Peters, Erin
PhD, George Mason University
Assistant Professor
George Mason University, Fairfax Campus
Robinson Hall A 354
4400 University Dr.
MS 4B3
Fairfax, VA 22030
Curriculum Vitae
Profile
Dr. Peters' experience as an engineer and a secondary science teacher for 15 years helps her relate research to practice in science and engineering education. She has won several state and national awards for her work in secondary science education and holds a National Board Certification in Early Adolescent Science. In 2005, Dr. Peters was selected as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow for the NASA where she advised the agency in their development of curriculum for teachers across the United States. Her work at NASA led her to be chosen as a member of the committee developing the first K-12 National Engineering Standards.
In addition to her work with science education in Virginia and nationally, she spends time doing classroom research in developing student scientific epistemologies. Her work has shown promise in demonstrating a connection between content knowledge and nature of science knowledge. She continues to develop research projects that investigate ways that students and teachers can not only learn scientific knowledge but also learn how scientific knowledge is developed and validated.
Research Interests
Dr. Peters' research agenda is based in social justice and she pursues projects that help students who feel excluded in science classes become more aware of the scientific enterprise and how scientific knowledge is generated. She is interested in the nexus of the nature of science, science teacher pedagogical content knowledge, and educational psychology.
She has been researching interventions that explictly teach science as a way of knowing, utilizing metacognitive prompts set in a self-regulatory delivery system and teacher implementation of such methods. Her research work examines the decisions students make when engaged in scientific inquiry and open-ended questioning, and how these decisions compare to decisions that scientists make in their work. She also works with pre-service and in-service teachers to learn more about how they might incorporate the nature of science more effectively into instruction. She is interested in developing student and teacher views of science as a way of knowing because it could help students who previously has not considered themselves "science-minded" think more deeply about science and perhaps consider scientific research as a career. Additionally, Dr. Peters conducts research exploring cognition of scientific knowledge in different groups such as scientists, teachers, and students as well as cognition of scientific inquiry in game design.
Recent Publications
Peters, E. E. (in press). Shifting to a Student-Centered Science Classroom: An Exploration of Teacher and Student Changes in Perceptions and Practices. Journal of Science Teacher Education.
Peters, E. E. & Kitsantas, A. (in press). The effect of nature of science metacognitive prompts on science students’ content and nature of science knowledge, metacognition, and self-regulatory efficacy. Journal of School Science and Math.
Peters, E. E. (2009). Thinking like scientists: Using metacognitive prompts to develop nature of science knowledge. Saarbrücken, Germany: Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG Publishers.
Peters, E. E. & Sterling, D. R. (2008). The periodic table as a tool for teaching the nature of science. The Science Education Review, 7 (1), 1-8.
Samsonovich, A. V., de Jong, K. A., Kitsantas, A., Peters, E. E., Dabbagh, N., Kalbfleisch, M. L.(2008).Cognitive constructor: An intelligent tutoring system based on a biologically inspired cognitive architecture (BICA). InP. Wang, B. Goertzel, & S. Franklin (Eds.),Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications (pp. 311-325). IOS Books Online.
Peters, E. E. (2008). Building student mental constructs in particle theory. In E. Brunsell (Ed.),Readings in science methods, K-8 (pp. 373-377). Washington: NSTA Press.
Peters, E. E. (2008). Assessing inquiry. In E. Brunsell (Ed.),Readings in science methods, K-8 (pp. 165-175). Washington: NSTA Press.
Peters, E. E. (2008). Assessing scientific inquiry. Science Scope, 31 (5), 27-33.
Peters, E. E. (2008). Validating assessment: Teacher study groups. Science Scope, 31 (5), 48-50.
Peters, E. E. (2007). Frugal Equipment Substitutions: A Quick Guide. Science Scope, 30 (6), 64-65.
Brazer, S. D. & Peters, E. E. (2007). Deciding to Change: One District’s Quest to Improve Overall Student Performance. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership 2(5), 1-14.
Peters, E. E. (2006). Why is teaching the nature of science important? Journal of Science Education in Virginia, 1(1), 55-58.
Peters, E. E. & Johnson, T. (2006). Thriving in the Co-Taught Classroom. Science Scope, 30 (4), 56-58.
Peters, E. E. (2006). Building student mental constructs in particle theory. Science Scope, 30 (2), 53-55.
Peters, E. E. (2006). Connecting inquiry and the nature of science. The Science Education Review, 5 (2), 37-44.
Peters, E. E. (2006). Write it, Do it. Science Scope 29 (7), 11-13.