Targeted Math Science Partnership: Middle Grades Earth and Space Science Education

宾夕法尼亚州立大学和宾夕法尼亚州的几个学区，包括三个农村区--秃鹰、贝尔方特和宾斯山谷--和三个城区--哈里斯堡、雷丁和约克--围绕地球和空间科学(ESS)建立了伙伴关系。费城学区的几所学校也承诺参与这一合作伙伴关系。中等年级地球和空间科学教育合作伙伴关系涉及来自宾夕法尼亚州立大学三个校区的地球科学、天文学和教育学的教师，分别是大学公园、白兰地和哈里斯堡，目标是四年级到九年级的ESS。教师专业发展活动集中在建立对ESS中四个主题领域的重大概念的深刻理解：能源生产、气候变化、板块构造和太阳系天文学。该伙伴关系的目标是：1)通过中学年级促进对ESS概念发展的理解，2)发展和支持宾夕法尼亚州的现任教师，让学生参与ESS领域重要而复杂的问题，3)加强职前教师的科学内容准备，以加深他们对ESS的理解，以及4)在宾夕法尼亚州立大学和校园、服务不足的城市和农村学区以及整个伙伴关系中，改善教与学方面的沟通和合作。该伙伴关系正在采用四项主要战略来实现这些目标。首先，在职教师的专业发展包括一套为期一周的驻地讲习班，将内容与四个专题目标领域的教学最佳做法结合起来。在这些讲习班和全年的后续会议上，教师、STEM和教育教职员工努力制定与之相适应的学习进展和四个领域的表现标准。第二，针对中年级学生的倡议包括教师和指导顾问实施在讲习班期间学习的表现标准、课程和教学方法，同时收集数据以了解学习进展。第三，针对职前教师的倡议侧重于与学习进度相一致的课程开发、城市教学能力建设和真实的研究经验。第四，大学教师和研究生参与专业发展研讨会和对中学ESS课堂的结构化观察，以促进专业知识的互惠，ESS专家获得教学知识，ESS教师收到丰富的具体内容反馈。这项研究正在研究这样一个问题，即如何将对ESS中的大想法的理解描述为学习进步，以及这些学习进步如何影响这些年级的课程、评估和教学的发展。评价的重点是协作规划，以阐明变革理论，并提供形成性和总结性评价。

Pennsylvania State University and several school districts in Pennsylvania, including three rural districts - Bald Eagle, Bellefonte and Penns Valley - and three urban districts - Harrisburg, Reading and York, have formed a partnership around Earth and Space Science (ESS). Several schools in the Philadelphia City school district are also committed to participating in the partnership. The Middle Grades Earth and Space Science Education partnership involves faculty members from Geosciences, Astronomy and Education at three Penn State campuses, University Park, Brandywine and Harrisburg, and targets ESS in grades 4 through 9. Teacher professional development activities concentrate on building deep conceptual understanding of big ideas in ESS in four topic areas: energy production, climate change, plate tectonics, and solar system astronomy. The goals of the partnership are to: 1) contribute to the understanding of conceptual development in ESS through the middle grades, 2) develop and support current teachers across Pennsylvania to engage students with the significant and complex questions of ESS fields, 3) strengthen the science content preparation of pre-service teachers to deepen their understanding of ESS, and 4) institutionalize improved communication and collaboration in teaching and learning among colleges and campuses of Penn State, in underserved urban and rural school districts, and across the partnership. The partnership is employing four main strategies to accomplish these goals. First, professional development for in-service teachers includes a suite of week-long residential workshops that integrate content with pedagogical best practices in the four thematic target areas. During these workshops and in follow-up meetings throughout the year, teachers and STEM and education faculty work on developing learning progressions and performance standards aligned with them in the four areas. Second, initiatives for middle grades students involve teachers and guidance counselors in implementing the performance standards, curricula and pedagogy studied during the workshops, while collecting data to inform the learning progressions. Third, initiatives for pre-service teachers are focusing on curriculum development aligned with the learning progressions, capacity building for urban teaching, and authentic research experiences. Fourth, university faculty and graduate students are involved in professional development workshops and structured observations of middle school ESS classes in order to foster reciprocity of expertise, with ESS experts gaining pedagogical knowledge and ESS teachers receiving rich content-specific feedback. The research is examining the question of how an understanding of big ideas in ESS can be characterized as learning progressions, and how these learning progressions can inform the development of curriculum, assessment and instruction in these grades. The evaluation is focusing on collaborative planning to articulate a theory of change, and to provide formative and summative evaluation.