141 Expert Tips For Teachers (Or Would-Be Teachers)

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They also need to understand the unique qualities of their particular students and the unique demands of particular groups of students in their classrooms. This research base offers very limited guidance, however. Despite decades of research, studies tend, almost exclusively, to use very small sample sizes e. While we think that good science teaching necessarily includes student investigations, we reject the idea that teachers who understand learners will necessarily consistently create interactive, student-driven teaching experiences, as this research implies.

This work rests on the proposition that teaching is an inherently human practice, that people all continuously are teaching one another, and in so doing they develop working although often tacit notions of pedagogy. Much like the folk science of children and adults, folk pedagogy is evident across age spans and diverse populations and represents a shared, working notion of learning. Individuals may not be aware of their own folk pedagogy, and it may even be incommensurate with their own espoused views of teaching and learning, constraining the range of pedagogical moves they will make.

An important component of folk pedagogy is a mental model of the learner Strauss, For example, in one study of espoused mental models, Strauss administered semi-structured interviews to science and humanities teachers, who explained their strategies for teaching material that is difficult for students. They found a common mental model of learners across teachers. Irrespective of subject matter area e.

Strauss encapsulates the mental model metaphorically: First, the teacher needs to get information into the mind of the child. In contrast, we have argued that learning science includes participating in scientific practice in which learners engage in meaningful problems over time. In the practice view of student learning, these chunks are framed, from the outset, as important pieces of a whole that, when understood and organized, provide learners with leverage to explain, manipulate, or further explore the natural world.

It is this leverage—the promise of new, meaningful ways to act—that entices students to work hard at complex scientific problems. Teaching that will help all students make sense of science also requires that teachers understand the particular students and the student groups they teach, including those who come from cultural backgrounds different from their own.

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Some of the factors that they identify as contributing to the underrepresentation of women, working-class men, and people of color in science include media stereotypes of scientists, the lack of connection with female and non-Western interests and backgrounds, and the climate of degree programs and high-status scientific professions that systematically exclude women from some fields Eisenhart et al.

In light of these broad societal factors, some students may position themselves to resist stereotypes by showing their capabilities in science, whereas others may appropriate the messages they receive and conclude that science is just not for them Brown, Reveles, and Kelly, ; Ritchie, ; Smardon, Furthermore, many graduate without fundamentally changing their beliefs and assumptions, despite their experiences in teacher preparation programs.

Furthermore, most teachers feel unprepared to meet the learning needs of English-language learners National Center for Education Statistics, The research findings that draw attention to the importance of vocabulary and discourse in science practice and science learning heighten the chal-.

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Most teachers assume that English-language learners must acquire English before learning subject matter, although this approach almost inevitably leads such students to fall behind theirEnglish-speaking peers National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, More than the sum of knowledge about science, learners, and learning, teacher knowledge is qualitatively distinct from that of mature nonteachers and disciplinary experts.

Expert teachers have knowledge of subject matter that is peculiarly suited for instruction Shulman, , ; Wilson, Shulman, and Richert, Consider how this dual focus on content and how it is learned inform the identification of meaningful questions. In order for students to be engaged with meaningful scientific problems,. The problem must be meaningful from the standpoint of science and be clearly connected to a body of knowledge. It also must be meaningful from the standpoint of the learners; that is, it must require something they can do or are learning to and they must be able to work on the problem in a purposeful manner.

Of course, subject matter knowledge for teaching is not absolute but can be understood as situated. What is meaningful and stimulating to one group of students may not be for another. Furthermore in any given classroom, students will have a range of ideas and understanding of science and scientific concepts.

Accordingly, skillful teachers need to apply their knowledge flexibly in practice in response to this variability Putnam and Borko, A skillful teacher is able to draw on a range of representations of scientific ideas, select those that suit the specific instructional setting, and use her knowledge as an interpretive framework to make sense of the diverse ideas and perspectives that students express about science and scientific phenomena.

While the logic of subject matter knowledge for teaching is persuasive, there is almost no research on the empirical link between specialized teacher subject matter knowledge and student learning. We can point to only one study that examines the influence of subject matter knowledge for teaching on student learning, and it is in mathematics Hill, Rowan, and Ball, They found that mathematical knowledge for teaching was a significant predictor of student gains and a stronger predictor than all other teacher background variables mathematics and mathematics education course work, certification as well as time spent on instruction Hill, Rowan, and Ball, This important area of emerging research is in its infancy, but it may ultimately provide important guidance for policy and practice.

