Teacher Professional Development and Pedagogy | STELAR

Scaling professional development: Integrity of implementation as a measurement approach.

Publication

Professional learning about an innovative teaching method is a demonstrated way to improve teacher practices, and ultimately impact student learning. One way to scale up professional learning is a facilitator development model, in which professional learning and development (PLD) designers prepare facilitators to understand the innovation and they in turn, teach teachers. To understand the effectiveness of this model, identifying how facilitators implement the model with teachers is critical. As such, the Power of Data (POD) team scaled-up effective PLD by providing Facilitation Academies to

Teacher enactment of the Geospatial Inquiry cycle in classrooms Teacher enactment of the Geospatial Inquiry cycle in classrooms following scaled up professional learning and development following scaled up professional learning and development

Publication

The current study examined the effects of a nationally scaled up Professional Learning and Development (PLD) model on teachers’ classroom implementation of the Geospatial Inquiry instructional framework. Geospatial Inquiry is defined as: asking and answering a research question through the analysis and communication of data that is linked to a geographic location on, above, or near Earth. These data are often represented visually via maps and explored with geospatial technologies. It also examined the relationships between Geospatial Inquiry Teacher Workshop (GITW) implementation and teacher

The impact of Geospatial Inquiry lessons on student interest in science and technology careers

Publication

Advances in online geospatial technologies (GST) have expanded access to K-12 classrooms which has implications for the support teachers require to effectively integrate GSTs to promote learning. Previous studies have shown the impact of GST-integrated lessons on student engagement, spatial thinking skills, and/or content knowledge; however, most of these studies have been small in scope and scale and frequently focus on the affordances of the technology, without addressing the context of the implementation and student characteristics for whom GST is most impactful. We attempt to address some

Creating STEM Pathways at Detroit's Aquarium

Video

Welcome to Detroit and the Belle Isle Aquarium, where students come to see fish, turtles, and frogs and leave with learning and excitement about what they, too, could be doing in the world of science. This project starts with teacher professional development to enhance their knowledge of biology and

Virtual Field Trip and Ecology Lesson at the Belle Isle Aquarium

Curricular Materials

“ Promoting Student Interest in Science and Science Careers through a Scalable Place-based Environmental Educational Program at a Public Aquarium,” is an NSF project that will work with 90 Detroit Public School Community District (DPSCD) fifth grade teachers in biological STEM areas related to fisheries, wildlife, conservation and aquatic sciences. More than 2,300 fifth grade students from DPSCD are expected to participate in field trips to the Belle Isle Aquarium and follow-up activities. The COVID-19 epidemic has caused the Aquarium to be closed temporarily and our program of fifth grade

2021 ITEST Solicitation Webinar: Solicitation Overview

Video

On June 30, STELAR hosted National Science Foundation Program Officers for an informative webinar on the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) Program’s Solicitation ( NSF 19-583). During this webinar NSF Program Officers Bob Russell, Alicia Santiago, and Gavin Fulmer

Launching a Discourse-Rich Mathematics Lesson

Publication

This article shares a mathematics discourse technique adapted from literacy instruction and designed to prepare students' engagement in a mathematics task by model mathematical thinking. The Math Think Aloud is used during the launch of a lesson to provide access to the mathematics and help students make sense of the task so they are able to work on the task and share their mathematical thinking. Successes, challenges, and tips for effective implementation are shared.

Supporting Sense Making with Mathematical Bet Lines

Publication

This article presents a mathematics discourse technique adapted from literacy instruction to promote sense making when teachers are launching a lesson about story problems. Math Bet Lines helps all students engage with the meaning of the story problem and is particularly beneficial for emergent multilingual learners. In this article we discuss how teachers implemented the Math Bet Lines technique and share their successes, challenges, and tips for overcoming those challenges.

Talk is the Ticket to Teaching Math to English Learners

Publication

This article describes a mathematics professional development program for elementary school teachers focused on improving mathematics discourse for all students, in particular emergent multilingual learners. Frameworks, such as the Math Discourse Matrix (Sztajn, Heck, & Malzahn, 2020) that characterizes four types of discourse (correcting, eliciting, probing, responsive) and other resources aimed at planning and implementing lessons that support emergent multilingual learners' engagement in productive mathematical discussions are shared.

Decomposing Practice in Teacher Professional Development: Examining sequences of learning activities

Publication

In this paper, we engage in an analysis of professional development design, examining professional development activities and the sequencing of professional learning tasks. We use a theoretical framework typically used in pre-service teacher education to understand the design of one professional development program. Our overarching goal is to theorize about how to design professional development and sequence professional learning tasks for practicing teachers. Specifically, this study uses the concepts of decompositions of practice (Grossman et al., 2009), and levels of decomposition (Boerst

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