Student & Alumni Profiles

Chunhua Liu

My undergraduate studies were in physics, and then I taught physics in middle school and high school for six years in China. After that, I did some comparative research on Chinese and foreign teaching materials in science education and provided academic training and curriculum support for bilingual physics teachers who are teaching O-level & A-level Curriculum introduced from England.

Now I am studying science education in MSTE program. I am focusing on understanding the nature and the development of science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge from a new perspective. My view of pedagogical content knowledge emerged from my understanding of the nature of teaching and learning science. To understand the nature of teaching and learning science, I emphasize the information that the teacher convey to students consciously or unconsciously and its effect on students’ thinking. The reason why I want to look at the nature of teaching and learning in this way was inspired by a physical phenomenon---Looking through a pinhole. From my own teaching experience, I found looking through a pinhole would be a good metaphor that can help us to understand science teaching. I will explore the nature of science teaching and learning and investigate teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge from this perspective. I hope my work is related to possibilities for science teachers’ professional development and science teacher preparation programs.

This program offers students opportunities to involve in research projects. I have participated in the Fulcrum Institute Research Team from my first school year. People working in this team are the experts in different fields. We design the interesting experiments to probe students’ ideas and help students understand concepts better. We also film and analyze classroom teaching in school and student interviews. The experience in the research team not only opened a window that allowed me to observe what a real science education research is, but also facilitated my own research from various aspects. The study in MSTE program enables me to learn knowledge and develop skills as well as to stimulate me to produce and explicitly express my own ideas in science education.