Browsing by Subject "Teacher Professional Development"
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Item Learning and Transfer in a Complex Professional Development Setting: A Cross-Case Analysis of the Perceptions and Practices of Science Teachers(2010-07-14) Brooks, Lisa A.In this dissertation the relationships among teachers' classroom contexts, teaching practices, personal practice theories and their learning from reform-based professional development were examined. This study is based on the cases of three high school science teachers whose participation in the Information Technology in Science (ITS) Center's professional development experience (PDE) resulted in different perceptions and interpretations. Qualitative and quantitative data, including classroom observations, in-depth interviews, teacher-generated written work from the PDE, and student classroom perceptions were analyzed and compared. The within-case analyses revealed that each teacher's thoughts, actions and perceptions were highly congruent. The cross-case analysis illuminated variations among the cases. Bandura's (1999) model of triadic reciprocal causation was applied as an interpretive frame. This frame was used to connect five indicators used in the study to coherently compare and evaluate the alignment of each teacher's thoughts, actions, and perceptions with the vision of reformbased teaching promoted by the ITS Center's PDE. Results of this interpretation show that the differences among the cases stemmed from the different problems the teachers believed reform-based teaching methods addressed. Recommendations for the design of PDEs include the importance of (a) focusing on flexible learning goals that can be meaningful and appropriate for all teachers, (b) understanding and engaging teachers' prior knowledge, (c) making changes in teachers' thinking visible and (d) keeping in mind the challenges involved in changing practice to reflect the recommendations of reform. Recommendations for future research include the development of learning trajectories for teachers with different orientations toward reform and deepening our current understandings of teacher educator expertise.Item Teacher Professional Development: Assessment on Teacher's Perceptions of NASA's Online STEM Professional Development(2014-04-09) Keil, Matthew JamesData were collected from 32 teachers using mixed methods to investigate teachers? perceptions of online professional development (PD) offered through a school-community partnership. The partnership between multiple school districts nationwide and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) provided teachers with an online Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) PD course called MicroGX. A thorough analyses of data from two surveys, observations, and documents were used to answer the primary questions: 1) What components of MicroGX are deemed effective from the teachers? perspective? 2) How does the effectiveness of MicroGX compare with other online PD from the teachers? perspective? The data from this study provide evidence that subjects perceive MicroGX as a positive experience with many effective components that are more effective than participation in other online PD. Survey data show a majority of the subjects feel the MicroGX course was more of a positive than negative experience. All subjects would recommend this course to another teacher and overall, subjects were most satisfied with the interaction with others, resources, support, content, and content delivery. Ninety-seven percent of subjects were satisfied with the course. Ninety-four percent of subjects would participate in the course again and consider participating in more online PD offered by NASA. Seventy-one percent of subjects feel that MicroGX was more effective than other online PD in which they have participated. Effective components include content knowledge, student impact, resources, and support. All subjects agree this experience has inspired them to bring NASA content into the classroom, influenced them to make changes to their teaching activities, do not disagree they can immediately apply what they learned from this experience to their teaching about STEM, and do not disagree they will be more effective in teaching STEM introduced in this experience. All subjects do not disagree that the resources will be effective in increasing their students? interest in STEM topics and that this experience provided ideas for encouraging student exploration, discussion and participation. Based on the finding of this study, recommendations were made to aid future development of online PD and assist K-12 leaders in selecting future PD for their teachers.