Professional development for rural and remote teachers using video conferencing

Teachers in rural and remote schools face many challenges including those relating to distance, isolation and lack of professional development opportunities. This article examines a project where mathematics and science teachers were provided with professional development opportunities via video conferencing to help them use syllabus documents to develop their teaching programs. The study is qualitative and draws on teacher conversations and surveys using a community of inquiry theoretical framework to analyse the data. The results demonstrate that teacher professional development via video conferencing has both strengths and weaknesses but can support teachers through collaboration to develop their expertise in writing teaching programs.     

Keeping up: A dilemma for science teachers

This paper is based on interviews with seventy-five science teachers in twelve schools across Australia. The interviews were conducted as part of a D.E.E.T. Project of National Significance. The purpose of the project was to develop a strategy for the professional development of science teachers. The main purpose of our interviews was to listen to teachers' views on what such a strategy should try to achieve. We asked them to talk about conditions affecting the quality of their work, their attitudes to teaching, their professional development, their careers, the evaluation of teaching, and Award Restructuring. Through these interviews we came to understand how many science teachers are loosely connected with potentially valuable sources of support for their professional development. In this paper we focus on one group of “loose connections”; those between science teachers and scientists in other fields, research in science education, and their colleagues within science departments in schools. Specializations: Science education, reflective practice, teaching and learning. Specializations: Professional development, educational evaluation.     

Beginning Elementary Science Teachers: Developing Professional Knowledge During a Limited Mentoring Experience

The professional development project reported on in this paper, the Beginning Elementary Science Teachers' (BEST) project, was based on the premise that the first years of elementary science teaching can be very important in the development of long-term quality science teaching. Specifically, we report on project experiences that allowed 13 beginning teachers to interact with experienced teachers in a university seminar and during school visits. Results show that these limited mentoring experiences can support the development of professional knowledge and discussion centers on factors that facilitate knowledge growth. Conclusions are presented that compare benefits of these limited mentoring experiences to those reported to be achieved in long-term mentoring programs.     

Multimedia Resources to Bridge the Praxis Gap: Modeling Practice in Elementary Science Education

Numerous research studies have shown that science methods courses based on constructivist approaches can enhance teacher knowledge and confidence in ways that foster more positive attitudes to the teaching of science. However, a critical part of reflective practice is the opportunity to observe competent professionals practising their craft. Opportunities to observe teachers engaging in constructivist and inquiry based practices in many undergraduate programs are limited. Our goal was to make visible the pedagogical practices and assumptions of teachers through a suite of multimedia resources that provided visual examples of professional practices. In this paper, we report on the development and use of these multimedia resources. These resources incorporated interactive CDROMs, videos and websites and supplemented an instructional program that engaged learners in a range of reflective practices. Evaluation data were derived from focus group interviews with preservice teachers, from interviews with instructors and from surveys with inservice teachers. Analysis of these data supports the value of multimedia material as a vicarious learning experience; and highlights the extent that multimedia can demystify science teaching.     

基于教学视频案例的教师专业发展实践

信息时代,技术已成为教育生态系统中不可或缺的构成要素。如何通过技术培养高效能教师成为教师专业发展中重要的研究议题之一。教学视频案例以教学观摩、教学研究为目的,以视频为主要形式,全程记录某个真实教学活动,能为教师呈现真实的课堂教学情境及向专家学习的机会,帮助教师实现隐性教学知识显性化并生成教学实践性知识。因此,可以将教学视频案例应用于教师培训工作。基于视频案例的教师专业发展实践证明,教学视频案例不仅有助于教师将理论知识与实践相联系,检验理论中的观点并形成自己的看法,还有助于教师与他人交流,使学习突破个人活动的局限。但是,在利用教学视频案例支持教师反思及共同体学习过程中,要注意突破教学实录的局限,使教学视频案例成为一个有机的资源整合体,为教师提供视频分析及标注等辅助性工具,帮助教师有效吸收教学视频案例信息并加以创新应用。     

Supporting Science Teachers in Alignment with State Curriculum Standards through Professional Development: Teachers’ Preparedness, Expectations and Their Fulfillment

Since A Nation at Risk was released in the 1980s, standards-based reform has been the most dominant trend in American educational policy, and the No Child Left Behind Act pushed the trend further by requiring states to develop rigorous curriculum standards. Though much has been said about these new standards, less has been said about whether or how well professional development helps teachers link their instruction to these standards. This study examined the impact of a professional development program for K-12 science teachers in helping teachers meet state curriculum standards. Seventy-five science teachers in Michigan participated in a 2-week summer workshop that used Problem-Based Learning for improving teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Researchers surveyed participating teachers about the change of teachers’ preparedness for standards-based teaching, their expectations to meet state curriculum standards, and whether their expectations were met. In addition, the usefulness of workshop activities was examined. Data analysis showed that to align teaching with state curriculum standards, participating teachers expected to learn instructional strategies and enhance science content knowledge through professional development, and by and large their expectations were well met. Collaboration with colleagues and facilitators helped teachers achieve their goals in terms of teaching within state curriculum standards. These findings have important implications for designing professional development to help teachers align instruction with curriculum standards.     

