Research Experience For Teachers Research Articles

Designing Lesson Plans with New Content Knowledge: The Intersection of Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge

ABSTRACT Although teachers’ instruction has been extensively studied, there is a dearth of research investigating how teachers design lessons and integrate new information into their existing lessons. This study utilized a case study approach to examine how teachers engaged in a nanoscale science professional development experience integrated new science content into their lesson plans. Five experienced science teachers were tracked as they conducted science research and developed new lessons that integrated their research into their science instruction. The findings showed that these teachers had to cross borders between science and education to design lessons, and three priorities framed their lesson planning processes: understandability, engaging students, and relevant real-world applications. For teachers whose students were assessed with end-of-grade high-takes testing, fitting the new information into the tested material was essential. The study provides insight into this border-crossing process and has implications for the design of programs that implement research experiences for teachers.

Research Experiences for Teachers in Engineering and Computer Science program (NSF)

Research Experiences for Teachers in Engineering and Computer Science program (NSF)

Rural secondary STEM teachers’ understanding of the engineering design process

Though STEM teacher professional development is known to be beneficial, it is not available equally to educators in all geographic regions. Rural educators face unique challenges not often experienced by their urban and suburban counterparts. This study investigates the impacts of a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program on rural math, science, and technology education teachers’ perspectives on how these experiences changed their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP). From 2016 to 2019, eleven rural secondary STEM teachers engaged in a six-week professional development experience focused on research and implementing the EDP. These teachers were rural “solitary” STEM teachers, which meant they were the only teacher of their subject in their school building. This qualitative study used a thematic analysis approach to code and analyze individual and focus group interview transcripts. The results were analyzed to determine how the RET experiences impacted the teachers’ perception of how the EDP is used in problem-solving activities and how it could be integrated into their classroom practices. Results from this study show that the teachers developed a more authentic conceptual understanding of the EDP, which led to increased insightfulness on how to engage students in authentic engineering design activities that strengthen future workforce skills. This study demonstrated that an authentic engineering-based RET program can increase rural teachers’ commitment and readiness to incorporate the EDP into regular classroom practices. Further, this program resulted in teachers gaining a much more nuanced understanding of how the EDP’s non-linear steps and iterative nature contribute to creating authentic problem-solving challenges for students. In particular, the teachers realized the necessity of creating less prescribed challenges that require students to draw upon the constellation of skills necessary to design optimal solutions, resulting in higher-caliber opportunities to develop future workforce skills. These findings emphasize the critical need to design professional development experiences that target the unique needs of rural STEM teachers. Additional research is needed to tease out the extent to which teachers’ increased commitment to using the EPD and a more nuanced understanding of the EDP translate into sustained changes to classroom practice.

Designing a research experience for teachers: applying features of effective professional development to a hybrid setting

ABSTRACT To facilitate transfer of teachers’ learning into classroom practice, science and engineering teacher professional development (PD) experiences should increase teachers’ content knowledge, disciplinary practices, and pedagogical strategies. As this can be difficult within traditional PD contexts, this study is a qualitative investigation of hybrid PD program design. The author explores influences on five teachers’ learning and instruction when seven features of effective PD, derived mainly from traditional PD, were integrated into both the pedagogical and practice components of a hybrid Research Experience for Teachers (RET) PD. Through constant comparative analysis of interviews, reflections, artifacts, and classroom observations, the author discovered that explicit connections between the seven features across pedagogical and disciplinary aspects of the RET facilitated teachers transferring their learning into classroom practices in ways applicable to their specific contexts. Thus, these seven features of effective PD hold promise as an organizing framework for designing and evaluating a hybrid PD.

Science teachers in research labs: Expanding conceptions of social dialogic dimensions of scientific argumentation.

