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Abstract
This study examines professional development activities provided for mathematics and science teachers in the National Science Foundation’s Math and Science Partnership Program by analyzing a cross‐sectional sample of over 2000 professional development (PD) activities in the program. Data were gathered from secondary source documents and surveys to examine core and structural features of professional development offerings (i.e. form, collective participation, content, duration and outcomes). The results from this sample of PD activities for mathematics and science teachers were mixed. There was evidence of research‐based practices, including the collective participation by teachers at the same grade levels, a focus on content‐specific training and sufficient duration. However, courses and workshops continued as the dominant form of PD delivery, there are few measures used to assess the PD activities, and the partnerships did not connect PD efforts for mathematics and science teachers with classroom practices and student achievement outcomes. These findings indicate that the delivery of PD has adopted important research‐based strategies, but that the partnerships need to design better methods for documenting growth in teacher knowledge and connecting that growth with student outcomes.
Acknowledgements
This article is one in a series of studies for the Math and Science Partnership Program Evaluation (MSP‐PE) conducted for the National Science Foundation’s Math and Science Partnership Program (NSF MSP). The MSP‐PE is conducted under Contract No. EHR‐0456995. Since 2007, Bernice Anderson, EdD, Senior Advisor for Evaluation, Directorate for Education and Human Resources, has served as the NSF Program Officer. The MSP‐PE is led by COSMOS Corporation. Robert K. Yin (COSMOS) serves as Principal Investigator (PI). Darnella Davis (COSMOS) serves as one of three Co‐Principal Investigators. Additional Co‐Principal Investigators are Kenneth Wong (Brown University) and Patricia Moyer‐Packenham (Utah State University). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Notes
1. The 48 MSPs, funded in the first three cohorts of awards, included 12 comprehensive MSPs (partnerships focused on K–12 mathematics, science or both), 28 targeted MSPs (partnerships focused on a narrower grade range or disciplinary focus in mathematics and/or science) and eight institute MSPs (focused on developing mathematics and science teachers as school‐based and district‐based intellectual leaders and master teachers) (National Science Foundation Citation2007).