Teacher Development | EPCAE

Content Institutes

To improve teachers’ subject matter knowledge and teaching skills, the Collaborative provides multi-day and multi-week content-based institutes focused on helping teachers create mathematics and science classrooms where all students are engaged and learning at high levels.

Mathematics

In mathematics, the institutes build teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge to help them guide students in developing deep conceptual understanding of mathematics that is aligned with state and national standards. The content of the training is based on principles of learning described in two National Research Council reports: How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School (1999); and How Students Learn: Mathematics in the Classroom (2004). Teachers are immersed in mathematics content that they use or teach every day.

Beyond the content, teachers are provided with tools to address common student misconceptions, as well as effective instructional practices for creating learner-centered, knowledge-centered classroom environments. In addition to summer institutes, bi-monthly follow-up sessions are offered during the academic year to extend content knowledge, share best practices, and further teachers’ collective understanding of how students learn mathematics.

Science

In science, institutes support teachers in learning new ways of introducing students to the culture of science, including types of reasoning, inquiry approaches, and standards of evidence. Science institutes focus on approaches teachers can utilize to help students develop scientific ideas and deepen conceptual understanding about key scientific concepts. Training content is based on the principles of learning science discussed in the National Research Council reports. Institutes also address common student misconceptions in science, knowledge of what it means to do science, and ways of developing metacognitive skills.

Teachers are provided with tools to assist them in addressing misconceptions, as well as strategies for guiding students in learning more rigorous science content. In addition to summer institutes, bi-monthly follow-up sessions during the academic year extend content knowledge and further teachers’ collective understanding of how to support students in learning science concepts and approaches.

Coaches in the Classroom

Instructional coaches or teacher leaders – former master classroom teachers working full-time with teachers and other educators in the school or district – have played a key role in the Collaborative’s efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools and classrooms. Recent research findings indicate that well-prepared instructional coaches with strong mathematics or science backgrounds, and with a deep understanding of pedagogical content knowledge, can have a positive impact on teacher practice, and ultimately, student learning. A major responsibility of the mathematics and science instructional coaches is to help teachers increase their content knowledge and improve their instructional practice, thus transforming classroom teaching.

Other key responsibilities of instructional coaches include:

promoting student-centered, inquiry-based teaching and learning focused on math concepts and scientific principles across all classrooms;
assisting teachers in the regular analysis of student work and achievement data to guide curriculum, instruction and assessment;
establishing close working relationships with teachers, principals, and district leaders;
working closely with principals to plan and implement on-site professional development and classroom observations;
planning with their district supervisor to provide district-wide professional development; and,
attending intensive professional development seminars offered by the Collaborative, to expand coaches’ own content knowledge, pedagogy and leadership skills.

To fully prepare instructional coaches for the challenges of working in schools and classrooms, the Collaborative has provided them with over one hundred hours of professional development each year. The purpose of the training is to build coaches’ ability to increase teacher knowledge and understanding of content standards, ensure teacher implementation of high quality curriculum and instruction programs, and ensure engagement and learning among all students. In addition, instructional coaches are provided tools to help them gain successful entree to schools and to facilitate their becoming an integral part of the schools’ organizational culture. These tools include:

Action Agendas that outline coaches' responsibilities in classrooms within a given period of time and define what they will be held accountable for;
the Professional Teaching Model (PTM), an organizational structure for planning, delivering, and assessing lessons with teams of teachers in math/science departments;
the Math and Science Classroom Observation Protocol that provides a rubric for what high-quality math/science teaching and learning looks like in classrooms;
the K-16 Math and Science Curriculum Frameworks to guide and inform content and pedagogy; and,
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) Tools that identify student misconceptions in key math and science concepts and provide instructional strategies for addressing them.

Integrating Technology

Embedded within mathematics and science professional development is the use of technology to accelerate student learning. The main goal of integrating technology into teacher professional development in mathematics and science is to build teacher capacity to help students achieve higher order instructional objectives and deepen their conceptual understanding. This is done through providing teachers opportunities to learn about and use various technologies including modeling and simulation programs and tools, computer based laboratories and other technologies. Such technologies, well implemented, can engage students in becoming more active participants in learning and help make abstract concepts more tangible and real.

The Collaborative provides technology workshops on the use of graphing calculators, TI Inspire and Navigation systems, lab probeware, and computers for data collection, analysis, graphing, and real-time assessment. These and other tools allow students to see, on-screen, tangible representations of mathematical and scientific expressions, formulas and graphs to help them explore concepts and make connections that strengthen conceptual understanding as well as critical thinking and problem solving skills.

In addition, via the Technology and Education Challenge Grant, the Collaborative provided significant support to teachers and others to develop an understanding of how to implement technology in classrooms on a daily basis. The initiative included advanced teacher preparation through school team training and master’s degree programs, school leadership development for school administrators and campus technology specialists, training for parents to develop Parent Centers in participating schools, enhanced pre-service teacher preparation courses at the university level, and an outreach effort to encourage other communities to implement the program.

Mathematics and Science Master’s Degree Programs

In order to ensure a sufficient number of fully credentialed mathematics and science teachers to meet demand, the Collaborative partnered with the University of Texas at El Paso’s (UTEP) College of Science to enhance its Master of Arts in Teaching Mathematics (MATM) program and to develop a new Master of Arts in Teaching Science (MATS) program. The two Masters programs were a key element of the El Paso Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) program supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

MAT Program in Mathematics

In order to ensure that the MATM program met the needs of teachers, the College of Science established a committee composed of senior faculty from the Department of Mathematics to organize and revise existing courses and to develop new ones. The majority of MATM courses were held at the El Paso Community College’s many campuses, as well as in area schools, to increase accessibility for teachers and to accommodate their schedules. To facilitate the recruitment of out-of-field teachers, pre-MAT courses in Calculus I and II were adapted to assist teachers in meeting MAT course requirements.

