Spanning Boundaries: A Statewide Network to Support Science Teacher Leaders to Implement Science Standards

目前学校科学教育的优先事项包括建立强大的专业学习社区，促进教师、教师领导和学校管理人员持续的专业成长。该项目针对这些优先事项，为中学科学教师带头人开发和测试了一个为期两年的专业发展模式，帮助他们支持他们的同事实施下一代科学标准(NGSS)。新的专业学习模式结合了三个关键要素：1)专注于能够解释、翻译新方法和资源并将其融入当地环境的教师领导者；2)利用精通教师专业学习和经验式学习方法的非正式科学教育专家的专业知识；3)建立全州同行网络，他们可以分享超出个别学校和地区背景的经验。通过为科学教师领袖建立一个地理分布的支持网络，该项目将为教师创造更公平的获得高质量专业学习机会的机会，并为学校中数量不成比例的新手教师提供亟需的支持，这些学校拥有大量历史上未被充分代表的理科学生。这个早期阶段的设计和开发项目由两个研究问题指导：1)教师领导者如何利用基于非正式科学机构的网络中的结构、实践和工具来解释、筛选和转换可用的资源，并将其转化为专业学习支持，以实现基于现象的教学的本地化实施？2)教师领导者开发的专业学习支持如何更加符合专业发展的最佳实践(例如，主动学习、持续、连贯、协作和基于内容)，并在他们参与基于ISI的网络的整个过程中纳入非正式学习的各个方面(例如，选择和体验式学习)？该项目将邀请两组25名初中和高中科学教师带头人参加重叠的为期两年、为期一周的暑期研习班，并在学年期间至少举行12次在线会议。为期30小时的暑期学院将旨在解决教师领导者作为学习者、课堂教师和教师专业发展提供者的多重角色。为了在整个学年保持专业发展，将使用每月两个小时的在线会议来培养实践社区。一些会议将集中讨论领导力和与NGSS相关的主题，而其他会议将集中于深化科学内容知识。用于解决研究问题的数据来源包括：1)视频记录、观察的实地笔记和专业发展会议的人工制品，2)对教师领导的访谈，以及3)由教师领导实施的专业发展会议的日记条目和人工制品。探索研究PREK-12计划(DRK-12)旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高Pre-K-12学生和教师在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)方面的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验上的证明。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。

Current priorities in school science education include building strong professional learning communities that foster ongoing professional growth among teachers, teacher leaders, and school administrators. This project responds to these priorities by developing and testing a two-year professional development model for secondary school science teacher leaders that will help them support their colleagues in implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The new model for professional learning combines three key elements: 1) Focusing on teacher leaders who can interpret, translate, and incorporate new approaches and resources into local contexts, 2) Engaging the expertise of informal science education specialists who are well versed in teacher professional learning and experiential approaches to learning, and 3) Establishing a statewide network of peers who can share experiences beyond individual school and district contexts. By developing a geographically-distributed network of support for science teacher leaders, the project is poised to create more equitable access to high quality professional learning opportunities for teachers as well as provide much needed support to the disproportionate number of novice teachers in schools with high populations of historically underrepresented students in science. This early stage design and development project is guided by two research questions: 1) How do teacher leaders utilize structures, practices, and tools within an informal science institution-based network to interpret, filter, and translate available resources into professional learning supports for localized implementation of phenomena-based instruction? And 2) How do the professional learning supports developed by teacher leaders become more aligned with best practices for professional development (e.g., active learning, sustained, coherent, collaborative, and content-based) and incorporate aspects of informal learning (e.g., choice and experiential learning) throughout their participation in an ISI-based network? The project will engage two cohorts of 25 middle and high school science teacher leaders in overlapping two-year, one-week summer institutes, and a minimum of 12 online meetings during the academic years. The 30-hour summer institutes will be designed to address the multiple roles of teacher leaders as learners, classroom teachers, and teacher professional development providers. To sustain professional development across the academic year, monthly two-hour online meetings will be used to nurture the community of practice. Some sessions will focus on leadership and topics related to the NGSS, and other sessions will focus on deepening science content knowledge. The sources of data to be used in addressing the research questions include: 1) Video recordings, field notes of observations, and artifacts of professional development meetings, 2) Interviews with teacher leaders, and 3) Journal entries and artifacts from professional development sessions implemented by teacher leaders. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.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.