This Capacity Building project supported by the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program will develop and pilot a working definition of what practices, approaches and knowledge base constitute Master Level teaching in cross- cutting concepts of science. These cross cutting concepts are integral to current attempts to bring increased coherency to the teaching of K-12 science in the United States. National Louis University (NLU) and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) will collaboratively build a joint Master Teacher Fellowship Program that will develop a cadre of middle school science teachers in Chicago Public Schools with deep pedagogical content knowledge and leadership capacity in implementing the cross-cutting concepts of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) of particular relevance as states adopt and begin to implement NGSS.
To reach this goal, the key activities of this project will be the establishment of a University-Museum partnership involving Adler Planetarium and the Museum of Science and Industry that will integrate expert science content knowledge, deep pedagogical knowledge, and sites of ongoing science practice and the development of a learning pathway that substantially increases teachers' science content knowledge, connects them to ongoing sites of science practice, and supports them in translating that knowledge and connection into the design and assessment of learning experiences for their students. Two key components of that pathway will be a summer institute held at museum sites and IIT that is designed to deepen teachers' knowledge of cross-cutting concepts of science and current science, and the use of a web-based platform for collaborative improvement of teacher practice that incorporates teachers' consistent examination of formative student assessment data. A pilot group of teachers will take part in a project-designed summer institute and professional development activities throughout the school year. Results from a needs assessment will inform the design of the summer institute and professional development. Teachers' progress in implementing content-specific, high leverage teaching strategies will be measured using the Adaptive Cycles of Teaching (ACT), a cloud-based technology system that enables teachers to improve specific teaching strategies through formative assessments of student learning, teacher portfolio analysis and feedback from coaches/mentors. The ACT tool will be customized to support the implementation of NGSS science teaching.
The definition and development of mastery teaching in science will inform science educators in the field and in teacher preparation. As part of this capacity building project, they will be supported in reporting to their school sites and in taking leadership roles in the implementation of stronger science teaching in their schools and districts. Each partner institution will deepen its knowledge base and capacity for teacher education by developing and testing models of the science knowledge and skills teachers need to advance student learning in central concepts of science. These models will inform STEM teacher preparation and professional development throughout each institution. By the close of the pilot phase, these teachers will have significantly developed their capacity to inform NGSS implementation at their school sites.
