Virginia Mathematics Teacher Fall 2016

The effect of the professional development on the participating teachers as a function of time, over the course of four inquiry lesson implementations was measured using a revised version of the Science Lesson Plan Analysis Instrument (SLPAI) (Jacobs, 2008). The instrument was revised by the project team to align with project goals and for single lesson plans covering science and math content and re-dubbed the SxI- SLPAI-R (Granger, 2011). Teachers’ lesson plans, post-implementation reflections, and teacher- designed classroom assessment data were used as evidence for the SxI-SLPAI-R to assess the quality of the lesson plans and the degree to which instructional practices aligned with inquiry as aligned with the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996). Teachers’ lessons were considered to align with an inquiry strategy if the scores on the SxI- SLPAI-R were above 50 (Granger, 2011). By this measure, teachers across the board implemented inquiry-based lessons from the first lesson and SxI- SLPAI-R scores increased as a function of time, although there was increased variance which explains the modest gains in overall score (Figure 2). One might expect that the increase could be due to the level of inquiry as teachers moved from structured to guided to open. However, this

shown by comparing average scored for the required level of inquiry with the level of inquiry chosen by the teachers for the final lesson plan (Figure 3). This indicates that over the course of the PD, teachers increased their ability to write and implement successful inquiry-based lesson plans. Teachers’ beliefs about inquiry teaching were measured as a pre-/post- comparator using a validated self-report survey, the Teaching Science as Inquiry (TSI) (Smolleck, 2006, Smolleck & Yoder, 2009). Teachers demonstrated significant gains across all five subscales suggesting an increasing awareness to and appreciation for inquiry based strategies in their teaching (Figure 4). Gains on subscales, indicative of the teacher’s changing beliefs, were similar to those observed for previous professional development projects (Granger, 2011). This increase in TSI scores suggests teachers buy-in to the process of teaching using inquiry strategies. Teachers, in their last reflection papers, confirmed successes of inquiry teaching and revealed a commitment to continuing to use inquiry as a teaching strategy. The following quote is similar to sentiments expressed by almost all of the 13 teachers involved in the project: “This whole process has allowed me to grow as a teacher it has pushed me to do things that I did not

Figure 2 . Distribution of SxI-SLPAI-R scores for each lesson cycle. A score of 50 or above is consistent with an inquiry strategy.

Figure 3 . Average SxI-SLPAI-R scores by type of inquiry (structured, guided, open) and overall. The first, required inquiry level is compared with the last inquiries of the same type. The gray are first inquiry implementations of that type and the black bars are last inquiry implementations of that type.

increase was not due to the level of inquiry as

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 43, no. 1

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