Associate Professor
TEd
Office: 205-B MCKB
Phone: 801-422-4803
Email: nope@rynixon@byu.edumsn.com
I teach future teachers how to teach science. I love helping teachers think about ways to engage students in thinking about important science concepts. By doing this, teachers can help students to understand the world around them and to see the world as a more amazing place.
In order to assist teachers in helping students reach these goals, I research teachers' science subject matter knowledge. I'm interested in the extent to which, and how, teachers learn the science concepts they teach through their teaching experience. I'm also interested in exploring ways of helping teachers develop their science subject matter knowledge as they teach, which includes exploring the impact of resources and curriculum. My work also focuses on how these issues intersect with challenges teachers face when teaching new subjects, whether from being assigned to teach a new grade level or being assigned to teach out-of-field.
NARST: A global organization for improving science education through research
2021 - Present
Association for Science Teacher Education
2017
Elementary Teacher Characteristics, Experiences, and Science Subject Matter Knowledge: Understanding the Relationships through Structural Equation Modeling
Pinning and planning: Five tips for using Pinterest to teach science
Accessed or latent resources? Exploring new secondary science teachers’ networks of resources
Elementary teachers’ science subject matter knowledge across the teacher career cycle
Prevalence and predictors of out-of-field teaching in the first five years
Secondary Science Teachers’ Subject Matter Knowledge Development Across the First 5 Years
Effects of subject-area degree and classroom experience on new chemistry teachers’ subject matter knowledge
Undergraduate student construction and interpretation of graphs in physics lab activities
Teaching chemistry with a biology degree: Crosscutting concepts as boundary objects
Teaching multiple modes of representation in middle school science classrooms: Impact on student learning and multimodal use
A comparison of TIMSS items using cognitive domains