Teacher participation in just 24 hours of MSS PD resulted in statistically significant gains in teacher and student content knowledge. Additionally, teacher content knowledge gains were maintained 1 year later as well as gains in that year’s student content knowledge. Student gains were consistent for ELLs and did not differ based on sex or race/ethnicity.
This project compared the effects of three teacher professional development intervention models which contained the same subject matter in identical science investigations, but differed in the ways they supported development of teacher pedagogical content knowledge. Professional development was provided by facilitators trained in a train-the-trainer model.
This was a nationwide randomized control trial involving 8 sites, 280 elementary teachers, and ~7,000 4th grade students.
- Author: Joan I. Heller, Kirsten R. Daehler, Nicole Wong, Mayumi Shinohara, Luke W. Miratrix
- Type: Research Article — Journal of Research in Science Teaching
- Pages: 30
- Publication Date: December 2011
- Topics: Elementary
Companion Resources & Services
Facilitation Academy
Prepare staff developers to facilitate a specific MSS Course. Attendees experience the course as learners and delve into the techniques needed to facilitate it for participants.
Making Sense of Student Work PLC Protocol
This protocol supports professional learning communities in collaboratively analyzing student work and uncovering the value in high-quality formative assessment.