Learning How to Make Inquiry into Electricity and Magnetism Discernible to Middle Level Teachers

As university professors we sought to disrupt the practice of giving our students the actions we felt they should imitate in their teaching practice. Instead, we sought to actively engage teachers in the creation of workable solutions to real-life problems. We accomplished this by conducting a participatory action research project. This paper illustrates our action research project focused on preparing middle level science teachers to foster inquiry-based learning in their classrooms. The findings of this study not only lead to a revised professional development opportunity for science teachers, but also provided an example of university faculty engaging in pragmatic research focused on addressing contemporary issues in K-12 science education. The work reported within was partially supported by a National Science Foundation Grant. The opinions, views and conclusions expressed in this paper may not reflect those of the funding agency.     

The Internet Learning Forum

Summary

This paper reports an effort to create a community of practice for teachers' professional development via the World Wide Web. Beginning with a discussion of our theoretical foundations and current online models of professional development, we address the problem of how developing Web and video technologies may provide innovative and effective professional development for teachers. We describe the initial conceptions of the Internet Learning Forum (ILF), a Web site developed to support mathematics and science teachers sharing and evolving their pedagogical practices. This site includes exemplary instructional units, teachers' reflections, and peer discussion. Starting with video, ILF participants examine assumptions, reflect on practices, and share within the ILF community. The goal of this unique community of practice is to create quality professional development. While this paper provides an overview of our initial design work, the site has evolved into a nationally funded project. However, the work described here, which guided the development of the prototype, has important implications for other Web-based efforts to support teacher professional development.     

In search of the excellent literature teacher. An inductive approach to constructing professional teaching standards

This study makes a contribution to the development of empirically based, domain-specific teaching standards that are acknowledged by the professional community of teachers and which, therefore, have a good chance of being successfully implemented and used for professional development purposes. It was prompted by the resistance on the part of many teachers to the one-size-fits-all teaching standards imposed on them from above. We, therefore, looked for an alternative and canvassed teacher opinion about what makes an excellent literature teacher. Because our standards will be used to evaluate the profession, we also wished to know to what extent teachers satisfy (or would like to satisfy) their own ideal, and which factors influence their professional development. Contrary to earlier studies, we found that the professional community of literature teachers hold widely shared ideas about what constitutes excellence in their profession. We also found that almost 40% felt that their own level of professionalism fell far short of excellence, but that their professional growth was primarily hampered by external, contextual factors. If the government wishes to promote teacher ‘excellence’, the infrastructure for professional development will need to change so that teachers can acquire the knowledge and skills embodied in the teaching standards.     

Understanding affordances and challenges of three types of video for teacher professional development

Although researchers have reported positive effects on teacher learning from observing published video, teachers’ own video, and their colleagues’ video, very few professional development programs have integrated all three types of video to improve teacher learning. In this study, we examined the affordances and challenges of the three types of video when they were used in a Problem-Based Learning professional development program, drawing upon multiple data sources from 26 K-12 science teachers. We present a case study to illustrate how one teacher might learn from each type of video, and conclude with recommendations for using video in professional development.     

Use and Evaluation of Web-based Professional Development Services Across Participant Levels of Support

When participating in a large-scale, web-based professional development program, to what degree do teachers participate? How useful do they find the program? To what degree do they feel supported in their efforts? What are the associations between participation, evaluation of services, and the level of service teachers receive? MyTeachingPartner provides several levels of support to teachers, and each participant’s involvement in the project varies in terms of assigned level, frequency of logging in to the site, and the time she spends on it. This paper compared key data sources, including web navigation logs and teacher survey responses, to describe the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of support, their specific project interactions, and the level of service they receive. We explored ways that a large-scale professional development project such as MTP can benefit from identifying and nurturing those elements that best foster teacher perceptions of support.     

