Heller, J.I., Daehler, K.R., Wong, N., Shinohara, M., & Maritrix, L.W. (2012). Differential effects of three professional development models on teacher knowledge and student achievement in elementary science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 49 (3): 333-362.

• Study’s sample
  • 6 states
  • 270 elementary teachers
  • 7000 students
  • Same science content components
• Teacher intervention types:
  • Teaching Cases
    • Design Goals
      • Examine students’ science ideas as they pertained to key concepts in electric circuits,   critically analyze trade-offs among instructional options,
      • See content as central and intertwined with pedagogy
      • Focus on the specific content and curricula being taught.
    • PD Activities
      • Analyzing the student work presented in a case in terms of correct and incorrect ideas
      • Identifying the logic behind common incorrect science ideas
      • Analyzing the teacher’s instructional choices
      • Weighing the tradeoffs of instructional choices in terms of the benefits and limitations of a model, metaphor, definition, or representation used by the teacher in the case
      • Considering the implications for teaching their own students
      • Reflecting on the process of using cases as a tool for learning.
  • Looking at Student Work
    • Design Goals
      • Examine students’ science ideas as they pertained to key concepts in electric circuits,
      • Recognize evidence of incorrect mental models, correct understandings, and proficiency,
      • Analyze tasks to identify characteristics that support formative assessment, and make instructional choices grounded in evidence of student thinking.
    • PD Activities
      • Identified science concepts that were central to a student task
      • Completed the task and analyzed its cognitive demands
      • Identified assessment criteria or constructed an assessment rubric for the task
      • Analyzed the student work in terms of correct and incorrect ideas, as well as common mental models
      • Considered the implications for teaching and learning
      • Described the merits and limitations of the task
      • Reflected on the process of looking at student work.
  • Metacognitive Analysis
    • Design Goals
      • Identify concepts that teachers found challenging to learn related to electric circuits,
      • Examine the logic behind common incorrect ideas pertaining to the topic,
      • Reflect on their own and others’ processes for learning science
      • Analyze the roles of hands-on investigations, discourse, and inquiry in science learning.
    • PD Activities
      • Science ideas they learned during the science investigation
      • Concepts that were particularly tricky or surprising
      • The logic behind an incorrect science idea that they had
      • The implications for what students should learn and how the science content should be taught.
  • + “business as usual” control group
    • Regular PD sessions
• All 3 showed significant improvement in learning outcomes
  • But better focus on student’s ways of learning rather than teacher’s
    • “Findings suggest investing in professional development that integrates content learning with analysis of student learning and teaching rather than advanced content or teacher metacognition alone.” (Heller, Daehler, Wong, Shinohara, & Maritrix, 2012, p1)
• Research Questions & Results
  • 1. What effects do the teacher courses have on teacher science content test scores?
    • All 3 methods showed content test score gains, little difference amongst them
  • 2. What effects do the teacher courses have on teacher written justifications?
    • All 3 methods showed content test score gains, little difference amongst them
  • 3. What effects do the teacher courses have on student science content test scores?
    • All 3 methods showed content test score gains, little difference amongst them
  • 4. What effects do the teacher courses have on student written justifications?
    • Only “Looking at Student Work” course significantly improved scores
    • “Teaching Cases” showed some results in the second year
    • “Metacognitive Analysis” did not show improvements compared to control group
  • 5. What effects do the teacher courses have on English language learner science content test scores?
    • All 3 methods showed content test score gains, little difference amongst them
  • 6. What effects do the teacher courses have on English language learner written justifications?
    • No improvements
• Requirement
  • Only the “Looking at Student Work” group were teaching the content at the same time as the PD was being delivered – could this have affected/biased the results!?

• Conclusion
  • PD was delivered not only by the developers, but by trained facilitators
    • “The positive outcomes indicate that the train-the-trainers model has the potential for broad dissemination and impact at a relatively low cost. While there is a considerable body of research on professional development for teachers, there is almost no research on preparation of facilitators of professional development.” (Heller, Daehler, Wong, Shinohara, & Maritrix, 2012, p25)

Penuel, W. R., Gallagher, L. P., & Moorthy, S. (2011). Preparing teachers to design sequences of instruction in earth science: A comparison of three professional development programs. American Educational Research Journal, 48(4), 996-1025.

• Study to evaluate “whether and how professional development can help teachers design sequences of instruction that lead to improved science learning.” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p996)
• Measured across 2 dimensions:
  • The extent to which the programs guided teachers’ selection of curriculum materials
  • Whether or not teachers received explicit instruction in models of teaching associated with particular methods for designing instruction.
• Results
  • Positive student learning outcomes where “teachers received explicit instruction in models of teaching” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p996)
  • “we hypothesized that for teachers to use instructional materials well in the classroom, they must receive explicit instruction in the models of teaching that underlay those materials.” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p999)
• “Professional development should aim to guide teachers’ design of instruction and uses of curriculum materials (M. W. Brown & Edelson, 2003; Davis & Varma, 2008)” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p997)
  • “emphasis in recent years has been placed on preparing teachers to follow, rather than create or adapt, curriculum materials and programs (Institute of Education Sciences, 2009)”  (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p997)
  • Assumptions by policy makers et al. that teachers do not possess significant PCK, therefore want teachers simply follow curricula designed be ‘experts’
  • “Teachers inevitably do adapt curricula and programs to fit their classroom contexts (Squire, MaKinster, Barnett, Luehmann, & Barab, 2003)” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p997)

