A Multi-Method Approach for Assessing Changes in Teacher Performance in a Life Sciences Teacher Institute
Evidence from Years 1 and 2 indicate that content courses delivered during the summer institute are of high quality and lead to teacher content knowledge gains. Additionally, a qualitative analysis of teacher action research reports and curricular projects from academic year 2007-08 on-line courses demonstrate the transfer of learning from the summer courses into the classroom. This qualitative analysis will be used to identify teachers who demonstrated a high degree of transfer and those who demonstrated a lower degree of transfer. These categories of teacher transfer can be correlated to content gain scores of teachers and students. Other themes and patterns emerging from the qualitative analysis will be used to design relevant hypotheses.
The use of multiple data sources allows tentative connections to be made between changes in teacher knowledge and practice with changes in student learning. The large student database derived from teachers who have been in the summer content courses and those who have a later start date provides us with control groups so comparisons can be made between treated and not treated teachers' students, allowing any value added by the institute to be seen. Classroom observations and student survey data guide the analysis of student test data so that more specific comparisons can be made between the practice of teachers and the impact on student learning.
The implications of this research model on assessing the impact of professional development on teacher performance and student learning will be discussed.
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