- Year 2023
- NSF Noyce Award # 2243392
- First Name Molly
- Last Name Weinburgh
- Discipline STEM Education (general)
- Co-PI(s)
Dean Williams
- Presenters
Molly Weinburgh, Texas Christian University; Melissa Demetrikopoulos, Institute for Biomedical Philosophy
Need
With the disruptive, entrenched, and ubiquitous impacts of COVID-19, there are aspects of teacher effectiveness and retention as related to school district responses that need to be examined. The pandemic resulted in changes to the educational environment that were initially disruptive (e.g., internet access, loaner computers/tablets, parental communication, school/district communication, worsening digital divide) but, in the long-term, may be seen as enhancements (e.g., increased learning in virtual environment, support to develop online modules/recorded lessons) (Choate et al., 2021; de los Santos & Rosser, 2021; Kidd & Murray, 2020). STEM teachers prepared, and entering the profession, prior to the 2020 pandemic were educated in practice-driven, face-to-face pedagogies. They were expected to use reform-based strategies (NGSS Lead State, 2013) when teaching in high-needs schools (e.g., defined by school percent free/reduced lunch, student demographics) which are known to impact teacher effectiveness and retention (e.g., Saka et al., 2013). However, by the end of March 2020, all public school in the US had shut down in-person instruction and ultimately moved to various forms of remote instruction whereby teachers were required to move instruction to unfamiliar on-line platforms.
Research Questions
Goal 1: Determine the learning modalities utilized by high-need local educational agencies (in a COVID-19 dictated environment) beginning in fall 2020 through Spring 2022. Objective a: Ascertain what learning modalities were employed each semester beginning with fall 2020 through Spring 2022 in high-need local educational agencies.
Objective b: Ascertain how these learning modalities were implemented. Research Question 1: What learning modalities were used by high-need local educational agencies beginning in fall 2020 through Spring 2022? (Goal 1) Goal 2: Determine how learning modalities contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and retention in high-need local educational agencies in response to a major disruption. Objective a: Ascertain STEM teacher effectiveness utilizing historical and ongoing data on grades 7 and 9 test scores and high school graduation rates beginning 2018-2019. Objective b: Ascertain STEM teacher retention rates beginning 2018-2019. Research Question 2: How did utilization of different learning modalities within a COVID-19 dictated teaching environment contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and STEM teacher retention in high-need local educational agencies? (Goal 2) Goal 3: Determine what support systems and resources (including how learning modalities were implemented) STEM teachers found to be most helpful. Objective a: Ascertain what support systems and resources STEM teachers attribute to their effectiveness. Objective b: Ascertain what support systems and resources STEM teachers attribute to their retention in the profession. Research Question 3: What support systems and resources within a COVID-19 dictated teaching environment contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and STEM teacher retention in high-need local educational agencies? (Goal 3).
Approach
The overall goal of this project is to understand (a) implementation of learning modalities utilized during the protracted national emergency of COVID-19 and (b) the impact this had on STEM teacher effectiveness and retention. This research will determine how STEM teachers in high-need local educational agencies perceived the affordances and challenges of the learning modalities used by the district in which they taught and how these relate to their teaching effectiveness and retention.
While learning modalities have sometimes been defined in terms of the sensory modalities students use to learn (Loo, 1997; Riding and Cheema, 1991), for this project, learning modality is defined according to the HHS Public Data Hub and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) as being In-Person, Remote, or Hybrid (Department of Health and Human Services ArcGIS Online, n.d.). Research Question 1 will conduct secondary analysis of publicly available data sets to focus on “high-need local educational agency” (e.g., “high-need school district”) as defined in section 201 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1021) in order to identify the learning modalities that were used by high-need local educational agencies and how they were implemented over time. Research Question 2 will conduct secondary analysis of publicly available data sets to focus on “high-need local educational agency” (e.g., “high-need school district”) as defined in section 201 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1021) in order to identify how utilization of different learning modalities contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and STEM teacher retention in high-need local educational agencies. Research Question 3 will collect primary data through surveys and focus groups to determine support systems and resources (including how learning modalities were implemented) STEM teachers attribute to their effectiveness and to their retention in the profession. It is expected that aspects of the STEM teacher’s prior experiences will impact the ease at which they were able to make the transition to on-line or hybrid teaching including key components of their own prior on-line teaching and learning experiences.
Outcomes
Sequential mixed methods research will determine 1) What learning modalities were used by high-need local educational agencies beginning in fall 2020 through Spring 2022 and how these learning modalities were implemented; 2) How learning modalities contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and retention in high-need local educational agencies in response to a major disruption; and 3) What support systems and resources within a COVID-19 dictated teaching environment contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and STEM teacher retention in high-need local educational agencies. Teacher effectiveness will be measured utilizing historical and ongoing secondary data on grades 7 and 9 test scores and high school graduation rates beginning 2018-2019.
Broader Impacts
This project will determine how utilization of different learning modalities and institutional factors interact and contributed to STEM teacher effectiveness and retention in high-need school districts during and after the pandemic. The range of learning modalities utilized across school districts will provide a mechanism to conduct potentially transformative research in investigating the impact on STEM teachers. This research will also determine how STEM teachers in high-need local educational agencies perceived the affordances and challenges of the learning modalities used by the district in which they taught and how these relate to their teacher effectiveness and retention. Furthermore, programmatic findings on best practices regarding teacher effectiveness and retention, especially in local high-needs-educational-agencies, will be used to inform policy, practice, and future design of teacher professional development.