The MAT Mathematics Program, designed specifically for working teachers, was fully adopted by the UTEP Department of Mathematics and continues to be fully supported by the UTEP College of Science. The degree plan continues to evolve to better meet the needs of working teachers. The course of study was lengthened from two to three years, with students taking one course per semester rather than two. The changes accommodate teachers’ schedules and provide them time to focus on content in one course and reach a deeper understanding of key mathematical concepts.

MAT Program in Science

In 2002, the new Master of Arts in Teaching Science (MATS) began to take shape. A curriculum planning committee was established and focused on prerequisite coursework for a physical science degree because of the critical need for qualified physics and chemistry teachers. By 2004, the MAT Life/Earth Science and the MAT Physical Science programs were in place.

The MAT in Science program provides rigorous study in a single science or multiple sciences coupled with classroom research methodology, mentoring and leadership, and for some, graduate courses and a teaching internship that leads to certification. A key objective of the MATS is to produce high quality secondary science teachers who will qualify for master science teacher certification. All content courses incorporate science pedagogy into their curricula and are based on state certification guidelines, including those for Master Science Teacher Certification. MAT Science graduates are able to use their own classrooms as research vehicles to help better understand student-learning outcomes as a function of their pedagogical innovations. Further, participants are able to mentor their fellow science teachers, sharing research-based teaching strategies and best practices for the teaching of concepts. Incorporated into the program is the requirement that participants earn at least 18 graduate credit hours in a single science content area.

PCK Tools

The Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) tools were developed jointly by the El Paso Collaborative, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, and the Consortium for Achievement in Mathematics and Science to assist instructional coaches in work to deepen teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. The PCK tools are a series of short literature reviews focused on key mathematics and science concepts in the middle grades that serve as a resource for discussion and study of content. The purpose of the tools is to provide instructional coaches with strategies useful to teachers that address the most common student learning misconceptions. PCK tools cover science topics such as energy, weather, light, density, and seasons. Math topics include rational numbers, symbolic representation, graphs, and measurement.

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Mathematic

Science

Classroom Observation Protocol

The Classroom Observation Protocol is a locally developed classroom observation instrument that focuses on key aspects of instruction including:

strategies and activities used by teachers to help students understand the content of a lesson;
cognitive demand level of learning tasks to ensure that students are provided assignments across the spectrum from low--memorization and performing procedures--to high--applying knowledge to new situations or demonstrating understanding of concepts;
teacher’s questioning skills to increase students’ understanding of key concepts; and,
classroom discourse between teacher and student to deepen student conceptual understanding, identify misconceptions, and generate new learning

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Classroom Observation Protocol.pdf

Professional Teaching Model

The PTM is a lesson planning process that identifies steps and procedures to assist teachers improve the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. It is used primarily as a tool for instructional coaches and other teacher leaders. The lesson planning process begins with identification of the concept to be learned in the lesson and analysis of state standards relative to the concept being taught.

The process includes identification of strategies, activities, and instructional materials to be used in the lesson and determination of the best way to assess student learning. The PTM incorporates cognitive demand analysis to ensure that students are challenged to think at high levels. The PTM process assists instructional coaches in building a shared vocabulary for working with teachers to develop lessons rich in content that are effective and engaging.

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Content Institutes

The clearest evidence of impact from the Collaborative’s subject-matter professional development for teachers are the following:

brought unprecedented attention to the teaching and learning of mathematics and science across schools and districts in the El Paso area;
developed a diverse set of teachers across area districts that is highly skilled and knowledgeable about mathematics and science teaching and learning;
built a mathematics and science teacher corps better prepared to teach demanding course content to all students, K-16;
significantly increased mathematics and science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge; and,
created mathematics and science teacher networks that reduce teacher isolation and provide a support structure that enables teachers to obtain important information and knowledge from colleagues.

Coaches in the Classroom

Among the most important outcomes of the Collaborative’s work to develop instructional coaches are the following:

Built the capacity of over 100 school-based mathematics and science instructional coaches and supported them in deepening their knowledge of how to sustain and extend their work in schools. These content specialists established model standards-based classrooms, and provided training and support to teachers in their schools, as well as within their districts.
Provided schools and districts a support structure for professional development that is closely aligned to state and national standards.
Developed a culture of collaboration and reflective practice in schools and districts to assist educators in making better-informed instructional plans and decisions.
Developed and implemented a 30-hour instructional coaching training module built on research-based principles of effective professional development and school-based learning communities which guided the professional growth of coaches throughout area districts.

Integrating Technology

Among the benefits derived from technology integration in the Collaborative’s professional development programs and the Technology and Education Cahllenge Grant are the following:

Teacher capacity to utilize technology to improve math and science teaching has increased greatly;
Students are more actively engaged in learning higher-order math and science concepts;
A cadre of 315 Technology Teacher Leaders, in 63 schools, have been identified and trained, leading not only the transformation of technology use in their own classrooms, but to deepened use of technology among other teachers at their schools;
Over 120 teachers received Master’s degrees in Educational Technology, and working with Technology Teacher Leaders, have created teams of technology staff developers in over 63 schools.

Mathematics and Science Master’s Degree Programs

Among the impacts of the Mathematics and Science Master’s Degree Programs are the following:

institutionalization of Master of Arts in Teaching Mathematics and Master of Arts in Teaching Science degrees specifically designed for working teachers and developed to improve the quality of math and science instruction in area schools; and
increases in the number of mathematics and science teachers recruited into and successfully completing Master’s degree programs.