Professional development for science teachers is widely recognized as a key element for successful standards-based systemic reform, yet there is little empirical evidence to justify design decisions for professional development. This paper presents both a theoretical model of teacher learning and an analytical framework that employs the model to link professional development to both student and teacher learning. Our approach begins with an analysis of relevant content standards for science learning, and then uses evidence of student performance to gauge areas where focus is needed in professional development. The success of our professional development designs is evaluated using a combination of teacher reflection, classroom observation, and ultimately the re-assessment of student performance. This process is used to inform a continual process of design and re-design. We present two examples of this process in use. The first example describes teacher learning about the use of modeling software by students. The second example is about teacher learning related to helping students master map reading skills related to watersheds. We argue that this form of empirically-based assessment of professional development, linking teacher and student learning, is a key to the eventual success of standards-based systemic reform efforts.

Recent reforms in science education call for curriculum designed to support student’s construction of knowledge through inquiry. Teachers need to learn new methods and content to enact reform-based curriculum. Educative curriculum material designed to address teacher learning as well as student, is one potential vehicle. Our work is embedded in an ongoing urban systemic initiative of a large public school district to reform science education. As part of this effort, science curriculum materials were developed that were consistent with constructivist ideas, addressed national and local goals for student learning and educative for teachers. Three middle-school teachers with limited experience with physics and project-based science enacted a 10 week, force and motion unit using educative curriculum materials. Classes were videotaped daily and teachers were interviewed periodically throughout the unit. Through qualitative analysis across data sources we found teachers used and learned from educative features in the materials. In addition, educative features addressing pedagogical content knowledge were used more often and more effectively than those that addressed either pedagogical or content knowledge. Our work indicates educative curriculum can facilitate teacher learning necessary for improved practice and informs development of materials for all teachers as well as those participating in urban reform.

Instructional materials can serve as learning materials for both students and teachers. They can serve a primary source of science content, present specific views about the nature of scientific practices, and how scientific knowledge is developed. Materials can also serve as a primary influence on how teachers

To meet the recent demand for reform in science education (NRC, 1996; AAAS, 1993), the Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curricula, Computing in Education (hi-ce) at the University of Michigan has created inquiry-based, technology-infused curriculum

ABSTRACT: The laboratory has been given a central and distinctive role in science education, and science educators have suggested that rich benefits in learning accrue from using laboratory activities. Twenty years have been elapsed since we published a frequently cited, critical review of the research on the school science laboratory (Hofstein & Lunetta, Rev. Educ. Res. 52(2), 201–217, 1982). Twenty years later, we are living in an era of dramatic new technology resources and new standards in science education in which learning by inquiry has been given renewed central status. Methodologies for research and assessment that have developed in the last 20 years can help researchers seeking to understand how science laboratory resources are used, how students ’ work in the laboratory is assessed, and how science laboratory activities can be used by teachers to enhance intended learning outcomes. In that context, we take another look at the school laboratory in the light of contemporary practices and scholarship. This analysis examines scholarship that has emerged in the past 20 years in the context of earlier scholarship, contemporary goals for science learning, current models of how students construct knowledge, and information about how teachers and students engage in science laboratory activities.

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The past decade has seen great strides in the design of new learning technologies that support learning aligned with standards-based constructivist and inquiry teaching practices. Though there is considerable evidence that these technologies can help students learn when used appropriately, they are rarely employed beyond the small-scale settings in which they were designed and nurtured. Therefore, they have had only limited impact on K-12 education. This paper argues that a major reason current learning technologies are not being used broadly in schools is that there are incompatibilities between the demands of the innovations being introduced by the research community and the extant culture, capability, and management structures of schools. There are many plausible reasons; we suggest that a primary one is the nature of current research on learning technologies. We propose that research on technology for learning should give expanded attention to a broad range of factors in school set...

In spite of the strong emphasis on teaching science as inquiry in the science education community, very little inquiry-based teaching is taking place in actual K-12 science classrooms. One of the reasons for this deficiency may be ascribed to the lack of experience that teachers have with authentic scientific inquiry in the course of their own education. This paper addresses a need for providing beginning teachers with authentic inquiry experiences as well as subsequent instruction that links their experiences to teaching situations. It is argued that teacher education programs should include these two components so that teachers may better develop the knowledge and skills necessary for teaching science as inquiry. Two areas of research literature are reviewed: scientific inquiry and the use of technology to enhance teachers ‟ understanding of scientific inquiry. Through the literature review, this paper develops a rationale for examining the effectiveness of a teacher preparation program that makes use of a programmable data-collecting device as a tool to enhance teachers‟ understanding of scientific inquiry. 3