Teacher and Student Content Knowlege Gains: Effects of a Materials Science-Focused Professional Development Program

The Professional Development for Materials Science-Focused High School Courses program aims to give educators tools rooted in materials science to expand their teaching methodology and inquiry-based learning techniques. Now in the fifth year of the program, the current format includes a forty-hour intensive ASM summer camp for teachers preceding the academic year, an online two credit hour graduate course on the fundamentals of materials science, in-classroom support to aid teaching and experimental methods, and full group meetings four times throughout the academic year. Teacher outcomes from the beginning to the end of the academic year are assessed by evaluating content knowledge and changes in teaching pedagogy and efficacy. Student outcomes are evaluated by assessing their content knowledge and interest in science. Previous results through a pre-post single group research design indicate the program showed established increases in teacher content knowledge, as well as increased use of materials science activities in the classroom. Preliminary analysis of the pre-assessment data allows baseline comparison of teacher and student data between the treatment and control groups. This analysis includes baseline analysis of teaching pedagogy and efficacy, teacher content knowledge, and student content knowledge. The pre-assessment of teaching pedagogy and efficacy did not show a statistically significant difference in scores for the teachers in the treatment and control groups. For the students, there was no statistically significant difference in baseline knowledge for those taught by first year teachers in the program and control teachers, however for the teachers, there was a statistically significant difference in content knowledge between the treatment and control teachers. The team will work to understand this difference for the teachers in the coming year to obtain more comparable groups. This analysis seeks to determine the efficacy of the professional development program at increasing teacher and student knowledge and to quantify the changes in teacher practice.