AAAS

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A Successful Professional Development Model for
Preparing Teachers to use Reform-Based
Curriculum Effectively
LeeAnn Sutherland Joe Krajcik The University
of Michigan DRK-12 Workshop November 10, 2009
AAAS Michigan State University Northwestern
University University of Michigan Center for
Curriculum Materials in Science
This work is funded by the National Science
Foundation (ES 0101780 and 0227557). Any
opinions, findings and recommendations expressed
in the materials are those of the authors.
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Focal challenge

• How do you enact professional development to
  support teacher learning and have positive
  impacts on teacher knowledge, attitudes, and
  instructional practices?

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What will we do today?

• Share PD successes challenges as a group
• Provide context for the project in which we work
  IQWST
• Enact a portion of one successful PD model
• Consider future directions for improving PD
  enactment and PD research

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In your own work

• What kinds of
• professional development
• are you involved in?

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In your own work

• What are some challenges
• you face in conducting
• professional development?

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In your own work

• What are some of your successes enacting
  professional development?

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Framing our Challenges and Successes

• The IQWST Project
• Investigating and Questioning
• our World through
• Science and Technology

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• IQWST is a collaboration to improve the teaching
  and learning of science at the middle school
  level by developing the next generation of
  curriculum materials.
• Leadership Team
• Joe Krajcik LeeAnn Sutherland University of
  Michigan
• Brian Reiser Northwestern University
• David Fortus Weizmann Institute of Science

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Those who make IQWST happen

• Talented faculty members, postdoctoral fellows,
  graduate students, and staff from
• UM, NU, MSU, Weizmann Institute of Science
  (Israel)
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Teachers College, Columbia University
• Project Manager Bridget Quinn Maldonado
• Professional Development Coordinator Andrew Falk
• Partners
• Jo Ellen Roseman Project 2061
• Sean Smith Horizon Research, Inc.

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And 80 teachers from across the U.S.
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IQWST Funding

• Supported through two NSF grants
• Phase 1 3½ years, 2 units
• Phase 2 5 years, remaining 10 units
• Through 2011

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Why develop IQWST?

• Traditional science materials are Inadequate in
  that they
• Cover many topics at a superficial level
• Focus on technical vocabulary
• Fail to consider students prior knowledge
• Lack coherent explanations of real-world
  phenomena
• Provide students with few opportunities to
  develop explanations of phenomena
• US failing to prepare youth for the world in
  which they will live.

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Project Goals

• Develop standards-based, coherent science
  curriculum that
• encourages students to construct understanding
  within a lesson, across lessons, across units,
  and across grades 6-8
• integrates literacy practices within the context
  of learning science concepts engaging in
  scientific practices
• incorporates students everyday life experiences
• addresses diverse learners needs
• Provide professional development
• Assess impact of the materials

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Major Features of IQWST

• Project-based inquiry
• National standards-based
• Learning-goals driven
• Driving Questions
• Integrated literacy practices
• Experience Phenomena
• Scaffolded scientific practices
• Embedded formative assessments
• Supports for diverse learners
• Educative for teachers
• Coherent design

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Key idea in learning theory

• New understandings are constructed on a
  foundation of existing understanding and
  experiences

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IQWST Scope and Sequence
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Development of Science IdeasWhat typically
happens
energy
Little understanding
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What happens in IQWST
energy
energy
energy
energy
energy
energy
energy
Deep and Meaningful
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Overview of Research Design
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• Preparing Teachers
• Professional Development

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Our Challenges

• Demanding science content
• Year-long coherent curriculum (One unit each in
  biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science)
• Teaching the curriculums underlying philosophy
  and key features (e.g., scientific practices,
  integrated literacy practices)
• Not enough time to do everything!
• Attendance

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What we did wrong on the first round

• Too much we were rushing
• Leadership not visible
• Focus on activities rather than generalized idea
  of practice
• Teachers not involved
• Did not make the underlying philosophy visible

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Professional Development Model

• Focus on key features of IQWST
• Model teach so that teachers experience pedagogy,
  practices, design principles philosophy in
  action
• Debrief model teaching to highlight critical
  features
• Emphasize one unit, introduce 2nd so as to
  illustrate coherence
• Maintain core leadership team
• Actively involve teachers
• Offer three, 2-day workshops during the school
  year

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Professional Development Learning Goals

• Teachers demonstrate their understanding of a few
  key features of IQWST in the form of an artifact
• In debriefing sessions, teachers articulate
  developing understanding of pedagogy, practices,
  design principles philosophy in the
  co-construction of the IQWST Pedagogies
  Practices Board
• Teachers express confidence in their ability to
  teach using IQWST materials, including sufficient
  content knowledge and facility with scientific
  practices

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PD Workshops

• Summer 5 days
• 3 days focused on the 1st unit in grade-level
  sequence 2 days addressing coherence
• Taught by experienced IQWST teachers core team
  
• Teachers who taught previous grade levels share
  their experiences
• Model teaching of individual lessons--followed
  by debriefing to frame IQWST pedagogy and
  practices
• In-year PD 2 days preceding each of the
  subsequent units (3 per year)
• Taught by experienced IQWST teachers core team
  
• Teachers who taught previous grade levels share
  their experiences
• At each session, debrief Successes and
  Challenges teaching IQWST thus far
• Individuals select foci for next unit (i.e.,
  areas to address on the challenge list)

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Experiencing the PD Model

• We will model teach one lesson, as in PD
• You participate as teachers do
• When we model teach, we ask teachers to
  participate by asking questions they would expect
  their students to ask, etc.

