Does Sustained Science Content Based Professional Development Make a Difference to Students' Science Achievement?
Professional development programs promoting inquiry-based teaching are challenged with providing teachers content knowledge and using pedagogical approaches that model standards based instruction. Inquiry practices are also important for undergraduate students. This presentation will focus on the evaluation of an extensive professional development program for middle school science and chemistry teachers that included science content tests for students and the teachers. Baseline results for the students showed that there were no gender differences on the achievement test but white students scored significantly higher than non-white students. However, parent/adult involvement with chemistry homework and projects, were a significant negative predictors of 11th grade students' test chemistry achievement score. This talk will focus on students' achievement and attitude results for teachers who have completed the program and provide evidence that on-going, sustained professional development in content and pedagogy is critical for improving students' science achievement.