Research in science is even less developed than research in mathematics. However, science educators could follow the same path: In fact, Olson is working on a small part of this lofty challenge and has begun developing measures of subject matter knowledge for selected topics in physical science. Current research on K-8 science learning suggests a model of instruction that contrasts starkly with current instructional practice. To move toward instruction that is consistent with the research base we review in this volume, teachers will need substantial, ongoing, and systemic supports for their own learning.

In the previous section we described the forms of knowledge that excellent science teachers draw on to inform instruction. Teachers learn continuously from their experiences in the classroom, their interactions with colleagues, and their professional development activities. Our discussion of teacher learning opportunities reflects this reality. We describe opportunities to learn that take place in the naturally occurring functions of the school, as well as through programs specifically designed to support teacher learning and improved instruction.

We then discuss research on organizing teacher learning in the organizational context of schooling and in professional development programs. Finally, we discuss the use of science specialists as an alternate means of bolstering science instructional capacity. Well-designed opportunities for teacher learning can produce desired changes in their classroom practices, can enhance their capacity for contin-.

In a general sense, a great deal is known about the characteristics of such opportunities for teacher learning. There is a general consensus about these characteristics among researchers and among professional and reform organizations National Staff Development Council, ; American Federation of Teachers, ; Elmore, ; Knapp, McCaffrey, and Swanson, Drawing heavily on three previous attempts to synthesize this literature American Educational Research Association, ; Elmore, ; Odden et al.

Research suggests that well-structured opportunities for teacher learning:. Reflect a clear focus on the improvement of student learning in a specific content area that is grounded in the curriculum they teach. Focus on the strengths and needs of learners in the setting and evidence about what works drawn from research and clinical experience.

Provide adequate time during the school day and throughout the year, including considerations of the time required for both intensive work and regular reflection on practice. Furthermore, the overall span of time for teacher professional development is several years. Emphasize the collective participation of groups of teachers, including opportunities for teachers from the same school, department, or grade level. Provide teachers with a coherent view of the instructional system e.

Require the active support of school and district leaders. These features provide a frame for describing, comparing, and analyzing the infrastructure of teacher learning across schools, districts, and programs of support. They imply a purpose and rigor, suggesting that teacher learning is serious business, a product of thoughtful design and collective system-wide participation, and that the rationale for participation and learning should be clear and compelling. We use examples to illustrate how the features listed above are enacted in professional development and to provide further evidence of the teacher and student learning effects of well-designed teacher learning opportunities.

It is important to note that the above features are derived from a diverse body of research, much of which is not specific to science. Wherever possible we draw on science-specific examples. For several decades, researchers have reported significant benefits of organizational changes that facilitate teacher collaboration, including increased student achievement in schools characterized by strong patterns of collaboration among teachers Corcoran, Walker, and White, ; Ingersoll, When teachers work collectively in teams, work groups, or as a department, their efforts can yield important instructional results and measurable effects on student learning.

Members of a community of practice work collectively on core tasks that members learn to execute at increasing levels of proficiency over time, drawing on support and feedback from the group. Common tasks and the underlying knowledge that supports them serve as the focal point of the community. In a community of teaching practice, individuals engage in the shared work of teaching.

For example, they collaborate in preparing units of study, analyzing student work or videotaped lessons, developing assessments, and coaching and mentoring one another. When teacher teams, work groups, and departments function as communities of practice, numerous studies have shown strong, desirable effects on faculty willingness to implement instructional reforms, teacher relationships with students, and student achievement outcomes.

For example, the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative works at the district, school, and classroom levels to promote systematic and continuous education improvement through building and sharing professional knowledge and fostering. Newmann and associates reported that strong norms of teacher collaboration in schools were associated with more effective implementation of reforms and continuous improvement of practice.

They found five elements to be critical to the effectiveness of professional learning groups: Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider studied relational trust in schools and found that building social trust among faculty and between faculty and students pays dividends in the levels of engagement around reform initiatives and improved student achievement.

