Sally,

Thank you for your interest in our research. Our experiences align with yours as we too find that the closer alignment with science content that the teachers will teach, the stronger they internalize the content and practices. We are fortunate to have a close relationship with our field-placement schools, and we have a person whose role is dedicated to field placements, developing and nurturing close relationships between our program and local partner schools. We also have close relationships with our field supervisors and we meet regularly to discuss students' progress in the program.

Our state was a "lead state" for NGSS but unfortunately we have not yet adopted NGSS. We do introduce NGSS along with our state standards and our pre-service teachers compare and contrast the two so they are introduced to the strands of NGSS. Our students have interdisciplinary project assignments in both of their science methods courses and we work closely with their engineering course professor on projects as well.  Our students are able to dig deeply into the standards and follow topics across grades K-6 during their methods coursework. 

We hope we have answered your questions and appreciate your contributions to our discussion.

Sarah and Temple

Hi Margo!  Great questions, and we appreciate your curiosity about our project.  

"This leads me to be really interested in how you followed up with the teachers in the different cohorts once they entered the classroom?"  Of the four cohorts that we followed in the study, three of them entered their teaching careers during the study.  For the first two cohorts to enter their careers, we followed up with them at the end of their first year of teaching.  We gave them surveys about their knowledge and beliefs, and we provided training for them on how to log about their instruction using logs that our team developed (the Instructional Practices Log in Mathematics [IPL-M] and the Instructional Practices Log in Science [IPL-S]).  Then, they logged about their instruction over the course of their second year of teaching.  We followed up with them again at the end of their second year of teaching, once again giving them surveys on their knowledge and beliefs.  Among the third cohort, we had 19 case study participants (of 56 total) who we followed during the program, and we were able to follow 16 of those 19 into their first year of teaching.  We collected in-depth data using both interviews and lesson observations to learn about their development as a teacher.  During the first year of teaching, we visited their classroom on multiple occasions, observed them teach three math and three science lessons, and conducted follow-up post-lesson interviews.  We also interviewed them three additional times (beginning, middle, end of year) to better understand their school context, challenges they were facing, successes, etc.  

"Did you play a mentoring/ support role or was it to simply collect data of what was happening in their classroom?"  We did not play a formal mentoring/support role.  However, we recognized that simply the fact that we were there, to still feel so connected to their university preparation program, to talk out loud about lessons -- these things were a form of support.  In our interviews, we asked them their perception of how being a case study participant had influenced them as a teacher.  So, we collected data on this, although it was minimal and not the focus of the study.  

"Were teachers placed in specific schools or in whatever school they were hired to?"  The teachers were in schools where they were hired -- so it was wherever they got a job.  

"I am curious what your next steps are for broader impact?"  I really appreciate this question because we're thinking hard about broader impact beyond the research articles that we have written or are writing for publication in journals.  We've presented at conferences like AMTE (Association for Mathematics Teacher Educators), AACTE, etc. about our work along the way, but we have been thinking carefully about next steps beyond that, too.  As we write the "key" papers for publication, we are working to operationalize (or make as tangible as possible) the nuances and inner workings of the program courses.  When these papers are published, we know we can work with public relations in our university to develop a complementary "brief" about the paper that can be circulated via social media professional networks, but we welcome any suggestions you may have, too, about broad dissemination of our work.  In the coming months, faculty in the STEM-focused teacher preparation program faculty will work to write/create a brief report (that will result in a "glossy" publication) to be shared with policymakers and interested teacher preparation programs.  The report will highlight the key features/characteristics of the program.  

Thank you again, Margo! 

Hi Sally, Thank you for your question.  I would be curious to hear how you would define "success," but I will respond by drawing on both our case study data and the larger quantitative data set.  First, from our case study data, although a small sample, we have evidence of contextual factors (school culture, colleagues' practices) influencing a teacher's instruction in science and math.  Of course, this is not surprising.  Second, from our comparative quantitative data set, we have evidence that teachers who graduated from the STEM-focused program utilized more discourse (and higher quality discourse) during math instruction.  As an identified outcome of the program, it seems the explicit focus on discourse (and practicing it both in math methods courses and in the field) has an impact on post-program math instructional practices during the beginning of their careers.