Peter Sheldon, Department of Physics Peggy Schimmoeller, Department of Education Jessica Maidment 06

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Peter Sheldon, Department of PhysicsPeggy
Schimmoeller, Department of EducationJessica
Maidment 06 and Sunnie Joshi 07e

• The Impact of Active Learning on Attitudes and
  Science Content Knowledge

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Supported by a Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant
from the Virginia Department of Education
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Outline
We are trying to increase teachers use of, and
study the influence of hands-on and inquiry
based instruction in the K-8 classroom. We have
developed resources for teachers, and are
studyingimpact through qualitative surveys and
by tracking achievement.

• Teacher Institute
• To increase hands-on lessons in the sciences
• Website
• Has lesson plans tied to states standards, and
  videos of how to carry out hands-on experiments
• Research Surveys and Results
• Teachers and students attitudes and content
  knowledge

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tnst.randolphcollege.edu

• A website with teacher resources
• Information on states standards
• Information on pedagogy and learning resources
• Lesson plans tied to state standards
• Videos of students carrying out hands-on
  activities tied to each lesson plan
• We currently have more than 60 science lesson
  plans and more than 20 accompanying videos, with
  many more that need to be posted

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Science Teaching Institute (STI)

• Four days for 30 teachers, Summer 06
• The Science Teaching Institute is offered for
  teachers of the 3rd-8th grades who want to learn
  more about content and inquiry-based teaching in
  the sciences. The Institute leaders specialize in
  Education, Physics, Environmental Science and
  Biology. We will spend one day on each subject,
  working through content areas, and specific
  hands-on and inquiry-based lessons that can be
  conducted with your class of students. The lesson
  content will be determined based on participants
  need and interests.

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STI Results

• The Institute was meant to be primarily about
  implementing hands-on and inquiry-based lessons
  in the classroom, to actively engage students in
  learning science. The secondary purpose was to
  increase content knowledge. The teachers
  expressed a strong desire for the latter in the
  core science areas.
• The teachers were given a pre- and post- test on
  attitudes and content knowledge. Some results are
  shown here.

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STI Classroom Follow-up

• We had some teachers use what they learned to
  teach in a Summer Science Camp.
• We wish to observe the teachers in their
  classrooms, and study their student attitudes
  (pre- and post- tests) and student achievement.
  Some pre-test results are shown here.

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Student Attitude Data
Compare this to the fact that they generally like
reading (Next table)
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Student Attitude Datawe asked 25 attitude
questions, here are 3

• Observations
• They like science, especially when it
• involves experiments
• Too many have gender bias
• Note answers were strongly agree, agree,
  disagree,
• strongly disagree and we grouped the agrees and
• disagrees together.

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STI impact Teachers Attitudes

• Teachers were asked 62 questions pre- and post-
  institute. These four saw significant change.

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Conclusions

• More work needs to be done
• Resources of these sorts help teachers to get
  away from teaching from the text, and help to get
  students more interested in science