The Impact of Professional Development on Elementary Teachers’ Strategies for Teaching Science with Diverse Student Groups in Urban Elementary Schools
Source: Journal of Science Teacher Education, Vol. 24, Issue 3, April 2013, p. 553-571.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ reported instructional strategies for promoting science learning while supporting English language development during science instruction with diverse student groups, especially English Language Learners (ELLs), in urban elementary schools.
The study was part of a 5-year research and development project consisting of reform-based science curriculum units and teacher workshops aimed at providing effective science instruction to promote students’ science and literacy achievement in urban elementary schools.
The teachers in the study participated in a professional development intervention designed to specifically cater to ELLs through curriculum materials and teacher workshops emphasizing scientific inquiry.
This study largely aims to gain insights into how professional development interventions can impact science teaching practices with ELLs.
Research Questions
The study examined the following research questions:
1. What reported strategies did elementary teachers use to promote scientific understanding and inquiry with diverse student groups?
(a) What differences were noted in reported strategies among teachers who taught third, fourth, or fifth grade?
(b) What differences were noted in reported strategies among teachers who participated in the intervention for 1, 2, or 3 years?
2. What reported strategies did elementary teachers use to promote English language and literacy development during science instruction with diverse student groups?
(a) What differences were noted in reported strategies among teachers who taught third, fourth, or fifth grade?
(b) What differences were noted in reported strategies among teachers who participated in the intervention for 1, 2, or 3 years?
Data Collection
Data consisted of a total of 213 post-observation interviews conducted with 198 third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers over the 5-year duration of the study.
The findings reveal that teachers across three grade levels consistently indicated similar strategies to promote science learning, such as making connections to prior knowledge or real world experiences and engaging in hands-on activities.
However, teachers at all three grade levels did not report more sophisticated inquiry-based strategies, such as planning and designing original scientific investigations, making predictions or hypotheses, asking questions that could be answered using scientific inquiry, and using simulations or models to construct explanations.
Although the reported strategies were similar in frequency across grade levels, there were significant differences among grade level and by years of teacher participation.
Teachers who participated in the intervention all 3 years did not report employing more sophisticated inquiry-based strategies compared to teachers who participated 1 or 2 years.
With respect to language support strategies, teachers in this study reported a limited number of strategies to support language development for ELLs.
Across the three grade levels, teachers consistently indicated that the most frequent strategies to promote English language development included developing science vocabulary and using multiple modes of representation (oral, gestural, graphic).
The results suggest that teachers in this study are still in need of acquiring and consistently implementing language support strategies.
The results suggest that the level of support through this intervention might not be sufficient to result in teachers’ understanding of effective science and language support teaching strategies.
It could also be that teachers’ understanding requires more explicit awareness beyond what is needed to result in teaching practices.
In addition, it could be that teachers had difficulty articulating their understanding when the interviews were conducted using specific incidents that had occurred during the observed lessons.
Furthermore, teachers were not able to reconcile inquiry-based science teaching to ELLs with traditional ‘‘teaching to the test’’ practices, making the actual implementation of reform-oriented practices difficult within the context of high-stakes testing and accountability policies.
The authors suggest that it may be necessary for professional developers to provide classroom support to help teachers realize the benefit of implementing more sophisticated inquiry-oriented strategies and supporting language development during content instruction for all students, especially ELLs.