Argumentation is a central epistemic process contributing to the generation, evaluation, and application of scientific knowledge. A key challenge for science educators and researchers is to understand how the important social and discursive (“social dialogic”) dimensions of argumentation can be implemented in learning environments. This study investigates how science educators learned about such argumentation through a professional development program at a scientific research center. The 13‐day program included 5‐days working in research laboratories with a mentor and observing scientific argumentation in context. Theoretically, this research draws on sociocultural frameworks to investigate the social dialogic dimensions of scientific argumentation. Methodologically, it examines the reflections of a cohort of 21 secondary science teachers as they observed argumentation in scientific research settings. It examines how research experiences for teachers can promote an understanding of the social dialogic dimensions of argumentation and to help teachers take up educational approaches that foster expansive argumentation practices. Teachers shared a heightened awareness of argumentation as a ubiquitous, embedded feature of authentic scientific activity; expanded ideas about forms, uses, and purposes of argumentation; and developed an understanding of how contexts for argumentation such as collaborative sensemaking and critique can help manage uncertainty and build knowledge. A year after their program participation, teachers recounted shifts in pedagogical practices, including desettling traditional classroom talk patterns, scaling back their epistemic authority, providing students with more agency and ownership of ideas, and recognizing the value of establishing a culture of community and collaboration. Findings highlight how professional development in research settings has the potential to broaden teachers' views of argumentation, with implications for secondary science teaching.

Measuring the Speed of Earth Around the Sun Using a Classroom-Built Radio Horn Telescope

Even though many physics teachers take their students on a calculation adventure through circular motion and Newton’s universal law of gravity to determine Earth’s velocity, most of us leave it at that. We present the final result and say, “Look, Earth is moving around the Sun at about 107,000 km/hr (66,000 mph), yet we can’t feel the motion at all!” Well, thanks to an NSF-funded Research Experience for Teachers, some eager participants, a simply built radio horn telescope pointed at the center of the Milky Way, and the addition of Doppler effect considerations, we can verify our calculations through observation… science!

Cultivating Science Teachers' Understandings of Science as a Discipline.

Current visions of science education advocate that students should engage with science in the classroom in ways that mirror the work of scientists in order to develop science proficiency. For this goal, teachers are tasked with the complex responsibility of supporting students in understanding not only the conceptual knowledge of science, but also its disciplinary practices, norms, and epistemologies. In order for teachers to teach in such ways, they must be afforded opportunities to develop and reflect on their own disciplinary understandings about science. Research Experiences for Teachers’ (RETs) programs, in which teachers engage in research with scientists, may be fertile contexts for the development of teachers’ robust understandings about science. As such, the purpose of this naturalistic single-case study is to explore the ways in which one elementary teacher (Ava) describes shifts in her disciplinary understandings about science after participating in a 6-week summer Research Experience for Teachers’ program. Through examination of interviews and observations, this study takes a critical event narrative analysis approach to unpack the ways in which Ava interprets certain disciplinary understandings about science in light of events during her research experience that to her had lasting and important impact on her understandings of science. We conclude by discussing the implications of this work for research and professional development design.

Comparing Online vs. In-Person Outcomes of a Hands-On, Lab-Based, Teacher Professional Development Program: Research Experiences for Teachers in the Time of COVID-19

In 2012, engineering was adopted as a content area in K-12 science education. Yet few science teachers have engineering content or pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers learn how to teach engineering through professional development experiences, for which Darling-Hammond et al. (2017) outline seven characteristics of effectiveness. This mixed-methods study compared three cohorts of the NSF-funded Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) participants at one university. Two cohorts of in-service teachers experienced RET on-site, and one (summer 2020) experienced the program 100% remotely, due to COVID-19. Research questions explore 1) the extent to which the RET program delivered in-person and remotely reflected the seven characteristics of effective PD; and 2) whether program outcomes of the hands-on, lab-based program could be achieved remotely. This study found that six of the seven characteristics of effective PD were fully evidenced in all three RET cohorts, and one was partially evidenced. Program outcomes were achieved at high and comparable levels for all cohorts, though the nature of the experience varied by mode of delivery. This research contributes to existing literature that finds no inherent differences in the quality of teacher professional development delivered in-person or remotely.

