This project integrates the informal and formal science education sectors, bringing their combined resources to bear on the critical need for well-prepared and diverse urban science teachers. The study is designed to examine and document the effect of this integrated program on the production of urban science teachers. This study will also research the impact of internships in science centers on improving classroom science teaching in urban high schools.
Projects
This project is developing professional resources to help elementary teachers strengthen their students' writing skills, particularly writing in science notebooks. The proposed resources would include print and multi-media formats for teachers and handbooks for their professional development providers.
This project helps teachers learn to use NSDL resources in ways that meaningfully affect their practice in STEM content areas while increasing their skills as designers of learning activities. The objectives of this three-year project are to: design and implement a teacher development model and STEM content development model; contribute teacher-designed learning activities to NSDL; and use evaluation and research to measure impact on teaching.
This research project studies the impact of strategic integration of relevant math and science topics on grades 2 – 5 teachers' knowledge and beliefs, their classroom practice, and their students' understanding and beliefs. The proposal hypothesizes that the strategic integration will lead to more frequent and effective use of mathematics in science teaching and improved student outcomes.
This project proposes to create two books and a professional development manual about the roles and practice of writing-to-learn strategies in science classrooms. The books will emphasize the importance of purposeful writing as a learning tool. The first book will target K-6 teachers and the second will address the needs of 7-12 teachers.
This study investigates the impact of the wireless environment on high school science using a purposeful sampling of schools with high implementers. Five schools will be examined and extensive data in multiple forms will be collected on each. The project uses in-depth case studies to examine context factors and critical interactions that may influence science instructional practice in wireless high school science classrooms. The study will result in an evidence-based and theoretically-grounded professional development model.
This project focuses on scaling up the SimCalc project and emphasizes bridging mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) on proportional reasoning and argumentation as part of teachers' classroom practices. This project will test the hypothesis that professional development that helps to bridge content knowledge and classroom practice can effect positive teacher change and seeks to understand how this is accomplished.
This project studies the impact of emphasizing formative assessment strategies in concurrent undergraduate methods courses and STEM content courses on the subsequent teaching practices of these pre-service teachers and their students. The study focuses on future middle school STEM teachers. The mixed methods research design will examine the impact of the treatment on teachers' practices during their practicum and induction years and on the STEM achievement of their middle school students.
This project is designed to build resources for helping teachers learn mathematical content in ways usable for the work of teaching. Two practice-centered packages will be developed for use in the professional education of K-8 teachers of mathematics. The packages will be usable by the existing range of teacher developers. Each package will comprise selections of records of practice and resources for their use with teachers.
This project is performing a randomized and controlled study of the effectiveness of the Observing for Evidence of Learning (OEL) professional development model in increasing student learning of standards-based science curriculum for grades 6-8. OEL will employ an adaptation of the successful Japanese Lesson Study program, a highly structured school-based professional development program. The program is based on a successfully implemented Local Systemic Change program (MASE) in Las Vegas, NV.
This study examines a pre-service model for preparing minority students to teach upper elementary/middle level science. The treatment consists of (1) recruitment efforts by collaborating universities; (2) a pre-service science content course (3) internship in an after school program serving minority students; (4) field placements in minority-serving development schools; and (5) mentoring during the induction year.
The website includes an innovative qualitative methodology using drawings as data and offers lesson plans and an action research guide for teachers.
This study brings together researchers from education, psychology and the sciences and scholar-practitioners to examine the factors that can be addressed in the preparation of both pre-service and in-service teachers to guide elementary children in exploratory and inquiry-based science lessons. The goal is to develop models that describe the interconnections among key constructs in order to reexamine the content of elementary science methods courses, mentoring for early career teachers, professional development opportunities and coaching.
This project is designed to enhance understanding of how online professional development environments contribute to teach learning, changes in classroom practice and changes in student learning in comparison to face-to-face professional development. Using secondary school teachers learning to use a reformed-oriented environmental science curriculum, groups of teachers will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) traditional face-to-face workshop, (2)self-guided online professional development, or (3)online “short course” professional development guided by a facilitator.
