Assessment Practices of STEM Teachers

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With funding from the National Science Foundation's Noyce Program, Research Track 4, this partnership between the University of Massachusetts Boston and Boston Public Schools will characterize growth in the assessment practices of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers. The goal is to understand how assessment practices may drive teacher effectiveness. This research study will include participation of 58 elementary, middle, and high school STEM teachers who previously participated in a Noyce-funded project and who have persisted in teaching in Boston or other nearby high-need districts. The project will compare differences in the assessment practices of these Noyce-program teachers to 29 other K-12 STEM teachers from the same area, but who participated in different training programs. The project aims to increase knowledge about STEM teacher effectiveness by how teacher effectiveness may relate to teachers measure their students' understanding. The project will examine changes in how STEM teachers measure student learning over several years, as the teachers gain more experience in the classroom. Outcomes from the research will help us understand how STEM teachers measure student learning and use that information to improve their teaching and to assign grades. The goals of the research study are to: (a) Increase understanding of teachers' assessment practices, particularly for Noyce Scholars in comparison to other STEM teachers who also persist in teaching in high-need school districts; (b) Measure growth in the assessment practices of Noyce Scholars in comparison to other STEM teachers over time; and (c) Better understand the role of the conceptual, pedagogical, cultural and political challenges teachers face as their assessment practices change. The research employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, in an interaction analysis framework, to study four research questions about K-12 STEM teachers who have persisted in teaching in high-need districts: (1) What are the teachers' current assessment practices? (2) How have their assessment practices changed from when they began teaching in a high-need district? (3) How do salient retrospective conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political challenges negotiated by the teachers explain their current classroom formative assessment practices and changes over time in their assessment practices? and (4) For teachers who have persisted teaching in Boston Public Schools, how do assessment practices relate to student performance outcomes on classroom assessments and to district and State standardized mathematics and science exams? Across these questions, the research team will examine differences between Boston and other districts, as well as effects of other factors, including Noyce- vs. non-Noyce- prepared teachers, length of time teaching in high-need districts, and school-level influences such as school culture, accountability rating, stability of leadership, and professional development opportunities. The project will contribute to theory about teacher assessment practices and the degree to which interaction analysis is useful in studying these practices. The project will also contribute to educational policy implications for supporting teachers to navigate pedagogical perspectives, curricular expectations, administrative policies and procedures, and external pressures as they persist in STEM teaching careers in high-need districts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.