Research Experiences for Teachers in Engineering and Computer Science (NSF)

Research Experiences for Teachers in Engineering and Computer Science (NSF)

Teaching with Code: Globular Cluster Distance Lab

Modern astronomy increasingly depends on computational thinking. Although some astronomy courses for undergraduates use computing, high school astronomy courses often have little computing. Created as a part of a research experience for teachers in astronomy and another in computer science, this project leverages robotic telescope images and astronomical algorithms to determine the distance to a star cluster using variable stellar photometry. Students investigate Python and Jupyter Notebook to analyze astronomical images to calculate the interstellar distance to a star cluster across the Milky Way. Students will learn how to write Python code that runs in a Jupyter Notebook such that the brightness of stars in an astronomical image can be determined. The real astronomical image data will be directly manipulated and analyzed by code the students create. Student project files and teacher solution files are provided. Code is open source, and materials are available for classroom use.

Evaluation of an NSF Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Program for STEM Development: Water-Energy Education for the Next Generation (WE2NG)

Evaluation of an NSF Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Program for STEM Development: Water-Energy Education for the Next Generation (WE2NG)

Rural Teachers Learning Bioanalytical Engineering

Professional development opportunities provide teachers with enhanced learning experiences, deeper subject knowledge, and improvement of their teaching practices, all for the goal of increasing student achievement (Nelson, 2009). Unfortunately, most rural teachers have much less access to professional development opportunities compared to their urban and suburban peers (Hardré, P.L., et al., 2014). A Research Experience for Teachers (RET ), which is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded program, was created for rural high school math and science teachers in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma and the Center for Bioanalysis. As participants, teachers applied and were accepted to participate in a seven-week summer research experience to connect bioanalytical engineering and their research experiences into their classrooms and to stimulate their students’ critical thinking skills. The following narrative and analysis chronicle the teams’ design, development and learning experience in redesigning the seven-week professional development for rural science and math teachers.

Standford's Summer Research Program for Teachers Long-Term Outcomes Study

Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programs have been placing K-12 teachers in university research labs for almost three decades (Pop et al., 2010). However, the long-term impacts are rarely explored. This paper summarizes data from a survey study of 135/158 teachers (88% response rate) who participated in Stanford University’s RET programs between 2005 and 2017. The purpose of the study was to gauge the lasting impact of RET, if any, on teacher retention and classroom and professional practices. The data strongly suggest that participants gain long-lasting personal and professional benefits from participation--value that seems to be especially magnified for mid- to late-career teachers who are well established in their teaching practices but committed to continuous improvement. Furthermore, if the self-reports are accurate, these results would presumably also accrue to teachers’ students. Findings are attributed to the efficacy of the RET model. The authors argue for a nationwide evaluation of the efficacy of RET for teacher retention and professional development.

Science Teachers’ Ability to Self-Calibrate and the Trustworthiness of Their Self-Reporting

ABSTRACTNational and international standards documents are calling for science teachers to teach their students how to engage in the practices of science. Previous studies have found that most science teachers do not have the knowledge and skill to do this because they have not had experience engaging authentically in science. One way to overcome this problem is for science teachers to participate in short-term Research Experiences for Teachers. However, few studies have looked at teachers’ learning of science skills and practices in such experiences, and almost all have relied primarily on data self-reported by the teachers. In our previous studies we found that there is good reason to find these self-reported data suspect. Therefore, in this study we investigated the low calibration of teachers’ self-reports of their abilities to engage in research skills and practices and their abilities as measured by knowledgeable others, and here we suggest several reasons for this low calibration.

The Role of Emotions in Teachers’ Professional Development: Attending a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Program

The current study investigated teachers’ emotions, motivations, and changes to classroom practice as related to their involvement in a 6-week summer professional development (PD) program. Participants (N=67) attended the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program at a large university in the United States. Overall, study results showed that emotions played an important role in teachers’ engagement in the RET program and triggered changes in teachers’ thinking and implementation of their science teaching practices. Positive correlations were found among teachers’ motivations and emotions about their PD experience, as well as changes to their teaching practices. Interview data provided more depth to understanding participants’ views of their RET experiences.

