Active Learning In Action, Understanding The Effects: What Happens When The “New” Wears Off In Teacher Training

In-service teacher training that focuses on Active Learning to teach Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education topics in K-12 has become quite prevalent. One such program, Design Technology and Engineering for America’s Children (DTEACh), has offered summer STEM training workshops for teachers for over fifteen years. The participants are usually excited about the new training and the changes that they plan to make in classroom instruction. After the excitement fades, though, do the teachers implement the techniques presented in the training workshops? This study looks at the effects of the DTEACh training program on participants. A survey of the immediate effects and opinions of teachers was conducted at the end of each day of the two-week training held in 2004. Results show the teachers have a positive perception of the training. This paper seeks to investigate the effects of the DTEACh program on the instructional style of the teacher participants. Are the techniques presented in the training used by the teachers years later? Do the teachers recognize the method they are using? To answer these questions and others, teachers who participated in a DTEACh summer training workshop within the last seven years were surveyed to determine the instructional styles they use in the classroom. The results show that the majority implement the instructional techniques presented in the training. However, less than half of the teachers could describe the 5-step DTEACh teaching method presented to the participants and used to structure the training. This lack of recognition of the method is an unexpected finding, deserving of further investigation. The results of the study also revealed that the teachers who took the DTEACh training workshop three or more years before the survey showed very similar responses to teachers who attended the workshop more recently, thus indicating that use of techniques presented in the training workshop is not diminishing significantly with time.