• Research questions
  • Do students learn more Earth systems science when professional development guides them to select curriculum materials that are focused on learning goals when designing units of instruction?
  • Do students learn more Earth systems science when professional development for their teachers provides them with explicit instruction in models of teaching?
  • To what extent does variation in teachers’ enactment of models of teaching, whether these models are taught explicitly or not to teachers, account for differences in student learning?
• Roots of the problem – curriculum lacking the How
  • “past two decades have been focused on the development of curriculum materials aligned to standards (National Research Council, 2006).” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p998)
  • “few provide sufficient opportunities for students to investigate phenomena directly in a way that gives students an experience of doing science (Kesidou & Roseman, 2002)” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p998)
• Teachers will adapt – so design for that
  • “importance of anticipating teachers’ uses of curriculum in planning professional development.” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p999)
  • “organize professional development for productive adaptations.” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p1000)
• Teach the teaching models prescribed within the curriculum
  • “provide teachers with explicit guidance or instruction in the models of teaching specified within materials” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p1000)
  • not enough to put a side note within the written material – must model, enact it, and engage with it
• Understanding by Design
  • “UbD is a framework for designing curricular units of instruction that centers on the big ideas, essential questions, and authentic performances (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p1002)
  • Similar methodologies
    • Project-based learning (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2006; Krajcik & Czerniak, 2007; Krajcik et al., 2008)
    • 5E (Engage–Explore–Explain–Elaborate– Evaluate) instructional model (Bybee, 1997, 2004; Bybee et al., 2006)
• Study Methodology
  • 3 PD interventions + control group (no PD intervention)
  • Dimensions of differentiation
    • Teachers received professional development in which they were guided to select materials focused on learning goals and that incorporated inquiry-oriented pedagogy
    • Teachers received professional development that provided them with explicit instruction in models of teaching.
  • Conditions
    • 1) Earth Sciences by Design
      • Prepares teachers to apply the principles of UbD
      • No guidance on choice of materials
    • 2) Investigating Earth Sciences
      • No explicit instruction in the models of teaching
      • Do not use external materials, only the ones in the website
    • 3) Hybrid
      • Explicit instructions in the models of teaching & Practice in the design of curricula
      • Content should be at least 50% from the website – guidance provided in selecting external material
    • 4) Control
      • Simply given the curriculum – did not participate in any PD, even though they could
• Findings
  • “what is particularly important is that teachers develop the capacity to design sequences of instruction by learning a set of pedagogical principles that can guide their selection or adaptation of materials.” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p1020)
  • “policy considers neither teachers nor curricula in and of themselves as agents of change.” (Penuel, Gallagher, & Moorthy, 2011, p1021)

Carlson, J. & Gess-Newsome, J. (April 2014). PCK in biology teachers resulting from professional development and educative curriculum materials. Paper presented at 2014 AERA Annual International Conference, Philadelphia, PA.

• PCK Indicators
  • Describe the big ideas in a given content area and the relationship among those ideas.
  • Articulate what they intend students to learn about those ideas.
  • Understand why it is important for students to understand these ideas.
  • Recognize the prerequisite knowledge that they as teachers must have to teach a concept.
  • Understand the difficulties associated with teaching a particular concept.
  • Draw upon a repertoire of ways to ascertain students’ understanding or confusion.
  • Use knowledge about students’ thinking and context to influence instructional decisions.
  • Present multiple representations for the teaching of a concept.
  • Provide a rationale for the selection of teaching strategies and procedures.
• Educative Curriculum Materials
  • Analyzing Instructional Materials (AIM) for Selection
• Key characteristics of transformative PD
  • Create a high level of cognitive dissonance to disturb the equilibrium between teachers’ existing beliefs and practices and their experience with subject matter, students’ learning, and teaching;
  • Provide time, contexts, and support for teachers to think and revise their thinking;
  • Connect professional development experiences to teachers’ students and contexts; Provide a way for teachers to develop practices that are consistent with their new understandings
  • Provide continuing help in the cycle of issue identification, new understanding, changing practice, and recycling.
• Hypothesis
  • Increase teacher’s academic knowledge
  • Improve their PCK
  • Change their practice to be more inquiry-oriented.
• Challenges for the teachers in changing practice
  • Students though, are not used to ‘thinking about how they think, think about what they know’
  • Time
  • Availability of lab materials
  • Personal beliefs on what is important to teach and what students could learn
  • Conflict in the goals of instruction (own or district’s)
• Conclusion
  • It worked – using PD to discuss how to implement a curriculum worked.
  • Expensive – time, money, and expertise required
  • Teachers lacked depth and breadth of teaching strategies, or what is effective teaching
  • Feel unsure or do not know what do once they uncovered students’ thinking
  • Few teachers had a conceptual grasp of Biology as a whole, only silos of content