The purpose of the study was to investigate prospective early childhood teachers’ conceptions of teaching science, and thus identify their strategies for enabling their future pre-K to 3rd grade students’ construction of science content. For the purpose of this study, we subscribed to the view of conceptions of teaching as having dimensions and orientations reflecting two different models of learning, active learning and passive learning respectively. One hundred prospective early childhood teachers’ drawings and narratives of teaching science in early childhood classrooms were thematically analyzed to identify their conceptions of teaching science. Forty-six participants conceptualized demonstrations and teacher explanations as instructional strategies and as sources of science content knowledge to transmit defined bodies of science content knowledge to their students (passive learning). Fifty-four participants conceptualized experiments as student-based active learning environments that permitted students to think, discover, collaborate and construct their own science content knowledge and/or co-construct science content knowledge with teachers (active learning). The findings of the study provide a framework for focusing on how prospective early childhood teachers conceptualize science instruction for children in pre-K to 3rd grade classrooms and their strategies for helping their future early childhood learners in constructing science content. The study also calls for early childhood teacher education curricula to incorporate frameworks for understanding the practice of teaching within coursework early on in the early childhood teacher preparation program to enable prospective teachers to reflect on and document their prior knowledge of science instruction.

这项研究的目的是调查潜在的早期教师对教学科学的构想，从而确定他们的策略，以使他们将来的幼儿园至3年级学生学习科学内容。出于本研究的目的，我们赞成将教学概念视为具有维度和方向的观点，这些维度和方向分别反映了两种不同的学习模式：主动学习和被动学习。主题分析了一百名预期的幼儿教师在幼儿教室中的绘画和叙事，以识别他们的教学科学观念。46名参与者将示威和教师解释概念化，作为教学策略和科学内容知识的来源，以将定义的科学内容知识体系传播给学生（被动学习）。54名参与者将实验概念化为基于学生的主动学习环境，使学生能够思考，发现，协作和构建自己的科学内容知识和/或与教师共同构建科学内容知识（主动学习）。这项研究的结果提供了一个框架，重点关注准幼儿教师如何在幼儿园到三年级的教室中为儿童概念化科学教学，以及他们帮助未来的幼儿学习者构建科学内容的策略。