Science and Mathematics Teachers’ Experiences, Needs, and Expectations Regarding Professional Development

The purpose of this study was to determine (a) developing survey instruments for Teacher’s Perception of Science Practices Learning (SPL) and (b) describing the perception of science learning practices. This research uses descriptive survey method. Respondents in this study were elementary school, junior high school and high school science teachers in the Central Java region, totals 74 teachers. The research instrument used was a science learning practice perception questionnaire. The instrument has gone through the stages of expert validation and empirical testing. The instrument validity uses exploratory factor analysis. Data analysed by descriptive. The research results that the perception of science teachers on SPL is not different. Elementary, middle and high school science teachers have enough categories. El dimension, EE, SDC elementary, middle and high school science teachers have enough categories. The dimensions of the EPK for elementary science teachers have enough categories, middle and high school science teachers are in good category. The dimensions of IT in elementary, middle and high school science teachers are good. Science teachers’ perceptions of SPL are in the enough category.

Research indicates that collaborative learning can lead to increased learning, interest and persistence in science fields. To inform future professional development and teachers' preparatory programs, it is important to examine teachers' conceptions of, and experiences with collaborative learning. This study explores middle and high school science teachers' conceptions of, and experiences with, collaborative learning in addition to the barriers that prevent the implementation of collaborative learning in the classroom. Survey data collected from 66 science teachers indicated that they viewed collaborative learning as a process that has a specific purpose. They reported having positive experiences when implementing collaborative learning. They were concerned about student-related barriers for not using collaborative learning. These findings provide insights about the content of professional development that can be designed to support these science teachers when implementing collaborative learning in their classrooms.

The extent to which schools in a country or region prioritize the professional development of mathematics teachers influences the quality of these teachers, thereby affecting students’ mathematics learning and performance. Over the years, the PISA test has evolved into the largest and most influential international educational assessment program. This study, based on PISA 2022 questionnaire data, examines the relationship between the professional growth of mathematics teachers and students’ mathematics performance by analyzing samples from sixteen countries/ economies. The research focuses on schools’ support for mathematics teachers’ professional growth, investigating the correlation with students’ mathematics literacy test scores through metrics such as the average proportion of teachers who participated in professional development training courses in the past three months and the average proportion of schools offering different types of in-house professional growth training. Based on the findings, recommendations are proposed, including placing greater emphasis on the professional development and growth of mathematics teachers, as well as anchoring this growth in students’ learning and development. This study provides multinational insights and scientific evidence for educational management related to mathematics teachers’ professional development, offering theoretical support for improving the quality of secondary mathematics education, fostering students’ mathematical literacy, and promoting educational equity.

