Dr. Amy Ricketts

February 2025 Snapshot
Amy Ricketts teaching students in a classroom
Dr. Amy Ricketts introduces preservice elementary teachers to a pedagogical tool that they can use to plan for and reflect on student sensemaking in their lessons. In her research, Dr. Ricketts studies the ways that this tool supports their attention to student sensemaking.

Science Education Assistant Professor Dr. Amy Ricketts's research aims to impact the ways that science is taught at the elementary school level. Rather than the more common, "touching and telling" technique of hands-on learning, Dr. Ricketts focuses on an alternative "image of the possible" technique. Supporting a more minds-on approach that directly engages children in intellectual work, Dr. Ricketts's method uses sensemaking as a guide to aid children in creating a deeper understanding of what they are experiencing in class, as well as the world around them. 

In her work preparing future elementary school teachers, Dr. Ricketts uses devices like the NextGen Alliance for Science Educators Toolkit (ASET) and the ASET Science and Engineering Practice Tool to allow her students the opportunity to try out, with real kids, the things and techniques they are learning in their coursework. Her students then have the ability to reflect on their practice and identify areas of success in their instruction.

Learn more about Dr. Amy Ricketts and her work.

Amy Ricketts with graduate student Kathleen Westervelt
Dr. Ricketts and her student Kathleen Westervelt (M.S. in Science Education, CSULB) present Kathleen's master's thesis work "Exploring the Role of Idenity in Climate Change Learning" at the annual conference of the Association for Science Teacher Education.
Amy Ricketts with graduate student Tiffany Rasmussen
Dr. Ricketts and her student Tiffany Rasmussen (M.S. in Science Education, CSULB) co-present their work "Supporting Teachers in Modifying Curriculum to Enhance Student Sensemaking" at the annual conference of the Association for Science Teacher Education, drawing on Tiffany's Master's thesis work around modeling practices in a middle school chemistry unit.