Dr. Mandy Benedict-Chambers is an associate professor of elementary education. She began her teaching career in 2000 in a 6th grade classroom in Charlottesville, Virginia, and she continues to teach science to local elementary students as much as possible.
Her research focuses on pre-service and in-service elementary teacher learning. Specifically, she examines teacher "noticing" –how teachers attend to what students are thinking and doing during instruction, how they reason about what they see, and how they use these ways of noticing to make informed choices about how to proceed with a lesson. She is especially interested in understanding how tools and practice-based teacher education, including peer-teaching rehearsals, can help pre-service teachers learn to engage in and notice rigorous and equitable science teaching.
Details
Education
PhD, Educational Studies: Teaching and Teacher Education, 2014, University of Michigan
MA, Educational Studies: Curriculum Development, 2005, University of Michigan
BA, Elementary Education, 2000, Longwood University
Teaching
ELE 725 The Emerging Master Teacher
ELE 716 Advanced Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Science
ELE 771 Proposal Development
ELE 772 Research Seminar in Elementary Education
ELE 510 The Reflective Practitioner
ELE 434 Methods of Teaching Science in the Elementary School
ELE 410 Teaching and Learning in the Elementary Classroom
Professional experience
Affiliations
American Educational Research Association
National Association for Research in Science Teaching
National Science Teachers Association
Teacher Education Accreditation Council
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Research and professional interests
Elementary teacher education
Science teacher education
Articles
Benedict-Chambers, A. (in press). Using tools for noticing and responding to student sensemaking in rehearsal and classroom lesson reflections. In E. A. Davis, C. Zembal-Saul, & S. Kademian (Eds.), Supporting Teacher Learning for Sensemaking in Elementary Science. New York, NY: Routledge.
Benedict-Chambers, A. & Fortner, T., (in press). Asking Questions to Help Students Integrate Science Practices with Science Content Learning across a 5E Circuits Lesson. Science and Children.
Investigating and Enacting Culturally Sustaining, High-Leverage Practices across an Elementary Education Program: A Faculty Inquiry Group. 2017-present
Preservice Teachers’ Tool Use to Prepare for and Respond to Student Sensemaking in a Science Methods Course, 2017-2018
Collaborating Across Elementary Education Methods Courses to Use Video to Promote Teacher Candidates' Reflection of Instruction, Missouri State University, 2015-present
Pre-service Teachers Noticing Student Thinking in Science Teaching Rehearsals, Missouri State University, 2014