Communities of practice as a framework to explain teachers' experiences within the community of science

AbstractIn this study, we argue that current conceptual frameworks used to understand how novices make sense of science ignore K‐12 teachers' understanding to a detriment. If teachers are supposed to translate the content, context, and culture of science to their students, then it is important for researchers and policymakers to understand how this happens. Communities of science practice (COSP) research identify the ways in which novices make sense of the practices of science within a space where they interact with, observe, and are affected by other members at varying levels of legitimacy. In brief, K‐12 students are rarely exposed to the COSP; therefore, teachers must translate these cultural pieces to their students while simultaneously teaching the content and practices of sciences. We chose to focus on teachers who participated in a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. The RET program served as a brief exposure to a COSP for these teachers. The goal for our study was to develop a conceptual framework to study teachers' experiences as spectator novices within a RET program. Spectator novice was the term we used to define teachers' roles as novices moving toward legitimacy within the COSP but with a different goal—that of observing the culture and translating it to their students—from science undergraduate and graduate students who are attempting to become full legitimate participants within the community. Through interviews with teachers, we developed a conceptual framework that can guide future research on the unique experiences of teachers as spectator novices within the COSP.

Engineering Design and Manufacturing Education through Research Experience for High School Teachers

Manufacturing educational programs historically have been limited to higher education institutions. Starting in 2013, however, Texas House Bill 5, a new Foundation High School Program, was established with an increasing requirement on the design and manufacturing. Most of the new requirements is outlined in the Career and Technical Education (CTE) section of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Standard. This in turn necessitates more training for high school teachers who are in great need of learning the state-of-the-art design and manufacturing technology. In 2016, Lamar University (LU) at Beaumont, Texas was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Teachers (RET) site grant titled “RET Site: Incorporating Engineering Design and Manufacturing into High School Curriculum.” The goal of the project is to host 12 high school teachers each summer to participate in engineering design and manufacturing research and then transfer their experience into high school curriculum. During the 2017 summer program, 12 high school teachers participated in the research and education program at LU. In the six weeks’ program, six LU engineering professors, each of them mentored two teachers. Besides mentoring research, each professor provides week-long morning workshops. The subjects of these workshops include 3D geometry modeling, finite element stress/thermal/vibration analysis, LED manufacturing, subtractive and additive manufacturing, alternative and renewable energy, and advanced mechanical systems. The teachers are in the process of transferring their new knowledge in design and manufacturing into high school curriculum.

Fostering Impactful Research Experiences for Teachers (RETs)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States funds Research Experiences for Teachers (RETs) for K-12 science teachers. The RET program seeks to provide science teachers with research experiences so they can provide enhanced science or engineering inquiry experiences for their students. One form of RET that focuses on science pedagogy has resulted in some promising changes in teachers’ thinking and lesson design. This case study examines how a cohort of ten secondary science teachers’ inquiry conceptions and lesson design changed after participating in a science pedagogy RET, and analyzes the relationship between the components of the program and changes seen in teachers’ inquiry conceptions and lessons. Significant changes in teachers’ inquiry conceptions and particularly their lessons were a result of teacher adoption of the inquiry-based instructional modeled during the science pedagogy RET. A theory of action is proposed for RET design that would better promote and support teacher learning and foster changes in classroom instruction.

Essential Aspects of Science Teacher Professional Development

Current reform efforts in science place a premium on student sense making and participation in the practices of science. Given the disparity between these activities and current teaching practices, effective means of professional development around such practices must be identified. We use a close examination of 106 science teachers participating in Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) to identify, through structural equation modeling, the essential features in supporting teacher learning from these experiences. Findings suggest that participation in RET shape science teacher practice and beliefs, which in turn influence practice. Essential features of RET include engaging teachers socially in the research context and in research projects that are personally relevant to them. The model suggests ways to maximize the professional development potential of RET intended to support engagement in disciplinary practices.

Engineering Imagination with Ideation

This paper explores the components and efficacy of an engineering-based Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program with a focus on ideation. Leveraging the imaginative and iterative elements of the ideation process, participants engaged in inquiry exploring energy harvesting and novel sensor technology. In modeling the ideation methodology, participants were more engaged in authentic research, which subsequently fostered the creation of novel lesson plans extending beyond the classroom. The importance of research-based, STEM-based RET experiences are a critical feature of bolstering teacher content and pedagogical skills while embedding features of student-centered elements such as creativity and imagination. During the following school year, participating teachers created an inter-district competition designing Ebolavirus sensors using the One Health framework introduced in the summer research experience program. An example of a student product is provided. A discussion of alignment to science curriculum standards as well as the need of these programs are also discussed.