ITWF: Improving the Participation and Achievement of Students in Diverse Schools by Enhancing Teacher Professional Development in Science and Learning Technologies

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ABSTRACTInformation Technology Workforce (ITWF) - FY03Proposal ID: EIA-0306156Investigator: Alberto Rodriguez, Randy Yerrick and Cathy ZozakeiwizInstitution: UC, San DiegoTitle: Improving the Participation and Achievement of Students in Diverse Schools by Enhancing Teacher Professional Development in Science and Learning Technologies The University of California, San Diego has been funded to conduct a 3-year long professional development and research project that is based in a diverse school context. A cohort of elementary students will be selected and followed from fourth grade through sixth grade. Each year these students will be placed in classrooms with teachers who are participating in the project. The transformation of the students' knowledge of science and learning technologies, and the teachers' abilities and confidence in the use of learning technologies to teach for understanding, will be studied for 3 full years. In addition, each year a cohort of pre-service teachers will be recruited to student teach in the participating teachers' classrooms. This design aims to provide teachers with multiple opportunities for practicing the skills and content knowledge modeled during the science methods courses, and during the professional development institutes, in diverse school contexts. The following research questions will be explored:1. In what ways does an inquiry-based, sociocultural constructivist, and multicultural orientation to teaching enhance experienced and pre-service teachers' abilities to use learning technologies with diverse students in the upper elementary classroom?2. In what ways does an inquiry-based, sociocultural constructivist, and multicultural orientation to teaching using learning technologies enhance diverse students' attitudes toward and academic performance in science