Developing the Abilities of Teacher Educators to Model Core Teaching Practices for STEM Teacher Candidates

该项目旨在通过提高教师候选人在STEM的教学质量来服务于国家利益。该项目旨在确保关键STEM领域的新教师能够有效地执行核心教学实践(CTP)-研究表明，这是一套相对较少的具体教学技能，最能支持所有学生的学习。例如，一个重要的CTP是与学生建立尊重的关系。研究还表明，如果在教师准备课程中没有明确的CTP模式，教师候选人不太可能继续在自己的课堂上使用这些教学方法。该项目建议通过培养教师教育工作者的技能和对CTP的理解来“培训培训者”，这是一种大多数人都不熟悉的教师教育方法。特别是，作为迈向以CTP为重点的教学的必要的第一步，参与的教师教育工作者将有效地为新手教师示范这些技术。该项目的成果将用于改进这一过程，使其可推广到其他机构，并为后续工作提供信息，以支持教师教育工作者直接教授和评估教师培训方案，而不仅仅是对这些方法进行建模。研究表明，这种过渡面临着许多挑战，有经验的教师教育工作者通常认为CTP只不过是对现有的培训方法应用了新的术语。将通过一个实践社区(COP)为该项目提供便利，在该社区中，STEM教师教育工作者得到项目人员的指导和学习。虽然后者在向新手教授CTP方面有相当多的经验，但在协助其他师范教育工作者开展类似工作方面，也有宝贵的经验可供借鉴。将优先考虑与STEM学生学习特别相关的CTP。然而，该项目不会立即培训参与者教授和评估CTP，而是从一个关键的、更快实现的中间目标开始--积极模拟这些教学方法的能力。“主动建模”不仅仅是演示一种教学方法；它需要教师教育工作者明确地为学生识别技术，并解释为什么它以特定的方式进行。项目参与者还将研究这些努力如何影响他们的学生对教学的想法。项目影响的证据将通过参与者在协作规划、实践、记录、分析和改进他们的CTP主动建模过程中产生的人工制品来收集。此外，还将对教师教育工作者和教师候选人进行事前/事后的书面反思和面谈。对这些数据的分析和结果的报告将对其他教师教育计划特别有价值，这些计划了解通过支持教师教育工作者过渡到以CTP为重点的教师准备工作可以实现的显著改进。NSF IUSE：EDU计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区转变和改进STEM教育的努力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving the quality of teaching that teacher candidates experience in STEM. The project aims to ensure new teachers in crucial STEM fields can effectively perform core teaching practices (CTPs)—a relatively small set of specific, instructional skills that research has shown to best support learning for all students. For example, one important CTP is building respectful relationships with students. Research also suggests that, if CTPs are not explicitly modelled in teacher preparation courses, teacher candidates are unlikely to go on to use those teaching methods in their own classrooms. This project proposes to “train the trainers” by developing teacher educators’ skills and understandings regarding CTPs, an approach to teacher education that is unfamiliar to most. In particular, as an essential first step in moving toward CTP-focused instruction, participating teacher educators will effectively model those techniques for novice teachers. The project’s results will be used to refine this process and make it replicable for other institutions, and to inform subsequent work to support teacher educators in teaching and assessing CTPs directly rather than only modelling those methods.This project aims to support teacher educators in transitioning to teacher preparation that focuses on core teaching practices (CTPs). Research indicates that such transitions face many challenges, with experienced teacher educators commonly regarding CTPs as little more than applying new terms to well established training methods. The facilitation of this project will be through a community of practice (CoP) in which STEM teacher educators are guided by and learn with project personnel. While the latter have considerable experience with teaching CTPs to novices, there are invaluable lessons to be learned in assisting fellow teacher educators to do similar work. CTPs particularly relevant to student learning in STEM will be prioritized. Rather than immediately training participants to teach and assess CTPs, however, this project will begin with a crucial and more quickly realized, intermediate goal—the ability to actively model those teaching methods. “Actively modelling” involves more than demonstrating a teaching method; it requires teacher educators to explicitly identify the technique for students and to explain why it is performed in certain ways. Project participants will also examine how those efforts influence their students’ thinking about teaching. Evidence of the project’s impacts will be gathered through artifacts generated by participants in collaboratively planning, practicing, recording, analyzing, and improving their active modelling of CTPs. This will be supplemented by pre/post written reflections by and interviews of teacher educators and teacher candidates. The analysis of this data and reporting of results will be particularly valuable to other teacher education programs that understand the considerable improvements to teacher preparation that can be achieved by supporting teacher educators in transitioning to a focus on CTPs. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.