Improving Teacher and Student Science Learning Through Videocase-Based Lesson Analysis

• In Event: Video-Based Professional Development

Abstract

This study examined the impact of a videocase-based lesson analysis professional development program on the science learning of upper elementary teachers and their students. In a randomized, controlled scale-up study, the impact of the STeLLA professional development program (Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis) was compared to that of a science content deepening program of equal intensity and duration. The study found that teachers in the lesson analysis program developed a higher level of science content understanding than comparison teachers in the content deepening program. Further, there were high student effect sizes (.58 for fourth graders and .75 for fifth graders), with students in classrooms with lesson analysis teachers outperforming students of teachers who received the content deepening PD.

Authors

• Kathleen J. Roth, Cal Poly Pomona

• Christopher D. Wilson, Biological Sciences Curriculum Study

• Joseph Taylor, Abt Associates Inc.