“Good luck on your first day as an assistant professor, Dr. Tanner! Have a great class!” On the wall above my desk, these words scream out from an otherwise encouraging note that is adorned with many exclamation points. This note has hung on my wall since my very first day as an Assistant Professor of Biology. As I was charging off to teach my first class, a senior faculty member who had been on my hiring committee slipped this note under my office door. In moments of pause years later, I still stare up at that note and breathe a sigh of relief that I had much more than luck to guide me on my first day as a college-level teacher. Although I continue to have much to learn—as all of us do no matter the number of years of teaching experience—I did arrive at the university with both formal and informal training in science education. I had had plenty of exposure to innovative pedagogical approaches, questioning strategies, and techniques for engaging diverse audiences in learning science. As a scientist educator, I had had the privilege of many years of collaboration with outstanding K–12 educators as well as a postdoctoral fellowship in science education. However, my training has been, to say the least, unconventional compared with that of my fellow junior faculty and unique in its preparation in regard to the teaching and learning of my discipline. It will not be news to anyone reading this article that university and college teaching is to a large extent a profession with no formal training. It’s startling but true that the majority of faculty members—and lecturers who often teach large numbers of students—have no formal training in the teaching and learning of their discipline. In fact, the hiring process in university science departments is structured primarily to evaluate a faculty candidate’s ability to be a productive researcher, with success measured in number of publications and magnitude of grant funds raised. Depending on the type of institution, for example, research university, state-level university, or liberal arts college, there may be a component of the faculty interview process that probes a candidate’s teaching ability, for example, requesting a statement of teaching philosophy and requiring the candidate to teach a sample lecture class. However, this sample lecture often screens for gross inadequacies, rather than looking for stellar innovations or pedagogical skills. This lack of formal, accredited training for university and college instructors stands in stark contrast to the requirements for a high school teacher who is charged with the education of students only a year junior to college freshmen. High school teachers in the United States must be credentialed as a secondary science teacher, demonstrate subject matter competency in every subject that they will be teaching, and must continually engage in professional development in the teaching and learning of their discipline throughout their career as a science teacher. With the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind legislation, the onus is upon each precollege science teacher to become “highly qualified” in terms of formal university-level training in science education. However, no such required professional training or measurable standards for teaching are required in institutions of higher education. Many policy documents have suggested standards of teaching practice in postsecondary science education (National Research Council, 1996, 1997; Siebert and McIntosh, 2001), but the extent of implementation of these ideals is unclear and has gone relatively unstudied, although national and regional accreditation boards do look at outcomes, asking colleges and universities to assess what their students have gained from four years of study at their institutions. Nonetheless, there is a striking reversal of accountability that happens when one crosses the precollege teaching to college-level teaching boundary (Table 1). During the K–12 school years, society expects K–12 teachers to be responsible for student learning. Salaries of teachers in many states are tied to student test scores, and poor student performance can potentially invoke penalties. At a college or university, several variables in the educational universe shift. Students are the ones responsible for learning. The evaluation and compensation of college-level teachers is not DOI: 10.1187/cbe.05–12–0132 Address correspondence to: Kimberly Tanner (kdtanner@sfsu.edu). CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 5, 1–6, Spring 2006

Background/ContextRecent research has demonstrated the potential for teacher professional development to enhance teacher learning, improve instruction, and increase student achievement. Nevertheless, research examining the relationship between state and local policies and teachers’ participation in professional development is sparse. This connection between policy environments and teacher-based outcomes becomes increasingly important as educational reforms place new demands on teachers. Since professional development is a key mechanism to improving teachers’ instruction and students’ achievement, we address the extent to which state and school policy environments are associated with teachers’ participation in content-focused professional development. We consider such policy environments within the context of both mathematics, a high-stakes subject area, and science, currently a low-stakes subject area.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyIn describing state policy environments along several dimensions, we seek to discover which types of policies are more or less influential in moving teachers into the types of professional development that research has shown to be most effective for improved teaching and learning.Research DesignUsing a national sample of high school mathematics and science teachers from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), we conduct a secondary analysis using a three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) to predict teachers’ level of participation in different types of professional development. We conduct separate analyses for mathematics (a high-stakes subject area) and for science (currently a low-stakes subject area).Findings/ResultsWe find that the policy context at both the school- and state-level is more predictive of teacher participation in effective professional development in a high-stakes subject (mathematics) than a low-stakes subject (science). We also find that the alignment between state standards and assessments is a key attribute of state-level policies that tend to promote teacher participation in content-focused professional development in high-stakes subject areas. Even though state-level policies are important in promoting participation in effective professional development, we find that policy environments are strongest when they are closest to the teacher.Conclusions/RecommendationsWe conclude that both state- and school-level policy environments are associated with teachers taking high-quality professional development, but these findings are most pronounced in high-stakes subject areas. We also find that policies promoting consistency in the form of alignment between standards and assessments are perhaps the most important type of policies that states can adopt to encourage teachers to participate in effective professional development.

