Papers by Felicia Moore Mensah
Journal of Research in Science Teaching
Marginalized communities cannot and do not have decontextualized experiences with how socioscient... more Marginalized communities cannot and do not have decontextualized experiences with how socioscientific issues, such as exposure to COVID‐19 as frontline essential workers, high Black infant mortality rates, air pollution leading to respiratory problems, and other issues, affect their communities. As PreK‐12 science teachers and teacher educators strive to dismantle oppressive practices in their classrooms and curriculum, it would be helpful to learn from Black women science teachers who have been engaging in anti‐racist practices before the racial awakenings of Summer 2020. In this study, three different virtual focus groups, or Sista Circles, were conducted with 18 Black women secondary science teachers. Ranging from 1 to 22 years of experience, Black women teachers across the country and international participants in Canada and Qatar participated in the Sista Circles. From intersectional qualitative analysis and narrative inquiry, the findings of the study reveal that Black women s...
BCE Official Conference Proceedings
Diversity in Higher Education
Bulletin of the American Physical Society, Mar 15, 2017
This is an empirical study on the underrepresentation of people of color in scientific careers. G... more This is an empirical study on the underrepresentation of people of color in scientific careers. Grounded in critical race theory, the paper examines the lived experiences of six Black women physicists and addresses obstacles faced in their career paths and strategies used to overcome these obstacles. Data for this study were collected through semi-structured interviews and coded for emergent themes. The findings reveal that college recruitment and funding were fundamental for these women to choose physics over other STEM fields. In addition, Black women experience unique challenges of socialization in STEM, particularly by exclusion of study groups. We suggest physics departments provide a more inclusive environment to support Black women in science.
Handbook of Research on Science Teacher Education, 2022
Science Education, 2022
This comparative case study explored the ways two elementary Teachers of Color's science teac... more This comparative case study explored the ways two elementary Teachers of Color's science teacher identities and agency to teach science developed as they participated in a year‐long science professional development that was situated within the high‐stakes testing context of their school. The science professional development model used a dialogical approach that centered and built on the cultural backgrounds and personal experiences of the two teachers who were also coteachers in the same elementary classroom. Constructivist grounded theory and case study methods were used to analyze the three semistructured teacher interviews and four reflective teacher questionnaires collected from each teacher, as well as researcher fieldnotes. The findings showed that the Teachers of Color had different past experiences with science, and these experiences influenced the ways their social justice orientations, science teacher identities, and conceptions of science and science teaching were cha...
Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2017
This ethnographic case study follows two urban immigrant students in their yearlong journey in an... more This ethnographic case study follows two urban immigrant students in their yearlong journey in an urban science classroom where the first two pedagogic tools of reality pedagogy (cogenerative dialogue and co-teaching) were implemented. This study examines the role reality pedagogy plays in the science classroom for these two students, while focusing on their social capital and how distributed cognition is used to frame understanding. The three emergent themes that were generated and observed among the two participants indicated that the implementation of the first two tools of reality pedagogy increased the two immigrant students' participation within their science classroom, increased opportunities for voice in the classroom, and increased ability to access the human and physical resources of the classroom for the participants' own benefit. The study revealed that both students' social capital was impacted and the frame of distributed cognition played a role in their science classroom participation. Implications relate to the importance of developing community within science classrooms for immigrant students.
School Science and Mathematics, 2021
Journal of Science Teacher Education, 2018
In this exploratory study, we use Banks's typology on multicultural curriculum reform as 1 strate... more In this exploratory study, we use Banks's typology on multicultural curriculum reform as 1 strategy for developing multicultural, culturally relevant science teachers. Banks's typology discusses 4 approaches for integrating multicultural content into the school and university curriculum. In order to support the development of multicultural science teachers and multicultural science curricula, we were interested in knowing how preservice teachers (PSTs) and inservice teachers (ISTs) understand these ideas. We gathered comments across 2 different contexts: a graduate-level elementary science methods course in the northeastern United States and a graduate-level secondary science induction course in the Midwestern United States. Both groups participated in an interactive multicultural education PowerPoint lesson focused on culturally relevant teaching and Banks's 4 approaches. The lesson was taught face to face in the 1st setting and via Skype in the 2nd setting by the same science teacher educator. Our primary data sources were responses to 3 prompts made by the PSTs and ISTs during the lesson. We analyzed all responses qualitatively using methods of constructivist grounded theory. Findings indicated that both PSTs and ISTs initially understood multicultural science education as connecting to students' experiences and critiquing dominant cultures but rarely associated it with social action, the highest level of Banks's typology. We discuss implications in terms of making explicit connections to multicultural approaches in science teacher education.
Journal of Chemical Education, 2016
This communication summarizes one of the invited papers to the ConfChem online conference Interac... more This communication summarizes one of the invited papers to the ConfChem online conference Interactive Visualizations for Chemistry Teaching and Learning, held from May 8 to June 4, 2015 and hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education. In our ConfChem paper, we presented a mixed-methods analysis of multimodal problem-solving data to look for themes in problem-solving strategies. We discussed the trends that emerged in how participants represented and interacted with representations of stoichiometry problems. In particular, we focused on the findings that suggested a need for directed reflection on problem-solving strategy and conceptual understanding of conservation. We used multiple, individual assessments to investigate student interaction with chemistry representations which allowed us to identify trends in both conceptual understanding and viewing strategy. Of particular interest were instances where a participant shifted between use of conservation concepts or viewing strate...
Science Educator, 2015
AbstractTechMath is a professional development program that forms collaborations among businesses... more AbstractTechMath is a professional development program that forms collaborations among businesses, colleges, and schools for the purpose of promoting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. TechMath has provided strategies for creating high-quality professional development by bringing together teachers, students, and business partners to allow teachers to design Problem-Based Learning (PBL) modules. Teachers reported that their participation enhanced their understanding of business applications for mathematics and science instruction. Results from surveys, questionnaires, and focus group sessions prompted recommendations for researchers, administrators, and practitioners interested in preparing students for STEM careers.Keywords: mathematics education, problem-based learning; professional development; science education; STEMIntroductionAccording to employment projections, the fastest growing occupations are in the fields of computer technology, healthcare, ...
Cultural Studies of Science Education
EXPERIENCES OF SCIENCE EDUCATION GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE CRITICAL VOICES CLASSROOM Lauren Margar... more EXPERIENCES OF SCIENCE EDUCATION GRADUATE STUDENTS IN THE CRITICAL VOICES CLASSROOM Lauren Margaret Mangione Science teachers in the United States are not prepared to teach the students in their classrooms. Teachers are most often White females, while the children in their classrooms are from diverse backgrounds. Multicultural pedagogies exist, but teachers must be educated during their teacher preparation courses to understand their own relationship with race before they can enact such pedagogies in their classrooms. This qualitative study sought to examine the lived experiences of eight science education doctoral students in a course called Critical Voices in Teacher Education, through the qualitative method approach of transcendental phenomenology. The participants’ experiences were examined through three theoretical frameworks: transformative learning theory, White racial identity, and racial literacy. Interviews, field notes, and student reflections were used to collect data fo...
Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers
Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers
Springer International Handbooks of Education
Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2022
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Papers by Felicia Moore Mensah