Structured Abstract
Setting
Teachers in 12 middle schools from Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville, Florida) will participate in the study.
Sample
The sample will include at least 1,000 students in grades 6, 7, and 8, approximately half of whom will be low-income, minority students.
Two widely implemented earth science programs with preliminary evidence of effectiveness, designed to enhance teacher quality will be used: Investigating Earth Systems (administered by the American Geological Institute (AGI)), and Earth Science by Design, administered by the Technical Education Research Center (TERC)). Both programs use a 2-week summer institute to train teachers. AGI has five follow-up training sessions throughout the academic year, whereas TERC has on-line mentoring throughout the school year and follow-up conferences. TERC and AGI will collaborate to construct the third experimental condition, an approach to curriculum design promoted in Earth Science by Design, to train teachers how to adapt the high-quality AGI-developed materials for alignment to local standards.
Research design and methods
Schools and teachers will volunteer to participate in the study. Modest monetary incentives and professional development credits will be provided to teacher participants. The study will have four conditions: the three experimental conditions listed above and a no-treatment control group. Twelve middle schools will be chosen to participate in the study, and four teachers from each school will be involved in the evaluation. Within each school, one science teacher will be assigned to each condition. A total of 48 teachers and their 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-grade students will participate in the study. Fidelity of implementation will be monitored.
Control condition
The control group will have access to the normal district-provided professional development.
Key measures
Teacher measures will include classroom observations, concept maps to analyze teachers' understanding of the main ideas of earth science, project-developed quality of lessons measures, and standardized student achievement tests will be used.
Data analytic strategy
Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) will be used to study the effects of the different approaches to professional development on teachers and student achievement. The focus will be on changes in instruction and achievement year-to-year and over time, controlling for teacher and student background, and school and classroom context variables.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Select Publications:
Journal articles
Penuel, W.R., and Gallagher, L.P. (2009). Preparing Teachers to Design Instruction for Deep Understanding in Middle School Earth Science. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 18(4): 461-508.
** This project was submitted to and funded under Teacher Quality: Mathematics and Science Education in FY 2005.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