They argue that this is especially critical in urban settings, where the work is especially hard. While organizing groups of teachers to work together can result in functional communities that focus their efforts and resources on instructional improvement and teacher learning, merely creating group structures by no means guarantees such positive outcomes. Supovitz found that simply making structural changes that support school-level teacher groups e. Groups may develop that are not engaged in instructional improvement. McLaughlin and Talbert reported similar findings in their study of high school departments.

Developing teacher groups focused on improvement of instructional practice requires intentionality and support. For groups to work toward instructional improvement, they require time for individuals to work together, for example, shared planning periods. However, the expectations about the use of this time must also be clear. DuFour also noted the importance of active leaders who help the group identify critical questions to guide their work, set obtainable goals, monitor progress, and ensure that teachers have relevant information and data e. Connecting teachers to work groups, teams, and departments that are focused on instructional reform can be an effective means of improving learning environments for students, but it will require leadership, time, and resources to develop.

Collaboration, critique, and analytic discussion of practice are essential aspects of a functional teacher group, but these features are often antithetical to existing school and teacher cultures. There is some evidence that the resources needed to develop such groups in schools may be subject matter specific. A recent study by Spillane suggests that the resources drawn on by these groups may vary across subjects, be affected by the level of teacher expertise in the subject, and be influenced by teacher perceptions about where expertise lies.

Spillane found that elementary school teachers tended to have stronger group affiliations and collaborative activities around literacy. These were somewhat less well developed in mathematics and were least developed in science. He found that teachers believed that the expertise in literacy was available among their colleagues but that to access expertise in mathematics or science they had to go outside the school. As scientific capacity in the K-8 teacher workforce is often quite thin, professional communities that will support science instructional improvement may require recruiting local science teaching experts to work with teachers, or building relationships between schools and other organizations informal science learning institutions, universities, industry that have expertise in science and science teaching.

The evidence of science-specific subject matter specialists is less clear. In part, this reflects the lower status of science in the lower grades, where mathematics and language arts are emphasized. Here, as in previous sections, by and large, the research base is not specific to science but was drawn from studies in the context of literacy and mathematics.

There may be additional features and challenges of building science teacher teams or work groups, but to date, these are not well documented in the science education literature. Besides the school structures and norms that support quality science instruction, professional development programs also support teacher learning and instructional improvement. We know that supports for science teacher learning should be grounded in the work teachers do in schools and informed by local policies, constraints, and resources.

However, the faculties of many K-8 schools lack the science-specific expertise necessary for instructional improvement—deep knowledge of science, learning, subject-specific knowledge for teaching. Accordingly, in order for groups of teachers to engage in instructionally meaningful science-specific learning activities, they will require substantial guidance and input from external support providers. Research on teacher learning in professional development is at an early phase and is arguably lagging in science compared with mathematics and literacy Borko, However, there is a handful of case studies e.

These serve as examples for researchers to build on and as food for thought for policy makers and professional development providers. Researchers have documented such programs across the core school subjects, including science Wilson and Berne, In science these experiences provide teachers with opportunities to think scientifically, to analyze phenomena, and to engage in meaningful discourse with peers.

Moreover, in these settings, science teachers gain experiences with a broad range of scientific issues, including the generation of researchable questions and working as a community to interpret evidence and determine what counts. All the while, these experiences are connected to instructional practice as they are situated in K-8 curricula. Rosebery and Puttick describe an example of long-term teacher professional development that is rooted in teacher inquiry experiences.

They present an in-depth longitudinal case study of how one novice elementary school teacher, Elizabeth, developed her understanding of physical science topics and science itself through her participation in workshops that engaged groups of K-8 science teachers in doing science.

Elizabeth, like many elementary school teachers, had no postsecondary science experience to speak of. She joined a group of teachers in a professional development program that took place during the summer and was run by educators and researchers from the Cheche Konnen Center. For Elizabeth and her peers, it served as the basis of ongoing discussion, generation of a range of experimental trials, and practice at organizing and interpreting evidence to characterize physical.

Over a period of 3 years, Elizabeth returned to the summer institutes, and researchers tracked her teaching. Her experiences in the summer institute were systematically linked to the kinds of experiences and discussions she developed with her students. In the institute she learned central concepts of physical science, how to engage in scientific inquiries herself, and, through structured discussions with peers, how to enact such instruction in her own elementary school classroom. In order to make sense of the natural world, children need to become aware of, build on, and refine their own ideas.