IntroductionMedical physics is a fulfilling profession where physics is applied to advance human health. However, many are uninformed of the role of physicists in medicine, and students are unaware of this career pathway. This study presents a pilot 1‐year program for science teachers to learn about physics in medicine and share with students and teachers.MethodsA cohort of middle school and high school science teachers were selected to learn about physics in medicine, develop lesson plans for their students, participate in a Physics in Medicine field trip hosted at a cancer hospital, and concluded with a professional development day for other regional science teachers. Surveys were conducted throughout the program to assess attitudes toward teaching medical physics, content knowledge of medical physics, collaboration, and demographic information from participants.ResultsThe program was implemented over the course of a year which included 5 school districts, 10 science teachers, and hundreds of students. After participating in the program, teacher scores on surveys regarding attitudes toward teaching medical physics and content knowledge significantly increased for the cohort. Strong collaboration between teaching pairs was maintained throughout the program based on survey responses. Teachers participating in the 1‐day professional development program also benefited from the program based on survey responses regarding attitudes toward medical physics and interest in learning more about medical physics.DiscussionThis pilot study demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of an educational model for teachers’ understanding and connecting medical physics with students in their schools. The program was well received by teachers and students, and this manuscript provides guidelines for effective replication of the curriculum at other institutions.

Aligned with recent changes to syllabuses in Australia is an assessment regime requiring teachers to identify what their students ‘know’ and ‘can do’ in terms of the quality of understanding demonstrated. This paper describes the experiences of 25 secondary science and mathematics teachers in rural schools in New South Wales as they explore the changing nature of assessment and its implications on their classroom practice. To help reconceptualise these changes, teachers were introduced to a cognitive structural model as a theoretical framework. Throughout the 2-year study, teachers attended a series of professional development sessions and received ongoing consultative support. Each session was taped and transcribed while interviews were conducted with each teacher at the end of both years. Analysis of these data using a grounded theory approach identified seven major components of teacher practice impacted by the study. The core component was questioning while the six contributing components were teachers’ pedagogical practices, attention to cognition, teaching strategies, assessment linked to pedagogy, classroom advantages for students, and classroom advantages for teachers. These findings represent a major shift in teachers’ perceptions of assessment from a focus on the accumulation of students’ marks to one of diagnosis as a means of directing teaching to enhance students’ scientific and mathematical understandings.

Aim: This study examined pedagogy and subject content needs for Professional Development (PD) to improve teachers’ skills in teaching science in secondary schools in Mbeya, Tanzania.
 Study Design: The study employed a quantitative research approach and cross-sectional survey design.
 Methodology: The main instrument used for the study was questionnaire. In this study, schools were randomly selected, and 256 respondents, science teachers were selected through stratified sampling technique. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively.
 Results: Science teachers need Professional Development (PD) in Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), masterly of science subject contents and technological skills of modern teaching. There was no significant difference in the mean scores for components of pedagogy knowledge between teachers who teach math subject and those who teach physics, chemistry and biology at using independent samples t-test. Teachers need of PD in subject content in topics were as follows: accounts (61.7%), genetics (46.2%), electromagnetism (44.2%), electronics (40.4%), circles and the Earth as a sphere (29.6%), statistics and probability (28.4%), inorganic chemistry (25%), and ionic theory and electrolysis (24.1%).
 Conclusion: Science and mathematics teachers in Secondary schools need PD intervention in the subject content of science subjects.

