Texas

Online Science Teacher Professional Development: Optimization of Asynchronous Learning Models

Principal Investigator:

Nancy Moreno

Co-Investigator:

J. Kyle Roberts

Project Overview

Background & Purpose:

We are focused on three questions:

Which asynchronous online professional development delivery methods contribute most to gains in elementary science teacher content knowledge, the ability to apply that knowledge in new contexts, knowledge retention and student science learning?
Does the linking of classroom experiences and discussion forums to asynchronous online learning contribute to greater knowledge gains by teachers?
Which demographic variables and contextual factors influence the effectiveness of each component of online professional development knowledge transfer?

Setting:

Study taking place with fifth grade teachers in Houston, Texas.

Research Design:

The research design for this project is longitudinal, and is designed to generate evidence that is descriptive using observation and survey on online professional development providers, associative/correlational, and causal using quasi-experimental methods. This project includes an intervention that consists of different online learning approaches (podcasts, video lecture with slides, online case, online lesson demonstration).

This project collects original data using assessments of learning/ achievement tests, and telephone semi-structured/ informal interviews. We will use HLM to compare knowledge gains across sub-groups, a two-level model will be examined with students at level-1 and classrooms (or teachers) at level-2.

Findings:

To date this project has not generated any findings.

Publications & Presentations:

To date this project has not generated any publications.

Other Products:

New models for online learning.

On the Web:

Epistemic Games

Discipline:

Science

State:

Texas