Inquiry Oasis Season 3: Patricia Moreira

In this episode of the "Inquiry Oasis" podcast, Dean Regina Deil-Amen speaks with Dr. Patricia Moreira, an assistant professor in the University of Arizona's College of Education. Dr. Moreira, a former science teacher from Chile, discusses her research on how students' reasoning in science becomes visible and how this understanding can be applied to improve teaching. She explains her passion for teaching, understanding, and application, and how her work supports pre-service and in-service teachers, helping them make better pedagogical decisions through formative assessment. The conversation also touches on the value of international collaborations and the importance of investing in educational research to understand and support the learning process.

Mentioned in this episode as Dr. Moreira's recommended reading is Tina A. Grotzer's book Learning Causality in a Complex World: Understandings of Consequence.

Transcript

Jeffrey Anthony: 

Welcome to the Inquiry Oasis, the University of Arizona College of Education's podcast, here in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. We bring you conversations with our esteemed faculty members and staff whose research impacts lives from Southern Arizona to the far reaches of the globe. We explore the transformative power of education in this border town where diverse cultures and ideas converge, weaving a tapestry of innovation with compassion and a sense of wonder. So, join us as we journey through the sands of curiosity, unearthing insights that enrich and inspire. Sit back and relax. As we invite you to dive into the inquiry oasis.

Dean Deil-Amen:

I am Dean Regina Deil-Amen, and I'm here today with my guest, Dr. Patricia Moreira, who is an assistant professor in the teaching, learning and sociocultural studies department in our University of Arizona College of Education.

She started her career as a science teacher and later received her PhD in Science of Education. Dr. Moreira's experience as a science teacher contributed to her interest in finding ways to better understand and support students' learning process in science, focusing her research on making students reasoning visible when they face tasks related to predicting, arguing, and building explanations, especially in chemistry and physics.

Her research explores how classroom interactions shape students' reasoning and understanding of phenomena, especially in bilingual learning environments. Her work informs teacher training programs for those preparing to be teachers in our schools. Good morning. 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Good morning, Dean Regina, thank you so much for the invitation and for creating this space for us to share a little bit about our research. Thank you so much. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

Okay, wonderful. I'll start by asking you to share three words that you think represent why you are so passionate about what you do. 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

My first word is teaching. The second one, understanding and application. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

Can you give a little explanation of each? 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Sure. So teaching is how everything started for me. I am a science and chemistry teacher from Chile, like you mentioned in the introduction, and I really enjoy the part of like planning and teaching my lessons and to connect that with the understanding is that my focus is helping students in their classroom in the science lessons to understand the world around them.

And that's why the connection with the reasoning. And also the application, because we don't want that knowledge just to stay in their minds. We want them to understand what is happening around them and make decisions informed based on their scientific understanding, but also their experiences. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

I love how applied your research is. Can you backtrack a little bit and tell us a little bit more about who you are, what your role is in the college, and the general focus of your research more recently?

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

I have experience as a science and chemistry teacher in middle school and high school in Chile. And I was always thinking about how can I improve my teaching practices? How can I help students? So, I wanted to get a stronger content knowledge. So, I completed my master in chemistry and then I felt like I, I feel like I need something, something more, right? And so, I completed my PhD because my goal was to support pre-service teachers for teaching science. 

So that's how I get to develop my research in science education in counsel reasoning, and also some research in collaboration with other great researchers about teacher preparation programs. So I, when I got to the U of A, I had the great opportunity also to participate in a project. Where we were working with instructors at the U of A supporting the implementation of formative assessment with the support of an instructional team.

So that allowed me to understand even more teaching practices at the college level. And currently I am part of the teaching, learning and social cultural studies department at the College of Education, where we work with the elementary education program, especially with the bilingual cohort also, and I teach the science method courses and also for graduate students, qualitative methods in education.

And recently I taught a class about formative assessment in STEM education. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

You mentioned that your research is directed toward pre-service teachers, and those are undergraduate students who are preparing to be teachers in our schools. Can you talk a little bit more about the broader community and why this research is so valuable for our community and our communities that we serve in general?

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Well, as you mentioned, is focused on pre-service teachers, but also instructors and in-service teachers. Uh, K through 12. If we think about why this research is relevant, I will say all of us at some point or maybe many, many times during the day, we are connecting concepts. We are trying to explain things and making causal connections, so if we can understand better or enhance our understanding about how counsel reasoning works, then we can better support students in the classroom and they can build.