This project produced and is testing a website with tools to help teachers identify when students’ science learning may be limited by how they construe the underlying causal structure of the concepts. It demonstrates students’ difficulties and a pedagogical approach to help them recast their explanations to align them with the causal structure in the scientifically accepted explanations. The site focuses on middle school with in-depth examples in density and ecosystems.
This project is creating a system of online and face-to-face support services to strengthen the teaching and learning of Algebra II. The resources will make use of technology, will differentiate support for teachers in various stages of their careers and will aim to serve teachers of under-achieving populations of students. Support will be provided for four critical aspects of a teacher's work: Instructional planning, instructional delivery, instructional outcomes assessment and professional capacity development.
This study examines changes in preservice and inservice K-8 teachers' understandings of science and pedagogy across a reform-based Professional Development Continuum. It researches how teachers' knowledge develops across inquiry learning experiences and how undergraduate learning experiences and the contexts of classroom practice shape new teachers' understandings and practice. The study is expected to inform models of STEM teacher education that account for the interwoven intellectual and personal dimensions of the challenging transition to inquiry-based teaching.
The project provides a detailed research plan to build on a university-based mentor model to design school-based approaches. It addresses two challenges of implementing professional development: a) transitioning professional development to schools and b)assessing its effects on teacher and student learning. It is common for curricula to be introduced to teachers through university-based professional development programs, but its transition to schools requires careful planning, monitoring and support from the university at the initial stages.
This project is producing two professional development modules for middle school science teachers, one on Force and Motion (emphasizing teaching English learners) and the second on Energy and Chemical Change (emphasizing the integration of literacy). Guides for staff developers will accompany the resources.
This project investigates the longitudinal impact of science teacher education programs on middle and secondary science teachers and their students across critical developmental stages of the teacher professional continuum. The research generates information on how individuals develop pedagogical and content knowledge in science throughout their preservice program and professional careers, and how their needs evolve. The study is identifying the linkages between science teachers' beliefs and practices and how they impact student achievement scores.
This research study focuses on the impact of different teacher preparation and induction models, as well as on the quality and persistence of secondary science teachers. Combining the strengths of case-based research with a quasi-experimental design this study will follow 120 secondary science teachers for three years from four different and well characterized preservice - induction programs.
This project will use a systems approach to link educational research with policy development to lead to the development of an articulated and coherent system of continuous professional career development that improves the quality of science teaching and makes significant contributions to reducing the current national shortage of qualified high school science teachers.
This project seeks to map a trajectory for the evolution of elementary school mathematics teachers engaged in sustained professional development. The goal of the project is to identify and understand the evolution of elementary school mathematics teachers' changing perspectives and needs as they participate in professional development. Drawing from a pool of more than 500 teachers, the sample includes 120 elementary school mathematics teachers engaged in sustained professional development for different lengths of time.
This project is based on the assumption that teachers often make modifications to curriculum; reordering, skipping or adding lessons, changing an "exploration" into a lecture, and so on. This project pursues three related questions: What types of modifications do teachers make (and why), which types of modifications best help students learn, and how do teachers' modifications change in response to professional development activities designed to help them become more attuned to students' thinking?
The primary goal of the project is to enhance secondary mathematics teacher education for pre-service teachers by developing, implementing and disseminating resources from a four-course curriculum that brings together the study of mathematics content and pedagogy. Three of the courses are problem-based technology enhanced (PBTE) courses in Algebra and Calculus, Geometry, and Probability and Statistics. A fourth course is a capstone course in Teaching and Learning Secondary School Mathematics.
This project is developing lessons to engage students in grades 1-5 in engineering activities integrated with their science lessons. The project addresses the need to develop a broad understanding of what engineers do and the uses and implications of the technologies they create. The goals of the project are to increase the technological literacy of the students and to increase elementary teacher’s understanding of technology and engineering, to enable them to teach these subjects.