Accordingly, their ideas about science become a central component of science instruction that teachers need to understand and act on. To support student sense-making in instruction, teachers need to know how students think, have strategies for eliciting their thinking as it develops, and use their own knowledge flexibly in order to interpret and respond strategically to student thinking. The researchers supported these findings experimentally, tracked them longitudinally, and used case studies to learn how individual teachers acquire and utilize knowledge of student ideas to inform instruction.

In the context of a multiple-year study of local systemic reform in the Detroit Public Schools, Fishman and colleagues studied the implementation of new middle school curriculum over several years. Teachers received initial training in the new problem-based learning curriculum. The new curriculum depicted science in real-world contexts that were readily accessible and of.

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Researchers then monitored whether teachers taught the new units and collected student performance on relevant exam items to determine how successful the instruction in those units had been. Their research entailed analyzing pre- and post-instruction student assessments over multiple years of instruction. In year 1, researchers analyzed student data to identify key concepts in which students made modest or no gains postinstruction. Once these were identified, researchers developed and presented teacher workshops that showcased benchmark lessons designed to ensure student learning of those identified areas.

They compared year 1 gains with year 2 gains. In analyses of the first year of student learning data in a unit on water quality, researchers noted that students struggled with problems asking them to refer to two-dimensional maps, a fundamental skill for many of the concepts they wanted students to master, including representing water sheds, envisioning and describing points of contamination, and characterizing directional patterns of effluence. In the summer that followed, the research staff provided explicit training on teaching mapping skills, and had teachers do benchmark lessons in professional development workshops.

These studies provide a glimpse of some emergent and promising approaches to science-specific K-8 teacher professional development. Although the evidence base for professional development that is specific to science is less developed, we have inferred from the broader body of professional development research to point to practices that show promise and are worthy of further analysis.

The studies we have described highlight important features of teacher professional development: Despite emerging evidence that the continuous improvement of practice and student performance requires sustained high-quality opportunities for teacher learning, few school districts provide teachers with curricular-based institutes, mentoring and coaching, and opportunities for examination of and reflection on classroom practice required to deepen their subject-matter expertise and pedagogical content knowledge.

Far too many providers of. While most of them acknowledge that the transfer of new skills and knowledge into practice requires more than what they are providing, too few teachers have access to the kinds of learning opportunities they need Porter et al. Accordingly, the content of teacher learning described in this section is varied.

Some of these interventions focus on the unique qualities and challenges of working with diverse student groups e. A limited body of research indicates that professional development efforts have a positive impact on helping practicing teachers expand their beliefs and practices in integrating science with literacy development for these students. As part of an NSF-supported local systemic initiative, Stoddart et al. After their participation in the 5-week summer professional development program, the majority of teachers showed a change from a restricted view of the connections between inquiry science instruction and second language development to a more elaborated reasoning about the different ways that the two could be integrated.

Hart and Lee provided professional development opportunities to elementary school teachers serving students from diverse backgrounds. At the end of the school year, these students. Amaral, Garrison, and Klentschy examined professional development in promoting science and literacy with predominantly Spanish-speaking elementary school students as part of a district-wide local systemic reform initiative. Over 4 years, the inquiry-based science program gradually became available to all teachers at all elementary schools in the school district.

They were provided with professional development, in-classroom professional support from resource teachers, and complete materials and supplies for all the science units.

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Results indicated that the science and literacy writing achievement of language-minority students increased in direct relation to the number of years they participated in the program. Kahle and colleagues conducted a series of studies to examine the impact of standards-based teaching practices i. As an NSF-supported statewide systemic initiative, the Ohio professional development programs consisted of 6-week summer institutes and six seminars during the academic year. These studies suggest that, despite disagreement among researchers on the specific qualities of science instruction that advance student learning with diverse student populations, given opportunities to learn a range of new strategies for teaching these students, teachers can improve their practice and improve student learning.

However, the relative benefits of one approach over another are not clear and will need to be examined. School leaders may opt to invest in a cadre of specialized science educators—science specialists, teacher leaders, coaches, mentors, demonstration teachers, lead teachers—rather than, or in conjunction with, organized forms of teacher opportunities to learn described above.

District staff or principals may make decisions about how they spend their time and what responsibilities they assume, or science specialists themselves may use their own professional judgment in determining to do so. Subject matter specialist teachers may serve as leaders of groups of teachers—working with. Alternately, they may assume instructional duties for a subject, in this case science, for an entire K-5 school or certain grade level.

