Angeles. We do this through the synergistic contributions of McComas, a science education theorist who developed the ED³U instructional model; and Shope, a science education innovator who has applied, modified, and validated the model in real-world learning settings. The essential premise behind this shared work is that the more opportunity students have to practice doing science, the more authentic their science learning experience will be. And inquiry, as a science process, is one of the most important elements in the practice of science.

This research examines the influence of parents on students studying the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and entering STEM careers. Participating youths were awarded scholarships from large funded US grant programmes. Cases of two graduate students (one female, one male) and one undergraduate student (male) are featured. The first two students in the convenience sample are biology and physics majors in a STEM teacher education program; the third is enrolled in computer science. National reports emphasizing the importance of parents on their children's education are presented, along with diverse international literature. The use of narrative in STEM curriculum and narrative inquiry in STEM research are also documented. Experience, story, and identity form the study's conceptual frame. The narrative inquiry research method employs broadening, burrowing, and storying and restorying to elucidate the students' academic trajectories. Incidents of circumstantial and planned parent curriculum making surfaced when the data were serially interpreted. Other noteworthy themes included: (1) relationships between (student) learners and (teacher) parents, (2) invitations to inquiry, (3) modes of inquiry, (4) the improbability of certainty, and (5) changed narratives = changed lives. While policy briefs provide sweeping statements about parents' positive effects on their children, narrative inquiries such as this one illuminate parents' inquiry moves within home environments. These actions became retrospectively revealed in their adult children's lived narratives. These small stories, while not generalizable, map how students, shaped by their parents' nurturing, enter the STEM disciplines and STEM-related careers through multiple pathways in addition to the identified pipeline.

teachHOUSTON is a university-based secondary STEM teacher preparation program that addresses the critical need for highly qualified STEM teachers in Texas and across the country. STEM teachers are prepared through early and ongoing field-based teaching experiences and rigorous research-based instruction that integrates content and pedagogy provided by faculty members who have extensive teaching experience in public schools. teachHOUSTON serves the fourth largest city in the United States, along with its satellite communities and has many noteworthy features which are mapped in this chapter. Particular attention is paid to inquiry-based learning, student-centered instruction, and culturally responsive pedagogy as well as the improvements in the program based on the collaboration between physics and teachHOUSTON faculty.

This study aims to present a scaffolding framework incorporating sophisticated technology that can inform instructional design to support student inquiry learning in the self-regulated online environment.

The classic predict, observe and explain (POE) framework has been extended through the incorporation of an additional evaluate (E) phase into the model to enhance the self-regulated online learning environment. The extended POEE scaffolding approach, in this study, has been conceptualized as an implicit guide to support the process of guided inquiry for learning particular science concepts. Digital tools were sourced and integrated into this design framework to substitute for the support typically offered by teachers and peers in classrooms.

The findings suggest that the POEE pedagogical design facilitated the inquiry process through promoting self-regulation and engaged exploration. It also promoted positive emotions in students towards the scaffolded learning modules.

Integrating technologies that benefit students differentially in educational settings remains a considerable challenge. More specifically, in science education, an appropriate inquiry learning context that allows access to well informed pedagogical design is imperative. The application of this inquiry-based scaffolding framework can inform educators in the process of creating their own instructional designs and contexts to provide more effective guided learning.

This narrative inquiry examines teachers' influences on undergraduate/graduate students who enrolled in STEM programs and intended to enter STEM careers. Three National Science Foundation (NSF) scholarship grants sat in the backdrop. Narrative exemplars were crafted using the interpretative tools of broadening, burrowing, storying and restorying, fictionalization, and serial interpretation. Three diverse students' narratives constituted the science education cases: one from teacher education, another about cybertechnology, and a third involving cybersecurity. The influence of the university students' former teachers cohered around five themes: (1) same program-different narratives, (2) in loco parentis, (3) counterstories, (4) learning in small moments, and (5) the importance of the liberal arts in STEM education. The students' narratives form instructive models for their siblings and other students pursuing STEM degrees/careers. Most importantly, the multiperspectival stories of experiences capture the far-reaching impact of “unsung teachers” whose long-term influence is greatly underestimated by the public.