Pedagogy of Scientist Formation

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Scientist education and the teaching of authentic research

By scientist education, I mean the explicit teaching and learning project of forming scientists. My research examines how authentic inquiry becomes teachable: how educators make scientific expectations visible, support learners’ judgment and ownership, and balance the demands of research with the responsibilities of education.

This program grew from my work as a chemistry and STEM research teacher in the Philippines. It now includes theory, collaborative research with Filipino teachers, and the design and study of teacher professional development.

Published work

My published work so far provides two central foundations for my research goals.

First, Explicating a Satisfying Definition of the Scientist asks what it means to be a scientist in the first place. The paper develops an account of scientists as people whose contributions are made answerable to the norms and judgment of scientific communities. My philosophical approach is abductive, with a particular interest in Robert Brandom’s flavor of inferentialism.

Second, A Pedagogical Reasoning Framework for Teaching and Mentoring STEM Research examines how Filipino research teachers reason while guiding open-ended student projects. The framework makes teachers’ judgment visible across the scientific and educational demands of authentic inquiry.

Dissertation research

My dissertation, Formalizing the Teaching of Scientists within STEM Teacher Education, develops this project through three connected questions:

What does it mean to become a scientist?
How do teachers reason while guiding authentic STEM research?
What preparation and professional support do research teachers need?

The dissertation treats the STEM research teacher as a professional role specifically as an educator. The role is defined by a responsibility for a learner’s research education, which shifts the focus away from research productivity or credentials. That means there must be an explicit attention to teacher practices, pedagogical reasoning, and humanizing approaches to the formation of scientists. I envision my research career around continued theoretical and empirical work in formalizing this pedagogy turn in scientist education.

Teacher professional learning

My current design and professional-development work includes:

Project PEARLS: Philippine Educators for Advancing Research Teaching in STEM, supported by the Tilaar Faculty Support Fund ($10,000). Valarie Akerson is Principal Investigator; I serve as Co-PI and led project design, proposal writing, coordination, and implementation in the Philippines.
The development and evaluation of a pilot online summer research-proposal workshop for secondary STEM teachers, supported by the Wayne Gross Memorial Fellowship ($3,500) and the Neartrour-McGlasson Fellowship ($4,000).

For Filipino schools and teachers interested in organizing research training, please email me at ledolino@iu.edu.

Questions I am taking forward

How do research teachers make decisions when scientific and educational demands pull in different directions?
What professional knowledge distinguishes teaching research from merely assigning it?
How can professional development help teachers work with disciplinary experts without giving up their educational judgment?
How do culture, community, and resource conditions change what good research teaching requires?

Teacher Education | Le Dolino

Pedagogy of Scientist Formation

Published work

Dissertation research

Teacher professional learning

Questions I am taking forward