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4
initiatives by Federal agencies
major Points in chapter 4
The Science Education Partnership Award program at the National Institutes of Health relies on partnership organized around
inquiry-based curricula to increase the scientific and health literacy of the U.S. public and to promote careers in the health
sciences.
A variety of programs at the National Science Foundation, both in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources and
elsewhere in the foundation, support the education and professional development of chemistry teachers.
Taking advantage of the laboratories it supports across the United States, the Department of Energy specializes in helping
chemistry teachers and students gain hands-on experiences.
Though assessing the effectiveness of educational activities remains challenging, programs can make progress by relying
on standardized instruments and by teaming with evaluation experts.
The NaTioNal iNsTiTUTes oF healTh:
Many federal agencies have programs directed toward K-
ParTNershiPs For scieNce edUcaTioN
12 education that affect chemistry education either directly
or indirectly. Several presenters at the workshop described
Since 1991 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has
examples of these programs and summarized available evi-
sponsored the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA)
dence about their impacts on teacher and students While the
program to increase the scientific and health literacy of the
programs represent just a small sample of all the federal pro -
U.S. public and to promote careers in the health sciences
grams focused on K-12 education, they demonstrate many of
among groups that have historically been underrepresented
the strengths and weaknesses of federal initiatives.
in those fields, including urban, rural, African-American,
Hispanic, Native American, and female students. The pro-
gram seeks to create partnerships organized around inquiry-
based curricula between scientists or clinicians and educa-
8
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INITIATIVES BY FEDERAL AGENCIES
tors, community organizations, and science centers. The based, so students engage in learning processes that are not
underlying concept, said L. Tony Beck, a program officer necessarily present in typical science classes. They “have to
at NIH’s National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), learn to work in teams of kids they wouldn’t normally hang
is to avoid having “a clinician or a scientist in a university out with,” said Beck. “They have to write coherent sentences.
create something, take it to the school, and say, ‘Trust us, They have to understand chemistry, statistics, math.”
this will work.’” Teacher professional development is an important part of
The topic of a SEPA project can be anything related to the SEPA program. More than half of the projects feature at
NIH-funded research. Past awards have focused on subjects least one or two weeks of professional development, typi-
ranging from aging to epidemiology to vaccine development cally during the summer. Many of the projects are in inner-
to environmental health. Also, SEPA projects generally have city schools, and because the projects are for K-12 students,
to target state and local standards that are in place, so they the teachers reached by the program include elementary
not only augment the curriculum but in some cases can and middle school as well as high school teachers. “Most of
replace it. them didn’t have much science in high school,” said Beck.
Projects are funded at $250,000 for each of five years. “They have to learn the content and they have to learn the
Phase 1 consists of development and evaluation of the pedagogical skills.”
project, with a second phase involving the development, Evaluation of projects is also a critical part of the program.
implementation, and evaluation of effective strategies for At least 10 percent of each budget needs to be spent on
dissemination. The program increased in size substantially evaluation—$25,000 per year at minimum. Evaluation plans
in the late-1990s when Representative John Porter essentially also have to be part of the original proposal, and the evalua-
tripled the budget so that it could begin to serve science tion needs to be conducted during the entire duration of the
centers and museums. A wide variety of institutions have project. External evaluators are required unless the use of an
projects, including medical centers, universities, colleges, institutionally based evaluator can be justified. Furthermore,
community colleges, research institutions, nonprofit orga- as the emphasis in the evaluation of educational programs
nizations, and public and private school systems. NIH and has shifted toward greater reliance on quasi-experimental and
NCRR directors have been very supportive of the program experimental designs, the SEPA projects also have moved in
and have kept its budget stable, despite current pressures on this direction. Five years ago, very few projects had approval
NIH funding. from institutional review boards (IRBs) for evaluation plans,
Different projects have different goals. Some are focused which generally is required for randomized controlled trials
on students who would not normally think of going to col- or comparison group studies. Now approximately half of the
lege. Others, such as the projects run through science centers classroom-based programs do have IRB approval. In addi-
and museums, are designed to reach out to the broader public. tion, the focus of the last two annual meetings for the SEPA
For example, a SEPA project at Yale includes a family night program has been evaluation.
