- Year 2018
- NSF Noyce Award # 1540826
- First Name Deborah
- Last Name Nolan
- Discipline Other: STEM, STEM
- Co-PI(s)
Elisa Stone, UC Berkeley, emstone@berkeley.edu
Elisa Salasin, UC Berkeley, salasin@berkeley.edu
George Johnson, UC Berkeley, gcjohnson@berkeley.edu - Presenters
Elisa Stone, UC Berkeley, emstone@berkeley.edu; Rebecca Hachmyer, UC Berkeley, rhachmyer@berkeley.ed; Elisa Salasin, UC Berkeley, salasin@berkeley.edu; Jessica Charles, Bank Street College, jcharles@bankstreet.edu
Need
Teacher education programs at UC Berkeley are united by a number of pedagogical and programmatic goals for preparing candidates for teaching in K-12 urban schools, including the development of inquiry-based teaching practices that support equity and access for all students. However, we have not previously undertaken a systematic study of our graduates’ classroom practices, nor do we have an appreciation of the strengths and limitations of graduates that are common or differ across the variety of teacher education programs at Berkeley.
Goals
We have begun to undertake a longitudinal study that aims to characterize our graduates? classroom practices, focusing specifically on inquiry-based teaching. We describe analysis of three years of data from classroom observations of graduates from two UC Berkeley teacher education programs, the undergraduate secondary science & math CalTeach and graduate elementary Developmental Teacher Education (DTE) programs. Among the CalTeach graduates, a number of NSF Noyce scholars participated in the study.
Approach
In order to characterize inquiry teaching practices of over 30 teachers who have graduated from Berkeley teacher education programs, we have used the Horizon Research group?s ?Inside the Classroom: Observation and Analytic Protocol.? This observation protocol has enabled us to examine 6 to 8 indicators each in the domains of design, implementation, math/science teaching content, and classroom culture. Follow up interviews of each participating teacher have probed their own perception of their classroom practices.
Outcomes
We present preliminary findings from classroom observations of the 30 participating teachers that highlight differences in small group and whole class inquiry-based teaching practices. Interview data confirms differences in the way these teachers view inquiry practices in small group versus whole class conformations. Case studies of four teachers, each whom we have observed teaching multiple times, indicate that different teachers have unique inquiry-based teaching profiles.
Broader Impacts
These findings have provided insight into the inquiry teaching practices of graduates from two different teacher education programs at Berkeley, and have implications for how Berkeley and other teacher education programs across the nation support the development of inquiry-based practices for novice teachers.
