Essential Aspects of Science Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

A quiet revolution is occurring in the learning goals that scientists and science educators have set for students. Scientific literacy, an ambiguously defined construct, has given way to the goal of students becoming proficient in science, which involves more than an understanding of important concepts; it centers on being able to do science. From this vantage point, doing science focuses on students engaging in productive sense making about the natural world (National Research Council [NRC], 2014). With that goal, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are performance expectations that integrate three dimensions of science learning: core ideas, scientific practices, and crosscutting concepts (Krajcik, Codere, Dahsah, Bayer, & Mun, 2014). These performance expectations are meant to reflect the disciplinary practices of science to engage students in productive sense making as a vehicle to support science learning (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine [NAS] 2015). Indeed, a central component of the NGSS in terms of vision of science learning is that students' science learning is intimately tied to their engagement in investigations involving phenomena. If learning science is to result from productive sense making, there must be a "fundamental change in the way science is taught" (NAS, 2015, p. 1) and envisioned by teachers. If teachers are to support students in framing their role in science classrooms as one of sense making instead

Models and Impacts of Science Research Experiences: A Review of the Literature of CUREs, UREs, and TREs

“…, 2014; Peters-Burton et al. , 2015; Luera and Murray, 2016; Southerland et al. , 2016); PLCs (Enderle et al.…”

“…, 2016); PLCs (Enderle et al. , 2014; Miranda and Damico, 2015; Southerland et al. , 2016); translation to practice (Pop et al.…”

“…Enderle and colleagues (2014) found that those teachers looking to reform their instruction chose and showed considerable impacts from research experience programs explicitly designed for pedagogical development. Likewise, Southerland et al. (2016) found that providing personal relevance and social engagement in the research context increased investment and that participating in a research experience shapes science teaching beliefs, which in turn influences practice.…”

Steam (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) Education and Teachers’ Pedagogical Discontentment Levels

“…The major instrument used for measuring pedagogical discontentment of the 93 teachers within the one-group quantitative pre-post assessment method for determining teachers' pedagogical discontentment mean score changes from pre to post assessment aligned with the research design and pertinent to RQ1 for the study was the Science Teachers' Pedagogical Discontentment Scale or STPDS (Southerland et al, 2016) slightly modified by the researchers replacing the word "science" with the word "STEAM". The STPDS (Southerland et al, 2016) is comprised of 21 items (statements) for teachers to rate using a 5-point Likert scale whereby the K-12 STEAM education teachers rated their perceived level of confidence with a rating of "1" as very little or no confidence and a rating of "5" as a high level of confidence. The following four items are examples of the type of content included in the STPDS (Southerland et al, 2016 Teachers were pre-assessed at the beginning of the school year and post assessed at the end of their professional teaching year to determine possible changes in their levels of pedagogical discontentment scores.…”

“…The STPDS (Southerland et al, 2016) is comprised of 21 items (statements) for teachers to rate using a 5-point Likert scale whereby the K-12 STEAM education teachers rated their perceived level of confidence with a rating of "1" as very little or no confidence and a rating of "5" as a high level of confidence. The following four items are examples of the type of content included in the STPDS (Southerland et al, 2016 Teachers were pre-assessed at the beginning of the school year and post assessed at the end of their professional teaching year to determine possible changes in their levels of pedagogical discontentment scores. The instrument was used as a pre-assessment for all STEAM teachers prior to their annual 80 hours of STEAM professional development activities occurring from September to March each year and the post assessment was performed after the annual STEAM professional development activities were concluded in March.…”