Margareta Thomson

The current project proposes an innovative professional development (PD) program in environmental health research experiences for science high-school teachers from schools with high poverty levels in North Carolina. In a collaborative effort, experts from the College of Education and scientists affiliated with the Center for Human Health and Environment (CHHE), and the Comparative Medicine Institute (CMI) at NC State University will provide teachers (N=40) with unique authentic lab experiences. The 8-week summer research PD program aims at enhancing teachers������������������ environmental health literacy and research skills that will support novel science teaching strategies. The specific aims addressed by the program are the following: 1) to provide teachers with a practical understanding of the scientific method in mentored research projects examining links between environmental stressors and health; 2) to provide teachers with an understanding of core conceptual issues in toxicology; 3) to train teachers in ethical issues in scientific conduct, science communication, and public health; 4) to immerse teachers in authentic research lab experiences by using a cognitive apprenticeship model; and 5) to develop a comprehensive evaluation plan in order to assess the short- and long- term PD outcomes. In the proposed environmental health science (EHS) research PD program, teachers will be integrated into genuine research projects and attend lab meetings, gaining general knowledge of how research is conducted and specialized knowledge related to ongoing projects in their host lab. Additionally, teachers in the program will come together one day per week in a workshop environment, to share their diversity of research experiences and gain additional training in biological concepts and ethical issues related to environmental health sciences.

Our proposed full research and development project will address the following DRK12 challenge: How can we enhance the ability of teachers to provide high quality STEM education for all students? Specifically, this project will evaluate an innovative, yet highly scalable STEM-focused elementary teacher preparation model designed to develop pre-service teachers? content and pedagogical knowledge and skills. The model includes extensive content preparation targeted for elementary teachers, innovative courses such as one focused on teachers? development of young children?s designs and inventions, and multiple research-based experiences such as Japanese Lesson Study, video analysis, and mentoring by expert mathematics and science teachers. The study of the model will yield foundational knowledge for improving STEM teaching and learning in both K-5 settings and teacher preparation programs. The study will address the critical need for research that directly links STEM teacher preparation to student achievement in science and mathematics. This longitudinal study will follow pre-service teachers into their first two years of teaching and compare instruction and pupil achievement to matched samples. Through a mixed methods study using multi-level modeling and qualitative techniques, we will illustrate the relative effects of teachers? content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, self-efficacy, instructional performance, and teacher education program features on the class- and student-level STEM learning of K-5 students. The title of our proposed project is ATOMS: Accomplished Teachers of Mathematics and Science. The proposed Principal Investigator will be Ellen McIntyre, Professor and Department Head of Elementary Education at NC State where the STEM-focused model was developed. Co-PIs will include: Jayne Fleener, Dean and Professor of Mathematics Education at NC State; Richard Correnti, Assistant Professor and Research Scientist at the University of Pittsburgh; Sarah Carrier, Assistant Professor of Science Education at NC State, and Temple Walkowiak, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at NC State. Partnering institutions include University of Pittsburgh (Professor Correnti) and Horizons Research, Inc. in Chapel Hill, NC, which will serve as outside evaluators of the project. The STEM disciplines addressed will focus primarily on mathematics and science.

The purpose of this study is to explore in greater detail the relationship between elementary teachers? beliefs about science teaching and their practices in the context of a professional development program. This mixed-method study seeks to investigate elementary teachers? beliefs about reformed science education, their science content knowledge, science teaching self-efficacy, and teaching practices as a result of professional development involvement. Data will be collected from 3 Title I elementary schools in Leon County, Tallahassee, FL (approximately 50-60 elementary teachers). The administration of the three schools requested help in finding ways to improve teachers ?content science knowledge and inquiry science teaching practices as a result of the increasing demands for improving quality science teaching in elementary education and high stakes standardized tests. Therefore, participants are voluntarily involved in an eight months professional development program, consisting of a series of workshops offered once a month (2 hours workshops after school) by the Center for Integrating Research and Learning (CIRL) at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) located in Tallahassee, FL. Two staff members from CIRL, professional development trainers, will develop the workshop curriculum and deliver the training to teachers. The content of the workshops includes topics such as: The Nature of Science (NOS), Science Process Skills, Observation versus Experiment, Energy, Motion, Climate Change and Measurement. The workshop?s design is an innovative approach, based on a constructivist model including the five features of Loucks-Horsley model (Loucks-Horsley, Love, Stiles, Mundry, & Hewson, 2003), such as meaningful learning, active participation, situated learning, problem solving, and social constructivism. The workshop design includes monthly sessions on writing in science, online journaling, colloquiums, content lectures, peer mentoring, and share fairs. Four main goals are set for this study: (1) Identify elementary teachers? initial beliefs about reformed science and typologies/clusters of teachers (i.e., traditional perspective vs. reformed/inquiry-based perspective). Individuals within the same cluster tend to display a pattern of similar beliefs. The personality group, therefore is characterized by a set of common features they share (i.e., reformed thinking oriented/student-oriented approach teaching/ innovative curriculum implementers).(2) Establish differences across clusters with respect to major variables of interest. Differences across clusters may reveal unique characteristics of each group (i.e., ability/inability to take in new ideas or change old ideas, depth/lack of science content knowledge etc). (3) Identify changes in teachers? beliefs, science knowledge and self-efficacy as a result of program involvement, and (4) Identify instructional practices of teachers from different clusters implemented in their teaching as a result of participating in the professional development program. Differences across the clusters may show in what ways and to what degree teachers? beliefs change, as well as their impact on teaching practices as a result of the professional development program. This study will help enhance our understanding of elementary teachers? thinking and enacting of reformed science education, thus informing the field of science education about the types of professional development experiences teachers need for particular types of teachers. The overarching goal is to promote and help teachers implement quality instruction which refers to teacher practices that are more reform-based (i.e., inquiry-based, student-centered approach) as described by the National Science Education standards (NRC, 1996).