Jennifer Parrish

Contact Information

Education

• Ph.D. Middle Tennessee State University (Biology Education)
• M.A. University of Northern Colorado (Science Education)
• B.S.  Winthrop University (Biology)

Professional/Academic Experience

• Assistant Professor, University of Northern Colorado (2018 - Present)
• Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Northern Colorado (2017 - 2018)
• Biology and Science Education Graduate Teaching Assistant, Middle Tennessee State University (2013 - 2017)
• Science Teacher, Greeley-Evans District 6 (2003 - 2009) 
• Science Teacher, Union Colony Schools (2009 - 2012)

Research/Areas of Interest

My research focuses on developing and examining best practices in K-12 education teaching and learning. Topics I focus on are teachers’ epistemological understandings, including the nature of science (NOS), nature of scientific inquiry (SI), nature of engineering (NOE), and computational thinking. I aim to better understand what instructional strategies are most effective to help teachers develop expertise for epistemological understandings and pedagogical content knowledge for NOS, SI, NOE, and computational thinking. 

Publications/Creative Works

• Peters-Burton, E., Parrish, J., Mulvey, B. K. (2019). In Kostas Kampourakis (Ed.), Extending the Utility of the Views of Nature of Science Assessment through Epistemic Network Analysis (vol. 28, pp. 1027-1053). Science & Education.
• Mulvey, B. K., Parrish, J. C., Reid, J. W., Papa, J., Peters-Burton, E. (in press). Making Connections: Using Individual Epistemic Network Analysis to Extend the Value of Nature of Science Assessment. Science & Education.
• Parrish, J., Gardner, G. E., Smith-Walters, C., Mulvey, B. K. (2019). Using Exemplars to Improve Nature of Science Understanding. In William F. McComas (Ed.), Nature of Science in Science Instruction: Rationales and Strategies (pp. 359-376). Springer.. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57239-6
• Gardner, G. E., Parrish, J. (2018). Biology Graduate Teaching Assistants as Novice Educators: Are There Similarities in Teaching Ability and Practice Beliefs between Teaching Assistants and K-12 Teachers?. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education.
• Parrish, J., Gardner, G. E., Smith-Walters, C., Mulvey, B. K. (2019). Using Exemplars to Improve Nature of Science Understanding. In William F. McComas (Ed.), Nature of Science in Science Instruction: Rationales and Strategies (pp. 359-376). Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57239-6

Recent Research Presentations

• Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education Virtual Conference (2020)
• Association for Science Teacher Education International Conference (2020) San Antonio, TX
• Colorado Science Conference (2019) Denver, CO
• National Association for Research in Science Teaching Conference (2019) Baltimore, MD
• Association for Science Teacher Education International Conference (2019) Savannah, GA
• Colorado Science Conference (2018) Denver, CO
• National Association of Research in Science Teaching  Conference (2019) Atlanta, GA
• Association for Science Teacher Education International Conference (2018) Baltimore, MD
• National Association of Research in Science Teaching Conference (2018) San Antonio, TX
• Association for Science Teacher Education International Conference (2017) Des Moines, IA
• National Association of Biology Teachers Conference (2016) Denver, CO
• Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (2016) Porto, Portugal
• National Science Teacher Association Conference (2016) Nashville, TN