Currently, 19 states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) while 16 states have revised their standards to mirror the NGSS. Transitioning from the previous standards to the NGSS requires in-depth teacher professional development (PD) that delves into the three-dimensional (3D) performance expectations (PE) of the NGSS. Each PE constitutes: science and engineering practices (SEPs), disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). Teaching in the 3D model shifts the focus of science classrooms to environments where students use DCIs and CCCs with scientific practices to explore, examine, and explain scientific phenomena and to design solutions to problems. Recent literature argues that PD plays a key role in providing teachers with knowledge and skills to familiarize themselves with NGSS and assist them in successfully implementing new curricula and changing teaching practices. During 2015-2017, each summer, we led a three-week robot-integrated PD program for middle school science and math teachers. To address the shift in 3D science teaching and learning, six teachers (three math and three science), who had previously participated in the PD program, were recruited for a new PD workshop in 2018. The goal of the PD was to support teachers in selecting the PE’s relevant to their middle school curriculum, in addition to using Bybee’s 5E instructional model, thus creating robotics-based NGSS-plus-5E lessons. The 5E’s include: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. In the classroom, the teacher selects a science phenomenon for their first “E” and then takes students through a journey making the phenomenon clearer with each subsequent “E”. As part of the framework for this study, teachers became learners and went through four NGSS-plus-5E lessons created by PD facilitators to then create their own lessons. The workshop was planned and conducted based on Desimone’s conceptual framework for effective PD, which suggests five key features: content focus, active learning, coherence, sustained duration, and collective participation. The paper addresses the following research questions: (1) To what extent are the lesson plans developed by science and math teachers aligned with the three-dimensional learning of the NGSS and 5E model? (2) How can the lessons be improved for three-dimensional learning? The methodology for the analysis is a qualitative case study of two groups of middle school science and math teachers. During the PD, the two teams of three middle school teachers each collaboratively developed lesson plans which focused on ways to implement the 5E inquiry-based and the NGSS-aligned science instruction. The science lesson plans developed by the participants were the main data sources in this study. We focused on two exemplary lesson units, which were analyzed using two vetted rubrics: the Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) rubric for Science v3 and the 5E Inquiry Lesson Plan (ILP) rubric v2. The EQuIP rubric provides criteria by which to examine the alignment and overall quality of NGSS lessons. The 5E ILPv2 was developed for use in evaluating teachers’ inquiry-based 5E lesson plans and it comprises of a total of 21 items, each item being Likert-type with a range of 0-4 points. In this study, analyzing lesson plans using the rubrics provided opportunities for suggestions and feedback for improvement to developers and it informs the development of new lessons by the project team. All data were triangulated by the PD facilitators with the same perspectives to establish validity and reliability.

Inspirational stories about teachers who are able to transform students' lives pepper the literature (e.g., Ladson-Billings, 1994). Ladson-Billings described characteristics of culturally relevant teaching and then explored the stories of three teachers who enacted a personal pedagogy that led to high achievement among African American students. Stories such as these provide insights and can lead teachers to change aspects of their teaching practice. At times, teachers may be transformed by these success stories and radically change their actions. However, when teachers enact a new practice without an ideological shift in beliefs, the change is often superficial and may not result in the desired vision (Ball, 1992; Cohen, 1990; Fennema & Nelson, 1997). The question arises, how can teacher educators and professional developers help both practicing and prospective science and mathematics teachers recognize the need for culturally relevant pedagogy when science and mathematics are often considered devoid of culture?

Mathematics teacher continuing professional development (CPD) is widely recognised to encompass more than attending courses and engaging in formal activities with colleagues in school. Teachers’ professional reading is an under-researched aspect of CPD, which takes place out of view, but which has the potential to shape teachers’ beliefs and practices. Mathematics teacher professional journals are relatively widely read by teachers and are a source of articles on a range of issues concerning the teaching and learning of mathematics. Such articles will to some extent reflect the interests of mathematics teachers and play a role in informing their teaching, thus indirectly affecting students’ experiences in the classroom. But what topics do the articles in these journals focus on, and how has this changed over time? In this study, we examined the entire archive of the two leading UK mathematics teacher professional journals (Mathematics Teaching and Mathematics in School, published since 1957 and 1971, respectively; in total, almost 15 million words). We found an increasing prevalence over time of articles about classroom activities and people-centred discussions and a decreasing prevalence of articles focusing on textbooks. We discuss these and other trends, offer tentative accounts for them and consider ways in which the beliefs and practices of mathematics teachers may be reflected in, and have been informed by, these publications over time.

