Virginia Mathematics Teacher Fall 2016

Table 1. Cohort 1 Participant Demographics

# Teacher com- pleting

District

Years Experience

% Female

% Minority

(# schools)

(M SD)

Summer Institute

A (10 schools)

21

100%

9.5%

15.3 (8.9)

B (2 schools)

9

100%

11%

7.4 (6.3)

C (1 school)

9

78%

100%

8.3 (9.4)

integrated literacy instruction, nature of science, educational technology and inquiry into these units. Many of these units also embedded mathematics content. Finally, teachers reported positive percep­ tions of the summer institute component of the PD. We elaborate on these results below. Results indicated a statistically significant increase in teachers’ confidence regarding the tar­ geted pedagogical approaches following participa­ tion in the summer institute. However, no differ­ ence existed in teachers’ content knowledge fol­ lowing the first summer institute (Table 2). Several reasons may exist for the lack of observed change in teachers’ content knowledge. First, the assess­ ment was out of 16 questions. The majority of par­ ticipants missed between 3 and 5 questions on both the pre and post-assessment with one participant scoring perfectly on the preassessment and two an­ swering all questions correct on the post- assessment. It is possible, given the teachers’ rela­ tively high beginning mean content knowledge (M=12.6), that there was a ceiling effect on the as­ sessment. Second, the questions selected were de­ signed to get at misconceptions about matter and energy concepts and were highly conceptual in na­ ture. Given the number of misconceptions related to matter and energy documented in the literature (e.g. Driver, Squires, Rushworth, & Wood- Robinson, 1994), it is possible that these were not fully addressed during the summer institute. Final­ ly, the content questions were presented at the end Teacher Confidence and Understandings

of the survey and the post-assessment was longer than the pre-assessment; participant fatigue may have contributed to the lack of difference in scores pre- to post. Pre/post summer institute results indicated teachers were very satisfied with opportunities to practice integrating PBL, inquiry, NOS, and of practice literacy strategies (all means>4.0). Further, teachers perceived they were part of a community (M = 4.38, SD = .60) and reported being very like­ ly to implement what they learned in the near fu­ ture (M = 4.76, SD = .50). For example, one teach­ er noted about her experience: This workshop was very effective because of the range of concepts covered, the varie­ ty of experiences, and the opportunity to interact and collaborate with other teachers. One of the best parts was the focus, which was to create a science unit that we will ac­ tually do; it was purposeful, and not simply theory. I also like the fact that we will be able to build on this summer's work next year, and that we are involved in something that is ongoing, and that we will have coaching and more collaboration through the year. Most PD is finite, but here we have become part of a new 'community' that will continue to work together. (Kim, Post- PD Survey) Teacher Perceptions of PD Effectiveness

PBL Units Generated

Table 2. Changes in Teachers’ Pedagogical Confidence and Content Knowledge .

Pre-SI

Post-SI

Paired Samples Sign.

M (SD)

M (SD)

Confidence (n=37) PBL

2.51 (.90) 2.76 (1.1) 2.35 (.95) 3.30 (1.2) 2.89 (.71) 12.6 (1.6)

4.05 (.62) 3.86 (.53) 3.67 (.58) 4.30 (.66) 4.40 (.64) 12.4 (1.7)

<.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 <.001

Inquiry

NOS

Literacy

Literacy into science

Matter/Energy Content Score (n=34)

.627

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 43, no. 1

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