Explanations that are connecting their scientific knowledge with experiences around them. And that can translate when they are in members of the society, right? And they need to make decisions that may impact other people, may impact the environment. So, I think it's really, really important not only for the classroom environment is also on a society level, to understand how the different type of counsel reasoning work.

Connections work and how that also can open great opportunities to enhance our understanding, but also sometimes can constrain the way that we understand things. And that is when we have this connection with the misconceptions or alternative ideas. And that is also the connection that I'm trying to make now with formative assessment where if we can understand the type of reasoning that our students are using.

So, when you have a better understanding of the student's ideas and their reasoning as a teacher, you can respond better and provide opportunities that really fit with that need that you are noticing there and plan for your next lesson or in the moment, make changes that can help them to achieve those learning goals in that case, in the class.

Dean Deil-Amen:

I love the fact that your research is really speaking to a need we have in our schools, and that's a strong need for high quality. Math and science teachers, you know, there's somewhat of a shortage there and, and your research is helping us to prepare students to be better science teachers, you know, in particular. Um, so I think that's, that's so important. Uh, what do you think has been the most surprising outcome of your research? 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Um, that's a great question. It, I think it, it was surprising to see the variety of responses that you can get to the same question in the classroom. We found that students can use different type of reasonings from more descriptive to more counsel when explaining phenomena so they can develop in, in those moments, very com counsel, um, complex connections. But those are not always aligned with the scientific theories. 

We also found that it's wonderful to see that at different educational levels, they can use abstract components to explain phenomena. And this is really important for science because in science we use a lot of models and having these type of reasonings helps them to really understand how science works.

In another aspect, like maybe more in the teaching aspect, I will say that it was surprising to see how much of our discourse as teachers influence students' explanations. Uh, we found out that teacher discourse in the classroom really shapes the way that students connect the ideas. And I will say that all these findings are really, really important for teacher education programs, but also for professional development programs because if we continue studying the reasoning behind the explanations, and also how to scaffold those explanations, and we can communicate that to teachers and future teachers. It really will help students to have these wonderful explanations and understand their environment around them. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

It seems to me that your former experience as a teacher is really informing your value of student-centered approaches, not just to teaching, but to research. I know you've been a part of collaborations on funded research projects. Can you talk a little bit more about those projects and the value of having that funding in order to collaborate across national borders? 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

So, yeah, I've had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Chilean researchers in different projects. One of them was about learning progressions in chemistry education, where we were identifying main models in chemistry that we are looking for to develop with the students across K 12. Another project helped us to understand students' explanations about earthquakes and tsunamis, and with students that were living in risk zones for earthquakes and tsunamis.

So how they were connecting their experiences with these natural phenomena and their scientific understanding. So all these opportunities have been like really interesting in the way that we can contribute to teacher preparation programs and also for professional development for in-service teachers.

So I really think that having that support in research international and national research in these topics in science, education, and all across education, you know, it's really important for us as researchers to keep developing these ideas and contribute with our fundings. To enhance a science education in K 12 and also at college level.

Dean Deil-Amen:

If there was one thing that you would say to those who wonder about the value and really the necessity of research about education or about learning, what would you say to them? 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

I will say that we all go through different learning opportunities across our lives. We go to elementary school, to middle school, and high school.

Some people decide to go to higher education, right, in different levels of higher education. And we want to better understand how learning and teaching happens, how that takes place in the classroom and also outside of the classroom. So we can provide better tools with that better and with that understanding and support instructors at college level support teachers and pre-service teachers to plan their lessons, really thinking about what their students need. 

And so I think education is a really, really essential piece in our society, and it's really important to invest in research that can help us to understand and support that side.

Dean Deil-Amen:

That's all right. Excellent. You know, you mentioned earlier assessment, you mentioned formative assessment. Can you explain for our audience a little bit more about what assessment happens in these spaces and what is formative assessment as opposed to other types of assessment? 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Sure. So, when I started my research, I was focused on understanding students' reasoning. But then after you have a little bit more of knowledge in that part, you think about like, okay, how can I communicate this to teachers so they can scaffold these reasonings in their classroom? And that's when I connected this with formative assessment. Because formative assessment has different steps.

So one of them is designing tasks that allows you to elicit a student thinking so it's visible for you to make interpretations. So, and those interpretations is based on what you notice in the responses. So really helping teachers to notice specific things and notice student thinking in the responses helps them to make interpretations about why they go to this idea and maybe is closer, farther from my ideal answer for this, uh, task, right?

