Improving the Effectiveness of Teacher Diagnostic Skills and Tools

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The project is a five-year professional resource development project centered on the "Diagnoser" software previously funded by NSF. The software allows for the identification of alternative conceptions that students have in multiple science content areas. Previous research had shown an increase of up to 15% in student achievement based upon using the software with students and teachers in the area of kinematics. The project is developing extensions of the software into three more content areas: Properties of Matter, Heat and Temperature, and Physical and Chemical Changes for students in grades five to ten. In addition to the software, the project is developing a framework for using diagnostic classroom tools in the delivery of professional development to deepen the subject matter content knowledge, enrich the pedagogical content knowledge, broaden the curricular content knowledge, and hone the diagnostic skills for science teachers, especially those who are new to the intentional use of assessment in science instruction. The project involves university partners, three school districts and multiple schools in the state of Washington. Approximately 20 to 50 teachers spend substantial time working the software and serve as the pilot sites for the new content modules. Additional teachers are introduced to the software and the concept of diagnostic testing both in workshops and online environments.