This practice is not common in U. Evidence of the effects of subject matter specialists is limited and the results are mixed. In this context, teacher leaders did a range of things, including planning, instruction, and working in the classroom with teachers, as well as organizing and running professional development activities. Kim found that the urban systemic initiatives had demonstrable effects on teacher practice and student learning outcomes in both mathematics and science.

The role of teacher leaders in this sense was correlated with student learning effects. However, it was part of a systemic approach to reform, and specific contributions of the teacher leaders were not identified. The research does suggest that positive outcomes of teacher leaders are contingent on a carefully crafted role in the education system, as Lord and Miller , p.

We identified no studies that examined the use of science specialists who assume instructional duties in grades K We also call attention to the fact that science specialists are commonly used internationally from early elementary grades onward. This is a common practice in high-performing nations in international comparisons such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and the Programme for International Student Assessment. Using science specialists may be a particularly useful strategy in schools and systems in which current K-5 teachers lack knowledge and comfort with science.

Marc Tucker has observed that one of the key differences between the U. He describes these educational systems as follows p. They had instructional systems that could properly be called systems. The list is now familiar: Tucker labels these conditions coherent instructional systems, and he goes on to say that true coherence requires more than formal alignment of standards, curriculum, and assessments.

It is what happens when the master schedule is set up so that student time is allocated to the tasks on which they are furthest behind and so that teacher time is allocated to the students who need the most help. Finally, it is what happens when tests or examinations are designed to assess whether the students learned what they were supposed to learn from the courses they took, which were in turn derived from a curriculum that is referenced to the standards they are supposed to meet.

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This argument has a persuasive logic, and there is some empirical support for it. However, no one had examined the importance of instructional coherence at the school level as defined by Tucker until Newman et al.

They found that such schools made higher gains over multiple years than schools that were lower on measures of instructional coherence. Do public schools have coherent instructional systems in science? The available evidence suggests that overall they do not, but that they are making some progress toward creating them. Progress was limited because so many external factors—state and federal policies, private funding, etc. This section elaborates two core components of an instructional system: As we have discussed, the current store of curriculum materials for K-8 science teachers is quite uneven.

Analysis of science textbooks suggest that, by and large, those used in American classrooms are of a low quality. These texts typically lack coherent attention to concepts in favor of including many topics, and they rarely provide teachers with guidance about how students think about science Kesidou and Roseman, Full-scale K-8 or K systems of science curricula do not typically provide the coherence or teacher guidance that is necessary to support high-quality instruction. Short of comprehensive curriculum packages, many primary and middle schools use commercially available science modules or kits for select units or in particular grades.

These kits can facilitate teaching science as practice, although they are limited in some important respects. Designed to teach major concepts and the scientific process by engaging students in guided inquiry, curriculum kits or modules are aligned with the national standards. Ideally, local decision makers would have at their disposal a plethora of reliable data and guidance to make decisions about selecting and using modules.

Useful information would include evidence of their effectiveness with similar student populations, careful analysis of apparent alignment with state standards, and clear indications of the skills and training their teachers would need in order to use these materials effectively. Such information is not widely available. Selecting Instructional Materials National Research Council, , for example, describes how school districts, schools, or groups of science teachers can systematically develop internal capacity to make informed decisions in selecting instructional materials.

It also provides processes and tools that can guide their. Involving teachers in systematic analysis of curriculum materials can have real benefits, including identifying high-quality materials, providing teachers who participate in the review process with knowledge of the curriculum and bolstering their capacity to critically analyze curriculum materials.

Managing curriculum modules may also present challenges. Modules typically include consumable materials that must be replaced after they are used.

Since the modules are expensive, schools often ask teachers to share them, and replenishing the supplies becomes a problem. Teachers often have trouble finding the necessary supplies and either do not use the modules or use them inappropriately. They provide space, deliver materials to schools, and ensure that both reusable and consumable materials are included and adequately stocked before they are delivered to teachers. One potential limitation to shared kits is that reliance on them can limit the degree of school and district-level coordination of instruction as kits are frequently shared within or across schools.

For example, if four schools share two sets of kits, it would be difficult to teach the units in a clearly defined, developmental learning progression across classrooms. What is more, when teachers at a given grade level are working on topics asynchronously, it can complicate efforts to pool the intellectual resources of the group.