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What do students know at this point?

• Matter is composed of atoms molecules in
  constant motion.
• Substances can exist in solid, liquid, and
  gaseous states.
• Substances have characteristic properties that
  help identify substances and distinguish them
  from one another.
• Solubility, density, and melting point are
  properties of substances.
• Both baking soda and road salt are soluble in
  water (determined in a previous investigation).

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Students have read an excerpt from the fairy
tale, Rumpelstiltskin, and have answered these
questions

• Do you think straw can be turned into gold?
• 2a. If someone gave you flour, sugar, butter,
  eggs, baking soda, and salt, what could those
  ingredients turn into?
• 2b. What else would have to happen in order for
  those ingredients to be turned into something
  new?
• 3. Think about this Why can certain things only
  be turned into certain other things? Explain why
  someone cant make gold by mixing flour, sugar
  and eggs.

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Discussion Questions(before the investigation)

• What do you think might happen when you mix
  substances together with other substances?
• How would you know whether new substances formed?

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What happens when I mix substances together?

• Activity Sheet 6
• Read Purpose
• Follow safety rules
• Teacher demonstrates procedure
• Students complete Activity Sheet 6
• Observe and Describe
• Investigate
• Discuss
• Observe and Describe
• Discuss

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DISCUSSION

• Conclusions
• Talk with your group about what you observed.
  How can you answer the question What happens
  when I mix substances together?

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Discussion Questions

• How do the substances that you ended up with
  compare to the substances that you started with?
• What do you notice about properties that might
  help you define a chemical reaction?
• What evidence do you have that new substances
  were made from the old substances?

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Looking for changes is important!

• What changes did students observe?
• Certain signs can provide evidence that a
  chemical reaction occurred.
• A change in properties is one way to tell that a
  new substance formed.

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Homework

• Write a scientific explanation of whether a
  chemical reaction occurred.

L
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Scientific Explanations
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Scientific Explanations in IQWST

• Claim
• Evidence
• Reasoning

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1. Claim

• A statement a) of ones understanding about a
  phenomenon, b) about the results of an
  investigation/ experiment, or c) that answers a
  question posed at the beginning of an
  investigation.
• A claim may answer the question, Based on what
  you have read or have done, what can you
  conclude?
• If an investigation has Dependent Independent
  Variables, then the claim must state the
  relationship between them.

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2. Evidence

• Data used to support a claim.
• Data may be collected by students or may be
  reported from other sources.
• Data may include either qualitative observation,
  quantitative measurements, or both.
• Raw data become evidence when they are used in a
  manner that supports a claim.

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3. Reasoning

• The process of making explicit how particular
  evidence supports a claim, and how scientific
  principles apply in interpreting data and making
  a subsequent claim.
• Reasoning typically requires relating scientific
  principles--what we know in science--to what one
  is currently doing or learning.
• Reasoning requires justifying how it is that
  particular data count as evidence to support the
  claim one is making.

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Write, Critique, Revise Cycle for Scientific
Explanations

• Homework Read and write
• In-class follow up
• Share explanations
• Teacher may choose examples for whole-class
  critique
• Students may review peers work
• Students revise their own
• Teacher may choose to ask students to submit
  their best work
• Assessment opportunities inform instruction and
  may be used for grading purposes

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Teacher Background Knowledge

• A chemical reaction occurs between sodium
  bicarbonate (baking soda) and calcium chloride
  (road salt).
• sodium calcium sodium
  calcium carbon
• bicarbonate(aq) chloride(aq)
  chloride(aq) carbonate(s) dioxide(g)
• Sodium chloride in solution plus carbon dioxide
  gas plus solid calcium carbonate (chalk) forms.
• The water that is added to the sodium chloride
  and sodium bicarbonate is not involved in the
  chemical reaction but is necessary to dissolve
  the calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate so
  that they can react together.

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Debrief IQWST Model Teaching
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Professional Development Model

• Focus on key features of IQWST
• Model teach so that teachers experience pedagogy,
  practices, design principles philosophy in
  action
• Debrief model teaching to highlight critical
  features
• Emphasize one unit, introduce 2nd so as to
  illustrate coherence
• Maintain core leadership team
• Actively involve teachers
• Offer three, 2-day workshops during the school
  year

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Discussion Questions
What future directions might we go in to improve
PD enactment for NSF projects? What are
important areas for future PD research?
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Questions?

• Joe Krajcik
• krajcik_at_umich.edu
• LeeAnn Sutherland
• lsutherl_at_umich.edu