Practice What You Teach: A Practicum-Based Model of Professional Development for Elementary Science Teachers

• In Event: Learning of Professionals in Schools: Creating New Settings for Professional Development

Abstract

Purpose & Perspective
Teacher professional development is widely recognized as critical to supporting increased student achievement. With the new Next Generation Science Standards (Achieve, 2012), the challenge of developing teachers’ competencies in teaching science will be particularly crucial. While a growing body of empirical research has identified the general features of successful professional development (Desimone, 2009; Borko et al., 2010), little is known about the degree to which specific PD approaches are effective in supporting teachers’ development of new instructional practices (Windschitl, 2009). This paper reports on an innovative summer PD model that provides teachers with opportunities for deliberate practice (Ericsson et al., 1993) before returning to their regular classrooms in the fall.

The PD model includes two components: the Institute and the Practicum. The intensive, weeklong Institute focuses on helping teachers learn how to facilitate scientific discourse effectively, encourage argumentation from evidence, and conduct inquiry-based science investigations. In the Practicum, teachers spend two weeks teaching science in the morning in a local summer school program. In the afternoons, they meet in groups with instructional coaches to watch video of their teaching and to reflect on their instruction. To examine the impact of participating in the Practicum specifically, 43 science teachers in grades 3-5 were recruited for this study and were assigned to two groups by stratified random sampling. While both groups attended the summer Institute, only one group attended the Practicum.

We examine the following research questions:
a) Which practices were taken up by teachers during the Practicum and which practices posed more difficulty?
b) How did the Institute and the Practicum impact teachers’ views about teaching science in new ways?

Methods & Data Sources
We are analyzing video records of the full set of Institute workshops, a subset of the Practicum classrooms, and afternoon reflection sessions to compare the instructional practices targeted in the Institute, those enacted in the Practicum and those discussed in the reflection sessions. Teacher surveys before, during and after the PD are also being coded for teachers’ experiences with the PD and their self-reports on its impact.

Findings
Preliminary analysis of the Institute indicates that the professional development focused on supporting teachers in understanding the nature of discourse in science. Particular attention was given to activity structures for argumentation, and to developing competing claims with evidence for and against each claim. While most teachers reported that facilitating discussion was already a part of their teaching practice, the explicit focus on argumentation was new for many teachers. Initial analysis of the Practicum indicates that teachers experimented with different questioning strategies and discussion facilitation moves. The post-surveys indicate that teachers viewed the Practicum as a unique and worthwhile opportunity to try out the new pedagogical approaches.

Significance
How much can engaging in the practice used by this practicum-based PD model support the development of teachers’ competency with teaching? The findings of this study provide an important contribution to developing our knowledge of what works in teacher PD.

Authors

• Eric Berson, Stanford University

• Hilda Borko, Stanford University

• Jonathan F. Osborne, Stanford University

• Kirstin C. Busch, Stanford University

• Edit Khachatryan, Stanford University

• Susan Louise Million, Stanford University