Method, Areas of STEM Teacher Professional Development, and Results
As part of the grant requirements, teachers were evaluated on their STEM instructional practices and science content knowledge throughout the school year. For STEM instructional practices, teachers were observed during fall, winter, and spring of the 2015-2016 academic year and assessed on a scale of 1-4 (novice to role model) on their execution of 15 research-based STEM teacher actions across 3 domains: Creating an Environment for Learning, Building Scientific Understanding, and Engaging Students in Scientific & Engineering Practices. It is important to note that teachers ofen spend many years developing these qualities—reaching “role model” (4) status takes a significant investment in personal and professional growth.
Repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to determine if teachers experienced significant growth in these skills across the school year. Of the 15 teacher actions evaluated, teachers significantly improved their scores on 5 of these actions. Specifically, teachers significantly improved their scores in the areas of Creating a Positive Classroom Culture, Connecting Learning Outside the Classroom, Implementing Inquiry, Building Literacy in Science, and Cultivating Scientific Investigation.