Profession development is essential in standardising the quality of teaching across subject areas and impacting learning in more meaningful ways. In South Africa, students’ achievement in mathematics remains abysmal for decades, evident from the National Senior Certificate examinations and allied global reports. Extensive literature adduced several reasons for the anomaly experienced. Evolving mathematics teachers’ practices owing to low achievement justifies among other reasons for professional development. Extensive studies and trainings on professional development of mathematics teachers are available to date with implication on teachers’ practices to alleviate the existing milieu. This study seeks to aggregate literature on mathematics teachers’ professional development with a view to understand the landscape for impending effort by Education Training and Development Practices Sector Education and Training Authority [ETDP SETA]. This literature review exposes comparatively areas of need and improvement in professional development effort. An understanding of this landscape is a pilot study expected to guide on preparation and instrumentation on areas of professional development for mathematics teachers in South Africa. From the review, we observed absence of empirical data in our context comparing the two models of initial teacher education programme. There is an agreement in the literature to direct professional development to content and pedagogy. Hence, the need for further studies which critically analysed these two areas through the framework of mathematics knowledge for teaching as against the general PCK.

The use of technology in Mathematics learning is crucial because it can provide convenience for the learning process. This research is a qualitative study that aims to describe how Mathematics teachers use existing technology or applications in Mathematics learning during the new normal. The participants were three high school Mathematics teachers who utilized technology in their learning. The analysis technique used refers to a three-stage analysis technique which includes data condensation, data display, and conclusion. The results showed that the use of applications available in Mathematics learning varied. Some utilized and maximized various kinds of application features, but some only took advantage of a few main features. There were teachers whose learning activities did not involve too much technology integration and there were also those that involved the use of various applications, even those specifically designed to learn mathematical concepts. The purposes of using applications that can help the teaching and learning process were very diverse. The use almost involves all activities in all teaching and learning processes such as creating, providing, and teaching the teaching materials, assessment, discussion, assignment, and announcements and reminders.

This JiM project set out to research the current state of understanding of mathematical justification by both Singapore secondary school students and Mathematics teachers across the different content strands in the Singapore secondary Mathematics curriculum. This timely and relevant project was started to complement the current goal of the Ministry of Education (MOE) on fostering reasoning in the learning of Mathematics in schools. While MOE focuses on the reasoning process, our study examined the outcomes of this reasoning process. For many years, mathematical reasoning and communication have been two key process skills in the Singapore Mathematics Framework under the Processes component. Thus, mathematical reasoning and justification are essential components of any mathematical activity that students should be familiar with. Yet from our personal communications with secondary school mathematics teachers between 2013 and 2016 and evidence from GCE O and N Level examiners' reports, we obtained the impression that many students, as well as mathematics teachers, struggled to navigate mathematical justification successfully. Mathematics teachers seemed to point students' difficulties in justification to several student-related factors. Other than those factors, we, however, speculated that there might be other potential obstacles, which contribute to students' poor performance in justification tasks. Therefore, this JiM project was undertaken to explore the quality of written justifications constructed by secondary school students and their mathematics teachers, with the aim of proposing a professional development (PD) programme that would allow the teachers to better engage their students in mathematical reasoning and justification more effectively, thereby improving the quality of written justifications provided by their students.

This study investigated the self-efficacy levels of pre-service science and mathematics teachers in a Philippine state university. A total of 172 pre-service science and mathematics teachers served as respondents of the study. Data collection was done through the use of the Science and Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument for Pre-service Teachers. The ANOVA indicated significant difference self-efficacy according to year level such that fourth year pre-service teachers indicated a statistically significant decrease. No significant difference was observed for gender and specialization. As regards to the type of courses as predictors of self-efficacy level, general education courses showed low positive predictive power (β = 0.180) whereas specialization courses and professional education courses showed a negative predictive power of β = -0.198 and β = -0.702 respectively. General education and professional education courses displayed significant predictive power at p < 0.05 whereas specialization courses did not (p=0.151). The overall explanatory power of the regression model was 61.1% (R2 = 0.611, F(3,171) = 90.419, p < 0.001). The 2 implications on the teacher education preparation as well as for future directions are likewise discussed.