Application of Effective Schools and Teacher Quality Research to Science Teacher Education
Source: Journal of Science Teacher Education, Volume 18, Number 3 / June, 2007 pp. 345-348
A review of the research reveals a strong body of evidence demonstrating that teacher effectiveness, rather than other student personal and context variables, plays the largest role in impacting student achievement.
Given these results, teacher professional development programs should be focused on effective strategies, methods classes and corresponding field experiences should be centered on effective instructional strategies, science teaching methods books and resources should reach beyond the traditional science education historical methods and begin to systematically address research-based strategies, it may be time to begin to look at a balance in science education between inquiry and more direct teaching strategies, and science educators should be encouraged to conduct research on the impact of instructional strategies on student learning in science.