This project will be designed to educate participants to become aware of how different teaching methods affect student understanding of selected science concepts. Building on teacher interest in doing classroom research, the STAR model will bring teachers to a summer workshop where they will become part of a classroom research team. In order to study how teaching methodology effects learning, the middle school teachers in this project will need to acquire a deep understanding of the science topics to be investigated, strategies for teaching for conceptual change, and methods for determining levels of student understanding. The first year's inservice and academic year follow up will deal with selected physics topics and the conceptual change teaching model. During the second year, leaders from twenty-five school systems will receive instruction so that they can conduct similar projects in their own systems. Years three and four will involve expanding the model to the life and earth sciences. During year five, a guide for developing such inservice programs will be produced and disseminated.
