Evaluating the Effects of Intervention on Teacher Learning in an Online Heat and Temperature Course.
One of the goals of the NSF math science partnership program is to "Contribute to a greater understanding of how students effectively learn mathematics and science and how teacher preparation and professional development can be improved." Although it is difficult to pinpoint the specific reasons for improvement, there are various indications that the changes introduced into the Fulcrum Program after the first round have led to improvements.
By analyzing individual teacher responses to Pre and Post "thought experiments," we hypothesize that a comparison of the post assessments from Cohort One and Cohort Two will find that the Cohort Two group will have a deeper understanding of the concepts presented than that of the Cohort One group. We define "deeper understanding" as having more responses consistent with current scientific understanding. We expect Cohort Two's descriptions of the phenomena will significantly improve in complexity (increased use of key ideas, increased number of normative responses,) after taking the second iteration of F2, Conceptual Distinctions: The Case of Heat and Temperature.
In addition, we hypothesize that due to the revision of all the Fulcrum courses for Cohort Two there will be more vigorous discussion among group members, more challenges to unsupported assertions, more adequate presentation of data, a greater use of questioning to probe understanding, as well as improved understanding of Course Two content when compared to the reports and discussions of Cohort One groups.