Supporting teacher professional development through online video case study discussions: An assemblage of preservice and inservice teachers and the case teacher

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential value of online video case discussions among preservice and inservice teachers, and the video case teacher as a tool for the professional development of teachers. Participants included a total of 26 preservice and inservice mathematics teachers and a veteran teacher who appeared on the video case. Using content analysis techniques, we provided a thematic analysis of the teacher discourse and demonstrated the exchanges between the participating teachers and video case teacher. We also assessed the overall effectiveness of our online forum set up for the professional development of teachers. Results indicated that participant teachers were able to make theory–practice connections by articulating specific frameworks that guided our study. The inclusion of the video case teacher was beneficial for the other teachers in several ways. We contend that online forum discussions of video cases in which collective engagement of preservice and inservice teachers, and the case teacher have a great potential to support teacher professional development.     

Science and Mathematics Teachers Working Toward Equity Through Teacher Research: Tracing Changes Across Their Research Process and Equity Views

We investigated secondary science and mathematics teachers engaged in a two-and-a-half-year professional development effort focused on equity. We examined how teachers conducting research on their own instructional practices—a central learning strategy of the professional development project—informed and/or constrained their views related to three strands of equity: teachers and teaching, students and learning, and students’ families and communities. Data collected included recordings of professional development seminars and school-site meetings, three sets of individual interviews with teacher researchers, and drafts and final products of the classroom research teachers conducted. From our qualitative analyses of data, we found that most teachers addressed at least two of the three equity strands in researching their own practice. We also found that most transformed their understandings of teachers and students as a result of their teacher research process. However, teachers’ views of families and communities changed in less substantive ways. We close with recommendations for other researchers and professional developers intent on supporting science and mathematics teachers in using teacher research to work toward equity.     

Capturing student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) using CoRes and digital technology

During the last decades, digital technologies have become more common in providing opportunities for reflection and in-depth analysis of classroom practices and have afforded new ways of organising teacher education. In particular, videotaped lessons have proven to be a valuable tool for capturing teaching episodes, subsequent reflection and development of student teachers’ professional knowledge, here referred to as ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ (PCK). The aim of this project was to investigate how the use of the reflective tool, content representations (CoRes) in combination with video and associated digital tools might be used as a means for capturing student teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. In the study we explore how a group of 24 secondary science student teachers were provided with Content Representations (CoRe) and video annotations to support their reflection-on-action during their practicum. Video annotations, alongside a written reflection of critical incidents in the student teachers’ teaching constituted data for analysis. Our findings suggest that the different tools enabled the student teachers to connect captured examples of teaching instances with theoretical issues, and in this way offered the ability to see as well as to analyse their teaching practice. As such, the CoRe, together with the video annotation tool, proved to be successful in scaffolding and structuring student teachers’ reflection-on-action, allowing them to connect their reflections to components of PCK and further to articulate connections between these components.     

The Development of Leadership among Chemistry Teachers in Israel

The implementation of new content and pedagogical standards in science education in Israel as well as in other countries necessitates intensive, life-long professional development of science teachers. Here we describe a model for the professional development of chemistry teacher-leaders. In the first part of the paper, we describe a model for the development and change of chemistry teacher-leaders. In the second part of the paper, we present the assessment of teachers' change. It is suggested, that in order to become a leader, the teacher has to undergo several interrelated phases of development and changes, namely personal, professional, and social. In order to attain these changes, a two-year program was designed in which teachers were given opportunities to develop their content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and their leadership abilities and skills. The assessment of teachers' professional development clearly showed that engaging teachers in a long-term professional development program changed their beliefs (personal change) regarding their role as chemistry teachers in general and their confidence to become leaders in particular. In addition, we observed that the teachers changed in their professional abilities as well as in their social behavior. We also report on the involvement of the teacher-leaders in activities in which leadership skills were implemented in attempting to reform chemistry education in Israel.     

Teachers' learning to facilitate high‐level student thinking: Impact of a video‐based professional development

Attaining the vision for science teaching and learning emphasized in the Framework for K‐12 Science Education and the next generation science standards (NGSS) will require major shifts in teaching practices in many science classrooms. As NGSS‐inspired cognitively demanding tasks begin to appear in more and more science classrooms, facilitating students' engagement in high‐level thinking as they work on these tasks will become an increasingly important instructional challenge to address. This study reports findings from a video‐based professional development effort (i.e., professional development [PD] that use video‐clips of instruction as the main artifact of practice to support teacher learning) to support teachers' learning to select cognitively demanding tasks and to support students' learning during the enactment of these tasks in ways that are aligned with the NGSS vision. Particularly, we focused on the NGSS's charge to get students to make sense of and deeply think about scientific ideas as students try to explain phenomena. Analyses of teachers' pre‐ and post‐PD instruction indicate that PD‐participants began to adopt instructional practices associated with facilitating these kinds of student thinking in their own classrooms. The study has implications for the design of video‐based professional development for science teachers who are learning to facilitate the NGSS vision in science classrooms.     

Science Teacher Efficacy and Extrinsic Factors Toward Professional Development Using Video Games in a Design-Based Research Model: The Next Generation of STEM Learning

Designed-based research principles guided the study of 51 secondary-science teachers in the second year of a 3-year professional development project. The project entailed the creation of student-centered, inquiry-based, science, video games. A professional development model appropriate for infusing innovative technologies into standards-based curricula was employed to determine how science teacher’s attitudes and efficacy where impacted while designing science-based video games. The study’s mixed-method design ascertained teacher efficacy on five factors (General computer use, Science Learning, Inquiry Teaching and Learning, Synchronous chat/text, and Playing Video Games) related to technology and gaming using a web-based survey). Qualitative data in the form of online blog posts was gathered during the project to assist in the triangulation and assessment of teacher efficacy. Data analyses consisted of an Analysis of Variance and serial coding of teacher reflective responses. Results indicated participants who used computers daily have higher efficacy while using inquiry-based teaching methods and science teaching and learning. Additional emergent findings revealed possible motivating factors for efficacy. This professional development project was focused on inquiry as a pedagogical strategy, standard-based science learning as means to develop content knowledge, and creating video games as technological knowledge. The project was consistent with the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) framework where overlapping circles of the three components indicates development of an integrated understanding of the suggested relationships. Findings provide suggestions for development of standards-based science education software, its integration into the curriculum and, strategies for implementing technology into teaching practices.     

Urban schools' teachers enacting project‐based science

What teaching practices foster inquiry and promote students to learn challenging subject matter in urban schools? Inquiry‐based instruction and successful inquiry learning and teaching in project‐based science (PBS) were described in previous studies (Brown & Campione, 1990 ; Crawford, 1999 ; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, & Fredricks, 1998 ; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, & Solloway, 1994 ; Minstrell & van Zee, 2000 ). In this article, we describe the characteristics of inquiry teaching practices that promote student learning in urban schools. Teaching is a major factor that affects both achievement of and attitude of students toward science (Tamir, 1998 ). Our involvement in reform in a large urban district includes the development of suitable learning materials and providing continuous and practiced‐based professional development (Fishman & Davis, in press; van Es, Reiser, Matese, & Gomez, 2002 ). Urban schools face particular challenges when enacting inquiry‐based teaching practices like those espoused in PBS. In this article, we describe two case studies of urban teachers whose students achieved high gains on pre‐ and posttests and who demonstrated a great deal of preparedness and commitment to their students. Teachers' attempts to help their students to perform well are described and analyzed. The teachers we discuss work in a school district that strives to bring about reform in mathematics and science through systemic reform. The Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS) collaborates with the Detroit Public Schools to bring about reform in middle‐school science. Through this collaboration, diverse populations of urban‐school students learn science through inquiry‐oriented projects and the use of various educational learning technologies. For inquiry‐based science to succeed in urban schools, teachers must play an important role in enacting the curriculum while addressing the unique needs of students. The aim of this article is to describe patterns of good science teaching in urban school. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 722–745, 2006     

A Teacher Professional Development Program on Using a Constructivist Multimedia Learning Environment

This paper describes a professional development program using an interactive multimedia program to develop teachers' understanding of a constructivist epistemology in science education. The aim of this study was to describe teachers' reflections on and perceptions of a series of professional development workshops and how teachers changed their classroom practices after having participated in the workshops. The software, developed with the cooperation of teachers and students, is based on the Birds of Antarctica database (Maor & Phillips, 1996). This database was designed as an interactive program which requires teachers to use a constructivist-oriented approach to teaching and learning in order to promote the development of inquiry skills particularly higher-order thinking skills. A series of workshops for teachers was conducted to empower them to become comfortable with using computers in science classrooms and to enable them to enhance their understanding of, and ability to use, personal and social constructivist approaches. Teachers' perceptions of the process of learning with the multimedia program and their reactions to their experiences were assessed using a new instrument, the Constructivist Multimedia Learning Environment Survey (CMLES). The results of the study suggest that teachers who participated as learners in the professional development program became familiar with a constructivist-oriented multimedia learning environment; understood the context, problems, and issues faced by students in the classroom; and were better able to facilitate students' needs and understanding in this learning environment. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.