Student work products as a teaching tool for nature of science pedagogical knowledge: A professional development project with in-service secondary science teachers Erin Peters Burton Science Education and Educational Psychology, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MSN-4B3, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA highlights < Professional development was offered to develop teacher knowledge of NOS and PCK. < Significant improvement was found on several aspects of NOS knowledge. < Significant improvement was found on one aspect of attitudes toward teaching NOS. < Teachers mainly chose empirical and habits of mind to teach. article info Article history: Received 16 April 2012 Received in revised form 22 September 2012 Accepted 24 September 2012 Keywords: Nature of science Teacher professional development In-service teachers Self-regulated learning abstract The purpose was to examine NOS knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge about NOS of in- service secondary science teachers. Data sources included Views of Science and Education scale, lesson plans with rationales for choices, examples of student work products, videotapes of lesson peer reviews, and interviews conducted after the experience. Teachers scored significantly higher on several aspects of NOS knowledge and on one aspect of attitudes toward teaching NOS on the VOSE. Scaffolded NOS professional development with analysis of student work products resulted in NOS lessons that had a higher level of inquiry, and deliberate explicit and reflective instruction. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Components of the nature of science (NOS) have been a prom- inent feature of science education reform for many years and are encouraged to develop a fully scientifically literate citizenry (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993, 1998; House of Commons Science & Technology Committee, 2002; McComas & Olson, 1998; National Research Council, 1996). The nature of science has been defined as the inherent guidelines that scientists value which result in the construction of scientific knowledge (Lederman, 2007). Science education has generally accepted areas of NOS that are important for school-age students to understand. They can be categorized as (a) Scientific knowledge is empirically based. (b) Scientific knowledge is both reliable and tentative. (c) Scientific knowledge is the product of observation and inference. (d) Scientific knowledge is the product of creative thinking. (e) Scientific laws and theories are different kinds of knowledge. (f) Scientists use many methods to develop knowledge. (g) Scientific knowledge is subjective, to a degree. Teachers must know NOS in order to teach it, but teacher knowledge alone will not always result in effective science classrooms that incorporate ideas about science (Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Lederman, 1998; Bell, Lederman, & Abd-El-Khalick, 2000; Brickhouse, 1991; Hodson, 1993; Lederman, 2007). The acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge is also a factor in developing the skills to design learning environments that result in student knowledge about science (Schwartz & Lederman, 2002). Pedagog- ical content knowledge refers to the ways of representing and formulating subject matter so it is comprehensible to others (Shulman, 1986). Because pedagogical content knowledge requires the translation of subject matter to that it is intelligible to others, efforts to develop this type of knowledge should go beyond teacher knowledge to include the construction of the learning environment, and ultimately how students have interpreted these E-mail address: epeters1@gmu.edu. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate 0742-051X/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2012.09.005 Teaching and Teacher Education 29 (2013) 156e166