Science teacher learning communities that collaborate on planning, teaching, and assessing science instruction will typically work on a common set of tasks that are relevant to their current unit of instruction. Working on different modules at different times of the year could complicate and weaken collaborations. There is growing interest in improving the means by which teachers monitor the progress of their students.

Policy makers, school leaders, and teachers are becoming interested in the use of benchmarking assessments that provide practitioners with regular feedback on student learning, so that their progress can be judged either continually or periodically, and information about student learning can inform instructional decisions in a timely fashion. By providing teachers with feedback in the short term about student learning, these systems are designed to influence teaching in ways that other testing systems e.

Benchmarking assessments or curriculum-embedded formative assessments created in the context of a curriculum are designed to elicit student thinking and are referenced specifically to an interpretive framework. While few science-specific studies of benchmarking assessments have been completed, there is a large research base on benchmarking assessment systems in other subject matter areas.

Some well-developed programs that are based heavily on benchmarking assessments have shown positive student learning effects. Success for All, for example, uses reading tests at 6-week intervals to determine the effectiveness of reading instruction and to regroup students for subsequent instruction.

Instruction based on the principles of mastery learning, a system developed by Benjamin Bloom in which students are allowed to progress on the basis of demonstrating proficiency on a set of formative assessments, has been shown to have a significant positive effects for lower achieving students and for inexperienced teachers Block and Burns, ; Guskey and Gates, ; Whiting, Van Burgh, and Renger, There are a few published studies of science-specific benchmarking programs and others are in progress. The assessments are being developed to help teachers of students in grades assess, guide, and confirm student learning in science.

These assessments make use of construct maps, which model levels of student understanding of a particular construct e. BEAR has helped to develop and refine the associated assessment frameworks, items, scoring guides, and other elements of the system and will later provide support in the process of psychometric data analyses.

The first unit of FAST guides students through a series of investigations to culminate in an explanation of floating and sinking on the basis of relative density. Twelve sixth and seventh grade teachers were selected from a pool of FAST-trained volunteers. Teachers were matched in pairs according to school characteristics, and one member of each pair was then randomly assigned to a control group, which would teach FAST as they normally did, while the other was assigned to an experimental group, which would implement the curriculum-embedded assessments.

The experimental group teachers attended a 5-day. Multiple measures of student learning were administered to all students of teachers in both the control and experimental groups. Pretests consisted of a multiple-choice achievement test and a science motivation questionnaire. Posttests included the achievement test and the motivation questionnaire, as well as a performance assessment, a predict-observe-explain assessment, and an open-ended question assessment.

Possible interpretations suggest that some experienced teachers implemented their own informal formative assessment strategies regardless of the treatment group they belonged to; some experimental teachers, despite the 5-day workshop, could not implement the curriculum-embedded assessments as intended. Although benchmarking assessment systems show promising student learning results, the quality of assessment systems is uneven.

Stern and Ahlgren analyzed assessments provided in middle school curriculum materials. The study included only comprehensive middle school science programs—that is those that covered 3 years of instruction and were in wide use by school districts and states.

Two two-member teams independently analyzed the curriculum materials and accompanying assessments. Those curriculum-embedded assessments that were aligned with the curriculum materials usually focused on terms and definitions that could be easily copied from the text. The use of benchmarking assessment is clearly not a silver bullet.

Effects are highly dependent on a number of factors. Feedback that helped students to correct errors and reflect on the original learning goals had the greatest positive impact. In a meta-analysis of 21 studies, teachers who had specific instructional processes to follow based on test outcomes and who had received explicit directions about how to share information with students based on the data from the assessments demonstrated significantly higher growth in student achievement than those teachers who used their own judgment about how to respond to the data Fuchs and Fuchs, Well-designed benchmarking systems are closely integrated with instruction and may lighten its immense cognitive load.

But they require informed, professional teachers who make key decisions to structure and support student learning. For benchmarking assessment systems to support quality instruction and improvements in student learning, teachers must understand the desired stages of progression for students of varying ages and skill levels in the particular discipline being taught. Advancing high-quality science instruction that supports student understanding across the strands of science proficiency will require teachers and schools to take action to improve teacher knowledge and practice, support and focus instruction in productive directions, and build systems that measure and sustain ongoing improvement in teaching and learning.

