Professional Development

The purpose of this project is the design and development of a K-12 classroom observation protocol for integrated STEM instruction (STEM-OP). Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the STEM-OP will be a valid and reliable instrument for use in a variety of educational contexts. The STEM-OP and associated training materials will be available for use by education stakeholders, (e.g., K-12 teachers and district administrators), through a publicly available online platform.

The goal of the project is to support mathematics coaches to (a) facilitate productive planning and debriefing conversations with teachers; (b) notice salient coaching practices and their impact on teachers' thinking; and (c) use evidence of teacher learning to make decisions about their own coaching practices. We engage coaches in a three-part professional development model that includes (a) an online course on content-focused coaching, (b) one-on-one video-based coaching cycles, and (c) an online video club.

The goal of the project is to support mathematics coaches to (a) facilitate productive planning and debriefing conversations with teachers; (b) notice salient coaching practices and their impact on teachers' thinking; and (c) use evidence of teacher learning to make decisions about their own coaching practices. We engage coaches in a three-part professional development model that includes (a) an online course on content-focused coaching, (b) one-on-one video-based coaching cycles, and (c) an online video club.

For the last three years, we have been creating an app called CHALK (Coaching to Help Activate Learning for Kids) that guides instructional coaches to collect observation data in PreK classrooms, view instant results, engage in data-driven coaching conversations, co-create an action plan with the teacher, and track progress over time through continued observations and goal-setting.  CHALK focuses on specific classroom practices that are predictive of students' gains (Christopher & Farran, 2020).

While new standards call for elementary students to learn engineering, many teachers do not receive any training in engineering and feel underprepared to teach it. Ed+gineering partners preservice teachers with engineering undergraduate students at three points during their respective preparation programs to develop and teach engineering lessons to elementary students. These three collaborations help engineering students develop interdisciplinary collaboration skills while helping preservice teachers develop the competence and confidence to integrate engineering.

To lower the barriers in STEM disciplines for students, using evidence-based research, we designed and conducted a professional development program that built middle school teachers' capacity to use hands-on robotics and engineering design as the curriculum focus. Through summer workshops, teachers learned to: build and program LEGO robots; create and implement standards-aligned robotics-based STEM lessons; and develop, practice, and examine optimal pedagogical approaches for STEM learning using robotics.
 

The Video in the Middle (VIM) project is creating forty asynchronous two-hour modules in which a video clip is at the center as teachers take part in an online experience involving mathematical problem solving, video analysis of classroom practice, and pedagogical reflection. A RCT study was conducted in February/March 2020 with 68 teachers randomly assigned across the three delivery formats Self-paced: 29, Locally facilitated: 19, VIM facilitated: 20) to examine the VIM PD impact.

Co-PI(s): Catherine Carroll and Bob Montgomery, WestEd