Progress 12/15/16 to 12/14/19
Outputs
Target Audience:There were three major target audiences for this project. First, the workshops targeted high school science teachers, especially those in the process of adopting the Next Generation Science STandards (NGSS). Through the teachers returning to their classroom to implement the Water and Sustainability curriculum unit, a secondary target audience are high school students throughout Connecticut. Lastly, through publications and presentations we are targeting our peers in other universities, in the hope that some of our work can be adapted to other locations and settings. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This is a Professional Development project for high school science teachers. In terms of training of students, although no financial support was budgeted in this grant for that purpose we were able to leverage our close relationship with the Neag School of Education at UConn to involve two graduate students. One student worked on the project for the first two years and was the primary author of several publications, including a complete 15-class Teaching Unit Curriculum Template called Water and Sustainability. She then earned her PhD and got a job as a professor at a state college. The other is a current doctoral student and conducted most of the research in Years Two and Three, and has submitted a journal article for publication on his results (see previous section). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Since the research was just completed in the fall of 2019, research results are still being disseminated via standard channels such as peer-reviewed journals, including submissions to American Biology Teacher and Water. Thus we hope to reach both the education community and the water resources research and management community. Our informal extension dissemination focuses on the PD workshop itself and dissemination vehicles include the project website (accessed by about 2,000 unique individuals during the life of the project), the newsletter of the Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR), and CLEAR blogs and webinars. Conference presentations have been made at both statewide (CT Science Teacher Association), national (Food-Energy-Water Nexus Conference), and international (Water for Food Global Conference) events. It is important to note that this project was also "packaged" with two other STEM education projects at UConn, one NSF-funded and one funded by charitable organizations. While the emphasis of talks and articles focusing on this trio of projects is not always on this P.D. project, there has been extensive dissemination effort devoted to this group of projects, above and beyond the project-specific publications and events listed in this report. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Overall: We believe that this project has made contributions on several fronts. It has created an easy-to-adopt, NGSS-compliant curriculum plan for high school science teachers at a time when Connecticut is transitioning to NGSS but few resources are available to assist teachers. Adoption of the unit is very limited to date (this seems to be related to the timing of the workshops versus NGSS adoption, see below), but we intend to continue promoting the curriculum plan and the extensive supporting resources that we've created/assembled, which are available on the website. With 20 states now adopting NGSS, there is opportunity for our work to have impact in other states. P.D. Workshops (Years One and Two) Participation: 48 teachers (fully subscribed) from 38 school districts attended. This represents about 22% of all the districts in Connecticut. Representation: 35 of the 48 teachers came from school systems that have adopted, or are in the process of adopting, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Implementation: 9 of the 48 teachers receiving "TPL" professional training in 2017 and 2018 implemented all or part of the "Water and Sustainability" curriculum, reaching an estimated 256 students over the two years. The low adoption rate is in contrast to the results of the post-training survey responses that indicated a very high (90%) percentage of participants who said they "definitely" or "probably" would implement the unit. Our follow-up participant evaluation was not extensive enough to fully explore this discrepancy but the most common reason cited for those not adopting the curriculum was that the school district had not fully transitioned to NGSS and as a result, after fulfilling the standard (non-NGSS) curriculum requirements there was not enough time available to implement the Water and Sustainability unit. Quality of the workshop: 100% of respondents said the goals of the training were clear; 95% said that the training was well-planned, organized and executed; 95% said the instructors were well prepared; 100% said that the training was relevant to their classroom instruction; 100% said that the training was time well-invested; 100% would recommend the training to other teachers. A pre-post evaluation of knowledge gained in 9 content areas (2018 only) showed statistically significant increases in all content areas. Research (Year Three): As per the work plan Year Three was focused on research/evaluation regarding implementation of the curriculum by teachers attending the PD workshops in Years One and Two. As noted in previous sections and below both a journal article and several conference presentations have been made on this research. The research focuses on the efficacy of the use of model-based learning in NGSS-oriented classrooms and PD. Model-based learning refers to "the process in which students make representations of a phenomenon or events by drawing pictures, using diagrams, and using text...typically in groups." We used this process in the PD workshop, and it is incorporated into the Teaching Unit Curriculum. Our research, which studied the students of one teacher trained in this project's PD workshop, found that student model scores and the number of concepts in their models significantly improved, as did student abilities to engage in explaining scientific phenomena. Other impacts/accomplishments An extensive website with teacher resources was developed and includes support materials in a wide range of media, including publications, presentation, videos, websites, and web tools. Some of the materials and presentations used in the teacher PD workshops are now being used in a new undergraduate course in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Green Stormwater Infrastructure Practices.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Freidenfelds, N., Cisneros, L., Rodriguez, R., Park, B.Y., Campbell, T., Arnold, C., Chadwick, C., Dickson, D., Dietz, M., Moss, D., Volin, J. and Willig, M. Assessing Human Impact on Local Water Resources & Exploring Engineering Solutions: An Investigative NGSS-Aligned Unit. American Biology Teacher.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Park. B., Campbell, T., Kelly, M., Gray, R., Arnold, C., Chadwick, C., Cisneros, L., Dickson, D., Moss, D., Rodriguez, L., Volin, J., and Willig, M. Improving NGSS Focused PD through the Examination of a Teacher and Students' Experiences and Iterated Student Models on Water and Sustainability. Water.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Park, B., Rodriguez, L., and Campbell, T. 2019. Using Models to Teach Science. The Science Teacher, November/December 2019, pp. 8-11.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Rodriguez, R., Campbell, T., Arnold, C., Volin, J., Cisneros, L., Moss, D., Wilson, E., Willig, M., Chadwick, C., Dickson, D., and Dietz, M. Human Impacts on Local Water Resources: A High School Science Unit Planning Template. Published online at:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p2S1mE3NGcp8SlO4QgEbNFXTd7if95_NaBtmfBTxyXQ/edit
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Park, B., Campbell, T., Gray, R., Kelly, M., Arnold., C., Volin, J., & Moss, D. Design-Based Research to Improve NGSS focused Professional Development. Presentation at the 2020 Association for Science Teachers Education (ASTE) International Convention. San Antonio, TX, Jan 9-11, 2020.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Campbell, T., Rodriguez, L. Arnold, C., Beissinger, A., Cisneros, L. & Volin, J.C. (2018) Human Impacts on Local Water Resources: A 3D Unit and Assessment. Connecticut Science Teachers Association Conference, Southbury, CT, Nov 9.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Campbell, T., Rodriguez, L., Chadwick, C., Arnold, C., Cisneros, L., Moss, D., Volin, J., Dickson, D., Willig, M. & Kelly, M. (2018). Designing and engaging teachers in NGSS educative curriculum focused on water and sustainability using models, investigations, and online mapping tools. Innovating Teaching and Learning in the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus Conference, Washington, D.C., May 22-23.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Campbell, T., Arnold, C., Chadwick, C., Cisneros, L., Kelly, M., Moss, D., Volin, J., Willig, M. & Wilson, E. (2017) Water and sustainability: educative curriculum using online mapping tools to support teacher and student learning. NC-FEW FEW Education Symposium-2017 Water for Food Global Conference, Lincoln, NE, April 10-12.
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