CSULB Welcomes a New Science Educator

The Science Education Department is pleased to introduce its newest faculty member to our Science Education family - Dr. Dave Nickles. We've asked him to introduce himself to you.

It is a great pleasure to be a new member of the faculty at CSULB. I look forward to learning the ropes here as an advisor to the Single Subject Credential Program and instructor in this prestigious Department of Science Education.

Prior to coming to CSULB I was an Assistant Professor in Teacher Education and the Elementary Science Education Specialist at CSU East Bay. My primary responsibilities there were to re-design the science methods curriculum - Science, Health, and Safety in the Elementary School - for multiple subject credential candidates and to serve as a Team Leader for one of their many cohorts. I also just finished co-authoring Health, Science and Safety in the Elementary School, a supplemental text intended to support the health/safety portion of that course.

While I have been an educator for more than 25 years, teaching came into my life after having had other "working lives". Writing more or less chronologically, my story goes something like this.

In the late 1970's, while pursuing a degree at the University of Illinois, I was asked to be a TA for one of my professors during the Forestry Summer Camp in Minnesota and I enjoyed that experience so much that, as a UC Berkeley graduate student the next year, I became an instructor for a Forestry class. In 1980 I decided to see what teaching in the "real world" was like so I took CBEST and substitute taught under an emergency credential in the Oakland Unified School District. Based on that experience and a subsequent three years teaching, sans credential, in a private high school, I now strongly encourage my credential candidates to COMPLETE THEIR CREDENTIALS if at all possible before taking that first teaching job! Even before I earned my single subject teaching credential from CSU East Bay (Hayward) it became clear that there was so much more to teaching than the "stand and deliver" approach I had been emulating. Consequently, I began seeking out professional development to enhance my understanding of pedagogy by participating in the San Francisco Exploratorium Summer Teacher Institute, the Lawrence Hall of Science GEMS and CEPUP programs, and the initial Bay Area Science Project. These experiences supported my emerging belief that shifting away from a teacher centered class and engaging students in science by being a "guide on the side" was potentially more effective that being that "sage on the stage."

After teaching both science and math in all K-12 grades during a seven year period, working in underserved schools in Pittsburg and Oakland California, and serving as a District science mentor in Pittsburg, I became the Science/Mathematics Coordinator for both the Contra Costa County Office of Education and the Monterey County Office of Education. In this administrative role I organized a dedicated group of science and math teachers to form the Contra Costa County Association of Science and Math Educators (C3ASME), made numerous presentations about teaching science and math to my teaching colleagues at local, state, and national meetings, collaborated on writing several grants (some were even funded!), worked closely with school/district administrators to understand the implications of teaching based on the juxtaposition of the California Curriculum Frameworks and the National Standards for science and math and also began a fruitful relationship with the California Science Implementation Network.

During an all-to-brief two year stint as a WestEd Research Associate when I coordinated several programs that identified and supported the implementation of exemplary curricula, advised the Nevada Department of Education on development of its state science standards, and supported the efforts of the Far West Eisenhower Regional Consortium to engage educators across the region in examining educational efforts, I made a decision to continue my formal education and accepted a teaching fellowship at The Pennsylvania State University, where I earned a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction in Science in 1999. As I worked on my doctorate I also consulted on the development of the Utah State Elementary Science Curriculum, served as the K-12 Outreach Coordinator for NSF funded MASTEP (Math And Science Teacher Education Program), was a lecturer at San Francisco State University and advisor to the Future Teachers Club there, and began teaching science methods courses for CSU Monterey Bay (No wonder it took 3.5 years complete my doctorate!).

My varied experiences include presenting numerous workshops to teachers in California and Nevada, making several national and international research presentations to the National Science Teachers Association Annual Conferences, National Association for Research in Science Teaching, the First International Evaluation Conference (Vancouver, B.C. 1995), the 5th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science (Como, Italy 1999), and the American Educational Research Association Annual Conferences in 1998 and 2004.

I have also been privileged to serve as an external evaluator for the UC Irvine STS (Science, Technology, and Society) Program from 1991-1993 and on numerous Boards, including the Executive Committee of the Science Education Academy of the Bay Area (SEABA), S.E.A. Lab Monterey Bay, CSTA as affiliate rep while twice president of C3ASME and, more recently, as president of the CSUEB Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa.

This past August I implemented a grant I wrote by holding a 5 day summer institute for teachers in grades 4 and 5 in the Hayward (CA) USD designed to promote sound pedagogy that would assist teachers in those grades in preparing their students for the 5th grade STAR test.

So, I am a guy who, after working as a machinist, laborer, bank manager (among other things) in Peoria IL for about half my life, decided to become a forest ranger and, in pursuing that career, took an undergraduate degree is in Forest Science from the University of Illinois in 1979. I went on to earn a Master of Science degree in Education and both the teaching and administrative credentials from CSUEB (the '80's) and, finally (according to my wife of 35 years), found my niche as a teacher and, most recently, a university professor and budding researcher with work published in the Journal of General Education in 2003. While that article had to do with the effect on shifting University freshmen learning identities by designing a curriculum in which they systematically examined their learning styles, my current research interest centers around applications of constructivist learning theory in pre-service science developed through conceptual change pedagogy and how implementing this approach during teacher preparation facilitates changes in prospective teacher beliefs (and perhaps practices) toward teaching science K-12.

"And now for something completely different."

I've been teaching for a long, long time
To help you uncover the puzzles of teaching is the nature of my game.
Pleased to meet you, teaching will be your claim to fame!
Woo, who.