And so when you are making interpretations that go farther, that just say like they are right or wrong, you're really thinking about what can I do next to support learning? And that's where the acting part of formative assessment, uh, takes place because it's really important to make pedagogical decisions based on what is happening in your classroom.

And so when you are reading that in your classroom, which is not an easy task, right? That's why we need to, we need different or several opportunities during teacher preparation programs and during your teaching experience as well to practice this and elicit a student thinking. And then think about if your task is connected with your ideal answer and with the learning goals and all those pieces that we put together when we are planning our lessons as teachers.

So, the difference of formative assessment with other types of, of assessment is that allows me in the informal, um, sense of formative assessment to make decisions in the classroom when I notice something that is happening. Maybe my instructions were not clear or maybe I need to support this part because there is one idea that is not yet there in their responses, right? So allows me to read what is happening in my classroom and make quick decisions to support students. But also I can use the information that I gather at the end of the lesson, right? Or, or in my reflection process as a teacher. Like, okay, this went well. Or maybe I can change the solar things and I'll do it for next lesson.

So it's really about having that reflection in how can I improve my teaching practice to support students? 

Dean Deil-Amen:

So it sounds, it sounds to me like. Your research really helps teachers be more effective in the moment as they're teaching and also as they reflect on their teaching. So the next time they go into the classroom in front of students, they can be more effective as teachers and it’s interesting, and I really support the idea that you are focused on the learning process. I think a lot of times in schools we're focused on the outcome, we're focused on the content. Have they mastered, have the students mastered the content? Can they pass the test? Right. That's not really possible without better, uh, without teachers being better equipped to address the learning process, right? And so I see how valuable your, your research is in getting us to that place. 

Okay, one of my last questions is to ask you what has informed your thinking? You know, what would be one book or paper or article that has been meaningful to you that you would recommend to our audience about the value and impact of that piece?

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Mm-hmm. Since I started my PhD there like several papers, right, that we can, we can mention here. But I will, I'm just goning mention one book that for me, when I read this book, it was really, really interesting because it helped me to understand the different type of counsel reasoning with examples also in how we are using these causal reasonings from early ages.

And also it, it provides a strategies. To develop causal reasoning in the classroom, and this book is called Learning Causality in a Complex World: Understandings of Consequence by Tina A. Grotzer. And I think it's a really, really interesting book for someone that is maybe, um, interested in learning about counsel reasoning, like with simple examples like how we are using counsel reasoning in like any situation that happened around you, how babies are using counsel reasoning and how elementary students use counsel reasoning.

Just like, for example, when a baby cries and they know that every time they cry, someone is coming too, you know? To help them. So, with those little examples, like really simple, you can understand how different type of causality work. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

Right. And causality is happening every day. All around us. 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Yes. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

In every moment, right?

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Yeah. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

And so, the title of that book may be not, may not be very enticing, but the way you describe it is very enticing in terms of really understanding how we operate day to day and how relevant that is in classroom learning. 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Mm-hmm. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

All right. Is there anything else you'd like to share with regard to your experience here? Uh, I'm particularly curious about coming from another country right to our space here and in Arizona. The benefit of experiencing those different national contexts is that you have an outsider perspective when you first come and when you first experience our schools and the way we do education, the way we do research.

Is there anything you'd like to add about what you experienced and what you learned going through that process and transitioning here? 

Dr. Patricia Moreira:

Uh, sure. So. It's been an interesting experience to, you know, move from another country, uh, and learn about the dynamics in the school system, but also at the university level. Every university is different, but also this university in another country, in my, in my case, right? So, learning about all those dynamics that involve like cultural aspects within the institutions, but also cultural aspect and in that, uh, society level also. So, it's been really interesting to learn how everything works and to learn about, for example, when I visit the bilingual classrooms in elementary school, I really value the work of teachers.

Promoting and like teaching, uh, the development of like bilingual education and allowing students to express in the language that they will feel more confident to express their ideas. Because connecting with also with my research is really, really important to have access to different ways to communicate what you're thinking.

And have that multimodal component there really help in this case when I visit these classrooms here to allow students to express their ideas in a drawing and just by verbally communicating or maybe writing something so they can complement all those aspects. And I really appreciate having the opportunity to observe that here in the classrooms that I've been teaching and also I've been developing research. 

Dean Deil-Amen:

Well, I have certainly learned quite a lot just talking with you and learning more about your intellectual work and, and your research. And I hope those listening. Have learned a great deal as well during this episode of Inquiry Oasis.