Analyzing the Effects of NGSS-Aligned Professional Development Sessions on Elementary Teaching Methods

Grade Level at Time of Presentation

Senior

Major

Statistics and Mathematics

Minor

Computer Science

Institution

Northern Kentucky University

KY House District #

67

KY Senate District #

24

Department

Mathematics and Statistics

Abstract

Elementary teachers in Northern Kentucky school districts have been presented with and taken advantage of a unique professional development (PD) program in which they participate in live teaching demonstrations and reflection sessions that incorporate the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the practices associated with them. The effectiveness of the sessions has been evaluated based on the percent of time these learned practices were used in the classroom before and after participation in at least one session. Since 2014, teachers have had the opportunity to participate in the sessions several times and surveys were collected after sessions. The impact of the PD program on their teaching methods—as reported in the surveys—has been analyzed and summarized by and across each year of participation. Analysis techniques included repeated measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) with Tukey-adjusted multiple comparisons to evaluate change in percent across sessions, with the results from a participant’s first session serving as a baseline. For both early elementary and later elementary grades, teachers reported statistically significant increases in their implementation of the practices, especially after participation in the first session. These results contribute to the elementary science teaching community, identifying areas worth exploring as elementary teachers take up new ideas in science teaching.

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Analyzing the Effects of NGSS-Aligned Professional Development Sessions on Elementary Teaching Methods

Elementary teachers in Northern Kentucky school districts have been presented with and taken advantage of a unique professional development (PD) program in which they participate in live teaching demonstrations and reflection sessions that incorporate the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the practices associated with them. The effectiveness of the sessions has been evaluated based on the percent of time these learned practices were used in the classroom before and after participation in at least one session. Since 2014, teachers have had the opportunity to participate in the sessions several times and surveys were collected after sessions. The impact of the PD program on their teaching methods—as reported in the surveys—has been analyzed and summarized by and across each year of participation. Analysis techniques included repeated measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) with Tukey-adjusted multiple comparisons to evaluate change in percent across sessions, with the results from a participant’s first session serving as a baseline. For both early elementary and later elementary grades, teachers reported statistically significant increases in their implementation of the practices, especially after participation in the first session. These results contribute to the elementary science teaching community, identifying areas worth exploring as elementary teachers take up new ideas in science teaching.