Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Science Teaching Reform Through Professional Development: Teachers’ Use Of A Scientific Classroom Discourse Community Model, Elizabeth Lewis, Dale R. Baker, Brandon Helding

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This report outlines a two-year investigation into how secondary science teachers used professional development (PD) to build scientific classroom discourse communities (SCDCs). Observation data, teacher, student and school demographic information were used to build a hierarchical linear model. The length of time that teachers received PD was the exclusive predictor of change over time, while a schools’ percentage of low socioeconomic students predicted of how much PD was initially implemented. Prior to PD teachers expressed a desire to increase opportunities for students to engage in SCDCs, but found some aspects more challenging than others to implement. Generally, there were three …