This study uses a national probability sample of 1,027 mathematics and science teachers to provide the first large-scale empirical comparison of effects of different characteristics of professional development on teachers’ learning. Results, based on ordinary least squares regression, indicate three core features of professional development activities that have significant, positive effects on teachers’ self-reported increases in knowledge and skills and changes in classroom practice: (a) focus on content knowledge; (b) opportunities for active learning; and (c) coherence with other learning activities. It is primarily through these core features that the following structural features significantly affect teacher learning: (a) the form of the activity (e.g., workshop vs. study group); (b) collective participation of teachers from the same school, grade, or subject; and (c) the duration of the activity.

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What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results From a National Sample of Teachers

The laboratory has been given a central and distinctive role in science education, and science educators have suggested that rich benefits in learning accrue from using laboratory activities. Twenty years have been elapsed since we published a frequently cited, critical review of the research on the school science laboratory (Hofstein & Lunetta, Rev. Educ. Res.52(2), 201–217, 1982). Twenty years later, we are living in an era of dramatic new technology resources and new standards in science education in which learning by inquiry has been given renewed central status. Methodologies for research and assessment that have developed in the last 20 years can help researchers seeking to understand how science laboratory resources are used, how students' work in the laboratory is assessed, and how science laboratory activities can be used by teachers to enhance intended learning outcomes. In that context, we take another look at the school laboratory in the light of contemporary practices and scholarship. This analysis examines scholarship that has emerged in the past 20 years in the context of earlier scholarship, contemporary goals for science learning, current models of how students construct knowledge, and information about how teachers and students engage in science laboratory activities. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed88:28–54, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/.sce10106

https://gpquae.iqm.unicamp.br/gtexperimentacao.pdf

The Laboratory in Science Education: Foundations for the Twenty-First Century

Many innovative approaches to education such as problem-based learning (PBL) and inquiry learning (IL) situate learning in problem-solving or investigations of complex phenomena. Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) grouped these approaches together with unguided discovery learning. However, the problem with their line of argument is that IL and PBL approaches are highly scaffolded. In this article, we first demonstrate that Kirschner et al. have mistakenly conflated PBL and IL with discovery learning. We then present evidence demonstrating that PBL and IL are powerful and effective models of learning. Far from being contrary to many of the principles of guided learning that Kirschner et al. discussed, both PBL and IL employ scaffolding extensively thereby reducing the cognitive load and allowing students to learn in complex domains. Moreover, these approaches to learning address important goals of education that include content knowledge, epistemic practices, and soft skills such as collaboration and sel...

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Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry Learning: A Response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006)

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.

Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment

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J. J. Lagowski

Papers

National Science Education Standards