- Year 2022
- NSF Noyce Award # 1745263
- First Name Larry
- Last Name Horvath
- Discipline Other:science education
- Co-PI(s)
Chance Hoellwarth, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; Donna Ross, San Diego State University; Eric Hsu & Kim Seashore, San Francisco State University
- Presenters
Larry Horvath & Jennifer Nelson, San Francisco State University; Melissa Yisak & Dina Lemmer, American Institutes for Research; Sanlyn Buxner, University of Arizona
Need
The Western Region Noyce (WRN) community currently consists of Noyce scholars, Noyce teachers, Noyce master teacher fellows, and Noyce leadership in 14 western states with active Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program grants. The Western Regional Noyce Alliance (WRNA) is a project that hosted three annual conferences, math and science summer institutes, and regional networking sessions. The WRNA also supported Noyce scholar participation in immersive summer research experiences. The professional development opportunities afforded through the WRNA are open to all members of the WRN communityThe WRNA greatly increased opportunities for professional networking, leadership development, and improved practice within the WRN community. Rigorous evaluation of the WRNA has demonstrated the value of participating in professional development opportunities – attending a two-day full Noyce Conference, participating in a two-week STEM summer institute, experiencing a nine week immersive summer research experience, and/or attending regional network gatherings.
Goals
Western Regional Noyce Alliance (WRNA) provides Noyce participants with the opportunity to participate in various combinations of professional development. In this work we study the outcomes of attending the summer modeling institutes on teachers’ knowledge and classroom practices.
Approach
The American Institutes for Research (AIR) working closely with project leadership conducted 19 observations of teachers, sampled from in-service Noyce teachers who participated in the online modeling institutes over the summer of 2021. They analyzed the lesson plans from pre and post summer and observations from post summer to look for changes in classroom practices related to modeling.
Outcomes
In this descriptive study, we present findings about changes in teacher practice before andafter WRNA PD and the implementation of modeling in a virtual classroom. Although theratings of most lesson plans across criteria did not change, it is promising that we found almosthalf of the science teachers had increased alignment to the “eliciting student ideas” category. Italso was positive to find that (a) most videos included student-directed elements of modelingand (b) teachers were providing opportunities for modeling.Next, we will integrate findings from the interviews to further understand how participants understood the practice of modeling and their perceived utility of the WRNA PD, as well as the extent to which the strategies learned in the WRNA PD were implemented during their recorded post-PD videos. In addition, we will triangulate interviews, lesson plans, and videos (as applicable) to examine if participants understood modeling based on their responses in the interviews and how it relates to the level of modeling that we had found in the videos and lesson plans.
Broader Impacts
The WRNA includes annual conferences, summer institutes, regional networking sessions, and summer research internships that will impact thousands of STEM educators currently in the pre-service or early career stages of their profession. Over the four-year project, WRN conferences directly impacted close to 900 Noyce participants and summer institutes impacted nearly 200 participants. WRNA helped to increase the number of future STEM leaders in our region’s schools who will be prepared to effectively implement the Next Generation Science Standards and/or the Common Core State Standards in high needs schools as more Western Region states fully adopt or include similar standards in their STEM curricula.
