Browsing by Subject "Science teachers--Training of"
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Item Exploring the beliefs and practices of five preservice secondary science teachers from recruitment through induction in a university preparation program: a longitudinal study(2006) Fletcher, Steven Samuel; Luft, Julie; Smith, Jennifer ChristianThis three-year longitudinal study explores the evolving beliefs and practices of five prospective secondary science teachers in a university preparation program from recruitment through their first year in the classroom. As an interpretive qualitative study, the format for data collection and analysis utilizes a case-study methodology with crosscase analysis. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, collected artifacts, and classroom observations. There are a number of important conclusions from this study. First, the teachers’ beliefs about teaching initially shift to a contemporary focus during the program, but ultimately return to a didactic orientation by their first year in the classroom. At the same time, the teachers’ beliefs about learning remain consistently more contemporary in nature. Second, the participants believe that they practice teaching science as inquiry at a higher level than are indicated by researcher observations. Third, while participants value advanced content and educational theory coursework, they do not always see the link between these experiences and their development as science teachers. Fourth, the findings from this study reveal that internal and external contextual factors impacted, to varying degrees, the development of the science teachers. The findings from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the development of science teachers from preservice education to the induction years, which indicates a pattern that is not linear. The findings from this study also reinforce the importance of internal and external contextual factors on the development of science teachers. Ultimately, this study is important to the field of secondary science teacher education as it depicts the complex interactions between the individual, the preparation program, and the school placements that impact the beliefs and practices of preservice and beginning teachers.Item From professional development for science teachers to student learning in science(2004) Tinoca, Luis Fonseca; Barufaldi, James P.This study investigates the effects of professional development for science teachers on student learning. It is usually expected that professional development programs positively impact student learning, however this dimension is not commonly incorporated in the programs evaluation. It is simply assumed that students will be indirectly impacted through their participating teachers in the work with their students. Two main research questions are addressed: 1) Are professional development programs effective in enhancing student learning in science? 2) What are the characteristics of the most and least effective programs? To answer these questions a meta-analysis of 37 professional development programs reporting their impact on student learning was performed. Program characteristics have been defined according to the categories defined by Loucks-Horsley et al (1998), the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), as well as new categories developed by us analyzing other variables such as the programs length. A significant impact of professional development for science teachers on student learning has been found in the form of an overall correlation effect size of r = 0.22 (p<0.001). Moreover, a Fixed Effects Model was used to differentiate between the impacts of the different characteristics of professional development programs for science teachers. In particular, programs emphasizing work on curriculum development, replacement, or implementation, scientific inquiry, pedagogical content knowledge, lasting over 6 month and with a total duration of at least 100 hours have been identified as having a larger impact on student learning. To enhance the findings vignettes have been developed based on the attained effect sizes describing possible professional development programs. Recommendations for present and future professional development programs are made based on what works best in order to maximize their impact on student learning.