Seattle Pacific University Teacher Professional Continuum
Improving the Effectiveness of Teacher Diagnostic Skills and Tools
Project Personnel:
FACET Innovations:
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Collaborators:
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Funding:Project #: TPC-0455796
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PROPOSAL ABSTRACT:
The Physics Department at Seattle Pacific University and FACET
Innovations LLC, partnering with Seattle Public Schools, Spokane School
District, and Bellevue School District seek support for a TPC Category B
Resources for Professional Development--Full Development Project. This
five-year, $1.5 million research and development effort will target the in-depth
preparation and enhancement of teachers of physics and physical science in
grades 5-10.
The project will achieve its broad impact by a two-pronged
approach: (1) production, delivery over the web, and iterative refinement of
research-based diagnostic classroom tools in the gateway areas for all sciences:
Properties of Matter, Heat and Temperature, and Physical and Chemical Changes,
and (2) development of a framework for using diagnostic classroom tools in the
delivery of professional development to deepen the subject matter content
knowledge, enrich the pedagogical content knowledge, broaden the curricular
content knowledge, and hone the diagnostic skills of all teachers, especially
those who are new to the intentional use of assessment in science instruction.
These tools are based on the Diagnoser Project tools that are currently being
implemented in the context of force and motion.
The intellectual merit of the project consists in identifying and
categorizing widespread productive and unproductive modes of reasoning employed
by both precollege students and teachers on foundational topics; developing,
implementing, and evaluating the efficacy of web-based diagnostic tools that
provide detailed, real-time, facet-based formative assessment to teachers (and
teacher educators) to guide further instruction; and contributing to the
evidentiary base of teacher development and the teaching and learning of
science.
