HR: 17:08h
AN: ED14A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Educator Exploration of Authentic Environmental Issues of the Coastal Margin Through Information Technology
AU: * Herbert, B E
EM: herbert@geo.tamu.edu
AF: Geology and Geophysics, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX 77843-3115 United States
AU: Schielack, J F
EM: janie@its.tamu.edu
AF: Information Technology in Science (ITS) Center for Teaching and Learning, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX 77843-3257 United States
AB: Teachers immersed in authentic science inquiry in professional development programs, with the goal of transferring the nature of scientific research to the classroom, face two enormous problems: (1) issues surrounding the required knowledgebase, skills set, and habits of mind of the teachers that control, to a large degree, the ability of teachers to immerse themselves in authentic scientific research in the available time, and (2) the difficulties in transferring this experience to the classroom. Most professional development programs utilize one of two design models, the first limits the authenticity of the scientific experience while placing more emphasis on pedagogical issues, and second where teachers are immersed in scientific research, often through mentoring programs with scientists, but with less explicit attention to problems of transfer to the classroom. The ITS Center for Teaching and Learning (its.tamu.edu), a five-year NSF-funded collaborative program that engages scientists, educational researchers, and educators in the use of information technology to improve science teaching and learning at all levels, has developed a model that supports teachers' learning about authentic scientific research, pedagogical training in inquiry-based learning, and educational research in their own classrooms on the impacts of using information technology to promote authentic science experiences for their students. This connection is achieved through scaffolding by information technology that supports the modeling, visualization and exploration of complex data sets to explore authentic scientific questions that can be integrated within the 7-16 curriculum. Our professional development model constitutes a Learning Research Cycle, which is characterized as a seamless continuum of inquiry activities and prolonged engagement in a learning community of educators, scientists, and mathematicians centered on the development of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge as it relates to the use of information technology in doing, learning, and teaching science. This talk will explore the design changes of the geoscience team of the ITS as it moved from Phase I (the planned program designed in-house) to Phase II (the experimental program being tested in-house) over two, two-year cohorts. We have assessed the impact of our Learning Research Cycle model on ITS participants using both a mixed model assessment of learning products, surveys, interviews, and teacher inquiry projects. Assessment results indicate that teachers involved in the second cohort improved their understanding of geoscience and inquiry-based learning, while improving their ability to establish authentic inquiry in their classrooms through the use of information technology and to assess student learning.
UR: http://its.tamu.edu
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0830 Teacher training
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting