Developing and Validating Assessments to Measure and Build Elementary Teachers' Content Knowledge for Teaching About Matter and Its Interactions Within Teacher Education Settings (Collaborative Research: Mikeska)

The goals of the project include foundational research and development work related to the assessment of content knowledge for teaching (CKT) about matter and its interactions, as well as supporting the development of this CKT in teacher education settings. The project has four major goals including:

• Goal 1: Conduct foundational research to build theories and hypotheses about the nature and development of elementary teachers’ CKT about matter.
• Goal 2: Develop an instrument to examine the hypothesized dimensionality of the construct and evaluate the validity and reliability of the assessment instrument for summative use.
• Goal 3: Develop a set of instructional materials designed to support the formative use of CKT assessment tasks within teacher education settings.
• Goal 4: Create a set of descriptive cases that characterize the productive use of these materials within these settings to develop elementary teachers’ CKT about matter.