Assessing Teacher Learning About Science Teaching
Professional development for science teachers operates with an implicit theory that is largely untested. The theory asserts that professional development brings about changes in teachers' science content and pedagogical content knowledge, which then leads to changes in classroom practice, ultimately improving student achievement. Testing this theory requires a coherent set of tools, which currently does not exist. Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI) and Project 2061 of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) jointly propose to develop these tools in specific science content areas. The project will create and disseminate instruments that assess teacher opportunities to learn, and that measure changes in teacher science content knowledge, teacher pedagogical content knowledge, classroom practice, as well as changes in student achievement. The teacher instruments will mainly be for middle school, but might have implications for younger grades.
Showcase
Evaluating Professional Development: A New Tool for Assessing Impacts on Teacher Knowledge for Science Teaching
This session described ATLAST's approach to developing assessments of knowledge for science teaching...
Assessing Teacher Learning About Science Teaching (ATLAST)
Slide presentation from the MSP PI Conference, Washington, D.C., January 2004. Click here for a web-viewable PDF Click here for the original PowerPoint presentation
Library
Identifying and Measuring Factors Related to Student Learning: The Promise and Pitfalls of Teacher Instructional Logs
Existing measures have produced inconsistent and weak evidence for claims about the relationships among teacher content knowledge, classroom practice, and student learning. The ATLAST project has developed pairs of assessmentsfor…