Research can guide practice to some extent, although important questions require additional research. Researchers have identified, in general terms, what expert teachers know about their discipline, how to teach it, and, to a lesser extent, what they understand about student learning. Empirical links between what teachers know and student learning, however, are emergent and can be complicated to establish. As research advances in this area, more precise definitions are needed of the knowledge that is necessary for teaching and the aspects of knowledge that provide the greatest student learning return.

With this understanding in hand, educators will be better positioned to craft teacher credentialing policy and design teacher learning experiences. There is broad agreement that well-designed opportunities for teacher learning can produce desirable changes in instructional practice and improved science learning for students. Furthermore, research has identified features of quality teacher learning opportunities that can be realized through a diverse array of organizational structures mentoring and coaching, teacher work groups, expert- and teacher-led programs of professional development combined with distinct learning outcomes topic-specific learning strategies, conducting and teaching inquiry science, conducting science discussions, analyzing student work, planning instruction.

Although there is abundant evidence to support subject-specific teacher learning opportunities, the comparative advantages of one approach or another are not clear. There may be unique learning potential or capacity to influence practice that arises in teacher work groups, or programs that focus on analyzing student work, for example. Future research will need to examine the potential and comparative advantage of distinct approaches. Given the consensus view that teacher learning should be framed in the context of the science that teachers actually teach, approaches should probably be considered in light of local resources and constraints.

For example, given the dearth of K-5 teachers who specialize in science, most elementary schools will benefit from the participation of qualified expert teachers and other science teacher educators. It may be some time before schools have and can use a comprehensive K-8 or K learning progression like that described in Chapter 7 as the basis of curriculum. However, they can begin to make important steps in that direction by carefully selecting and modifying curricular materials so that they present central scientific ideas across grades.

An exploratory study of the knowledge base for science teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 34 , A case study in preservice science education. International Journal of Science Education , 12 , Helping English learners increase achievement through inquiry-based science instruction.

Bilingual Research Journal , 26 2 , American Educational Research Association. The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. American Federation of Teachers. Principles for professional development. The instructional effect of feedback in test-like events. Review of Educational Research , 61 , A capstone report for the local systemic change through teacher enhancement initiative.

Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research Center. Assessing science knowledge ASK. Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education, 5 1 , Review of Research in Education, 4 , Science, theories and evolution. International Journal of Science Education , 11 , Student perceptions of instruction, peer interest, and adult support for middle school science: Differences by race and gender.

Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 4 , Professional development for all teachers: Achieving educational excellence and equity in the era of accountability. The wonders of exemplary performance. Describing the behavior and documenting the accomplishments of expert teachers. Educational theory , 57 1 , From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education , 29 5 , A synthesis of over meta-analyses relating to achievement. The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations.

University of Chicago press. Evaluation and evidence-based policy-making. Research papers in education , 18 4 , Scientific research in education. An interactive online community that brings together educators, neuroscientists, psychologists, and policymakers to understand how the brain learns.

A community from npj Science of Learning. For Teachers , News, Views and Events. To make good decisions in the classroom, teachers need time, space and access to research. Evidence is one of several pieces of information that can inform a teacher to make decisions Whether it comes from formal academic research, assessment programs, school programs, or class assessment, evidence can be interesting, informative, and useful. Other sources of information, as Gary Jones touches on, include Professional knowledge theories of practice, pedagogy, technology, education, and child and adolescent development, etc ; Content knowledge theories and frameworks of knowledge, understanding, skills, and capabilities related to the content that is to be learned by students ; Contextual knowledge knowledge of students, their parents, and other stakeholders; knowledge of context, including physical, social, and cultural environment, policies, laws, and local practices ; and Experience learned habits and practices developed through rehearsal and reflection; see Berliner, My friend and mentor David Geelan suggests: What do you think?

Charlotte Pezaro Education Specialist, CSIRO I am passionate about primary teaching, science education, technology education, and facilitating teachers to become competent and confident teachers of science and technology. I was a primary school teacher with Education Queensland for 6 years, teaching in remote, regional, and city locations. You may also be interested in How knowledge about China flows between teacher and students in a Mandarin language class in Australia. Constructivism is a theory of learning, not a theory of pedagogy. Neuroscience explains why this is important.

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