Kathleen Roth

Professional Title
Senior Science Educator
Organization/Institution
About Me (Bio)
Kathleen Roth is Senior Science Educator at the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) in Colorado Springs, CO. Her current research and development work focuses on videocase-based lesson analysis to support preservice and inservice teacher learning. This work examines impact on student learning as well as teacher learning and thus makes an important contribution to the field’s understanding of science teacher professional development that makes a difference in terms of student learning. An example of this type of work is the NSF-funded project, Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA). This scale-up study aims to confirm earlier findings that student learning improved when teachers’ professional development experiences included examination of videocases of science teaching that deepened their content and pedagogical content knowledge and improved their teaching practice.

Dr. Roth received her PhD in Science Education from Michigan State University (MSU), a master’s degree in secondary science teaching from Johns Hopkins University, and an undergraduate degree in Biology from Duke University. Her career in education includes seven years as a middle and high school science teacher followed by fifteen years as a teacher educator and researcher at Michigan State University, and 10 years as a researcher at and then director of LessonLab Research Institute (Santa Monica, CA). She has been at BSCS since 2009.

Much of Dr. Roth’s research while at MSU occurred in her role as a teacher-researcher, where she taught elementary school science and studied her own practice and her students’ learning. While Director of the LessonLab Research Institute, her research examined science teaching in other teachers’ classrooms, starting with the international TIMSS Video Study of Eighth-Grade Science Teaching and followed by three additional studies: the Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis project (STeLLA), the Videocases for Science Teaching Analysis project (ViSTA), and the Tying Words to Images of Science Teaching project (TWIST). The use of videocases is central in each of these projects, sometimes as a strategy to support preservice or inservice teacher learning and sometimes as a research tool.


BSCS
09/01/2009

This is a full research and development project addressing challenge question: How can promising innovations be successfully implemented, sustained, and scaled in schools and districts? The promising innovation is the Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) professional development (PD) program, which supports 4th- and 5th-grade teachers in teaching concepts in biology (food webs), physical science (phase changes), and earth science (earth’s changing surface, weather).

BSCS
08/01/2009

This project will develop video-case modules for use in pre-service teacher preparation programs. Modules will target specific grade bands (K-3, 4-5, 6-8) and address standards-based content domains, to help future teachers deepen their content knowledge, pedagogic skills and ability to analyze student thinking. The cases will illustrate reform classroom practices and more traditional instruction, include interviews with teachers and students, and incorporate a set of analytic tasks that promote users' critical observations of the cases.

LessonLab, Inc.
05/01/2004

This project develops video-case modules for use in pre-service teacher preparation programs. Modules target specific grade bands (K-3, 4-5, 6-8) and address standards-based content domains, to help future teachers deepen their content knowledge, pedagogic skills and ability to analyze student thinking. The cases illustrate reform classroom practices and more traditional instruction, include interviews with teachers and students, and incorporate a set of analytic tasks that promote users' critical observations of the cases.

BSCS
08/01/2012

The new ViSTA Plus study explores implementation of a program for pre-service/beginning teachers that is fully centered on learning from an analysis-of-practice perspective, addressing the central research question of "What is the value of a videocase-based, analysis-of-practice approach to elementary science teacher preparation?" The project is producing science-specific, analysis-of-practice materials to support the professional development of teacher educators and professional development leaders using the ViSTA Plus program at universities and in district-based induction programs.