Quality Elementary Science Teaching (QuEST): A University-Based Elementary Summer Science Camp

• In Event: 25.059 - Examining the Impacts of Practicum-Based Professional Development

Abstract

Objectives
Typically, participants in summer professional development (PD) must wait until returning to their classrooms to apply what they learn to teaching children. The Quality Elementary Science Teaching (QuEST) PD model provides both content and pedagogical instruction combined with ‘controlled teaching experiences’ (Morine-Dershimer & Kent, 1999). Our research compares the impacts of this practicum-based PD experience to a more conventional program in which teachers wait until school begins in fall to apply what they learn.

Perspective
Teachers develop pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) through experience although the nature of that experience matters; some types of experiences are more helpful than others in enhancing teachers’ PCK. Work in situated cognition highlights typical educational approaches as assuming a separation between knowing and doing, “treating knowledge as an integral, self-sufficient substance, theoretically independent of the situations in which it is learned and used” (Brown, et al., 2012, p.32). Situated PD, such as that involving controlled teaching experiences, acknowledge this by providing teachers opportunities to develop knowledge in the context in which it is applied—in this sense, there is close alignment with views on how PCK is developed and shaped in practice.

Method
We used a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design to examine the impact of the practicum-based PD experience on teachers’ content knowledge and PCK. Two cohorts of teachers participated in a two-week summer institute and 4 academic year follow-up sessions. Week one of the institute is identical for these teachers; however in week two while one group engaged in the practicum, the other engaged in analysis of their experiences as learners in week one, using that to inform the design of a series of lessons they will later implement in their classrooms. The program runs for a total of three years, with staggered participation by 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers from the same schools.

We analyzed results from assessments administered at the beginning and end of the first two summer institutes including tests of: content knowledge, understanding the learning cycle model used in the project, and application of principles from the Universal Design for Learning framework that also was a key component of the project. Mean pretest scores from teachers in the treatment groups were compared using t-tests to determine whether the treatment groups differed in initial knowledge of key concepts. Posttest responses were used to conduct reliability analyses and mean posttest scores and normalized gain scores were compared using t-tests to determine if the two treatment groups demonstrated differences in learning.

Findings & Significance
Findings from the first two institutes (practicum and non-practicum) indicated that pretest scores for the two treatment groups on all measures were not significantly different, supporting initial equivalence of groups. While teachers in both treatment groups in both cohorts demonstrated significant gains in the knowledge measured by all assessments, there were no significant differences between groups on posttest scores or normalized gain scores. This suggests that teachers develop similar knowledge in both types of PD; however ongoing analyses will reveal whether there are differences in their PCK that result.

Authors

• Deborah Hanuscin, Western Washington University

• Zandra de Araujo, University of Missouri

• Dante Cisterna

• Mark W. Ehlert, University of Missouri

• Kelsey Gillstrom, University of Missouri - Columbia