Undergraduate Science Course Reform Serving Pre-service Teachers: Evaluation of a Faculty Professional Development Model

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This project focuses on critical needs in the preparation and long-term development ofpre-service, undergraduate, K-6 teachers of science. The goal is to investigate theimpact on these students of undergraduate, standards-based, reform entry level sciencecourses developed by faculty based on their participation in the NASA Opportunities forVisionary Academics (NOVA) professional development program. Thirty reform and 30comparison undergraduate science courses from a national population of 101 diverseinstitutions, stratified by institutional type, are being selected and compared in aprofessional development impact design model. Data is being collected using multiplequantitative and qualitative instruments and analyzed using comparative and relationalstudies at multiple points. Research questions to be explored include: determination ofshort-term impacts on undergraduate students and long-term effects on graduatedin-service teachers in their own classroom science teaching; identification ofcharacteristics of reform courses that produce significant impacts and identification ofcharacteristics of effective faculty development efforts.The intellectual merit of the project evolves from the large sample of reformed coursesavailable for study (all based on the same extensive longitudinal professionaldevelopment model developed through NOVA). The study is advancing understandingof effective faculty professional development and of the characteristics of undergraduatescience courses that impact student subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge.The broader impacts of the project stem from the diversity of the student populationsand variety of the institutions involved in the study. The population from which the studysample is drawn consists of over 30% minority institutions, is geographically diverse,and is representative of the variety of teacher preparation institutions. The study isadvancing the teaching, training and learning of undergraduate science faculty andtheir students at the 30 institutions directly involved and, more broadly, at a nationalnetwork of institutions.