Moving beyond Subject Matter Knowledge: Assessing Elementary Teachers? Content Knowledge for Teaching Science

这个项目的目标是更好地理解关键的设计特征，这些特征对于开发有效和可靠的教学知识(CKT)科学评估非常重要。科学教育专业发展版图中充满了各种学习机会，以提升K-12科学教师的能力，有效地支持学生的学习。然而，由于缺乏对科学教师知识的有效和可靠的评估，这一领域受到阻碍，可以用来决定教师知识的哪些方面应该成为这些专业学习机会的重点。该项目将为在实地就制定小学教师知识评估的最有成效的方法达成共识，以便为正在进行的科学专业发展努力提供信息，迈出重要的一步。这项研究准备支持制定指标的努力，这些指标可以用来监测和改善小学科学教师在教师准备和专业发展环境中的学习。该项目旨在建立在科学教师实践知识重要性的坚实证据基础上，这表明该领域的措施不仅可以评估教师的学科知识，而且可以评估他们对如何教授这些学科的知识。这项验证研究集中于考察两种类型的科学衡量标准--基于实践的CKT项目和学科知识项目--如何评估小学教师知识的不同方面，以及这些衡量标准与教师专业准备和经验的其他指标之间的关系。这项工作直接针对国家研究委员会报告的指标6--教师的科学和数学教学知识--监测K-12教育成功的进展：一个国家的进步？该项目将评估150名3-6年级教师的科学CKT，然后对其中24名教师进行认知访谈，以探索这些项目的内容效度，并探索科学CKT与其他教师质量指标之间的关系，如教学经验、自我效能和对教学特定概念的自我报告信心。

The goal of this project is to develop a better understanding about the key design features important for developing valid and reliable assessments of Content Knowledge for Teaching (CKT) science. The science education professional development landscape is full of a variety of learning opportunities to enhance K-12 science teachers' abilities to effectively support their students' learning. However, the field is hampered by a lack of valid and reliable assessments of science teachers' knowledge that can be used for making decisions about which aspects of teachers' knowledge should be the focus of these professional learning opportunities. This project will provide an important step towards building consensus in the field about the most productive approaches for developing assessments of elementary teachers' knowledge in order to inform ongoing professional development efforts in science. This study is poised to support efforts to develop indicators that can be used to monitor and improve elementary science teachers' learning in both teacher preparation and professional development settings.The project is designed to build upon the robust evidentiary base for the importance of science teachers' practice-based knowledge, which suggests that it is important for the field to have measures that can assess not only teachers' subject matter knowledge, but also their knowledge about how to teach these subjects. This validation study concentrates on examining how two types of science measures -- practice-based CKT items and subject matter knowledge items -- assess distinct aspects of elementary teacher's knowledge and how these measures relate to other indicators of teachers' professional preparation and experience. This work directly addresses indicator 6 , teachers' science and mathematics content knowledge for teaching, of the National Research Council report Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-12 Education: A Nation Advancing? The project will assess 150 grades 3-6 teachers with items developed to measure science CKT, followed by cognitive interviews of 24 of these teachers to explore the content validity of the items and explore the relationship among science CKT and other measures of teacher quality such as years of experience teaching, self-efficacy, and self-reported confidence in teaching particular concepts.