that features an introduction to research on Lyme disease, the Beck described a particular evaluation of a project by
use of microscopes to look at various types of ticks, and an Nancy Moreno and her colleagues at the Baylor College of
opportunity to enroll in clinical trials studying the disease. Medicine’s Center for Educational Outreach. The evaluation
The program currently has 60 to 70 projects, with a near- tracked the performance of students in classes taught by
term goal of funding 80 projects. Many of the projects are teachers who attended one or more professional develop-
in states that do not receive large amounts of NIH funding, ment sessions in the summers. The evaluation showed that it
which promotes the program’s goal of increasing the public’s takes several years after the initial professional development
understanding of and support for NIH-funded research. experience before a substantial impact appears in the schools,
“We’re gradually expanding the range of the SEPA program, and the impact is greater after several years of professional
[which] brings this kind of opportunity to a range of students development sessions.
and communities,” said Beck. Considerable anecdotal evidence also points to the suc-
Many of the SEPA projects have developed Web sites, cess of projects funded by the SEPA program, Beck said. As
some of which have won national awards. The national one student wrote following a session in a mobile laboratory
Web site (http://www.ncrrsepa.org) offers a way to search that travels from community to community in a bus, “This is
for programs by state, principal investigator, or educational more fun than shopping at the mall because at the mall you
focus. For example, searching on Washington, DC, leads to can’t have your DNA in a little tube.”
an exhibit on infectious diseases at the Marian Koshland Sci-
ence Museum of the National Academy of Sciences.
The NaTioNal scieNce FoUNdaTioN (NsF):
Although the classroom projects supported by SEPA
imProViNG The eFFecTiVeNess oF Teachers
generally are focused on the biomedical sciences, students
are exposed to a broad range of scientific and mathematical “Education—and particularly teacher education—is
content as part of the lessons. Also, the learning is inquiry- becoming a huge thing at NSF,” said Joan Prival, a program
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0 STRENGTHENING HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY EDUCATION
director of NSF’s Directorate for Education and Human Many DEHR programs address STEM teacher educa-
Resources (DEHR). NSF programs for science teachers have tion, some directly and some more peripherally. The largest
five broad goals: increasing content knowledge, improving such program is the Math and Science Partnership program,
pedagogical skills, enabling teachers to engage all students, which fosters collaborations between STEM faculty in col-
enhancing their conceptual understanding, and helping them leges and universities and K-12 school districts. Teacher
retain understanding. NSF pursues these goals through a quality, quantity, and diversity are major objectives of the
research and development effort designed to advance knowl- program. Individual projects, which incorporate evidence-
edge and to further the preparation of K-12 teachers of sci- based design and outcomes, feature challenging courses
ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In and curricula for teachers. Also, “these are large grants, and
addition, NSF’s programs encompass the entire continuum we expect institutional change at both the school district
of a teaching career, from recruitment of new teachers to level and the institution of higher education,” Prival said. In
pre-service education to induction to continuing professional some ways, these projects draw inspiration from the teacher
development. “It’s a lifetime experience, and we have a num- institutions NSF sponsored in the 1960s, but they want to
ber of programs that head into teacher education at various do more than influence individual teachers. For one, the
points in the continuum,” said Prival. program is designed for teachers to become leaders in their
Many previous NSF reports and programs have addressed districts. “They go to an intense residential, or in most cases
the importance of meeting the demand for highly quali- semiresidential, institute for a couple of years, and then
fied STEM teachers, reducing attrition, and broadening they go back to their school district as teacher leaders,” said
participation in STEM teaching to groups that have been Prival. “They have all kinds of responsibilities in working
underrepresented in those fields. The programs are based in with the other teachers in their building. And we’re looking
existing research and practice, including the knowledge and to impact student learning in the whole building, not just in
experience in teacher education built up at NSF over more the classroom of the teacher who participated.”
than half a century. A program designed to bring people into teaching who
Teacher education in STEM seeks to prepare K-12 teach- have very strong content knowledge is the Robert Noyce
ers who are proficient in STEM concepts and topics, confi- Teacher Scholarship program. The program supports people
dent in their own grasp of STEM content, lifelong learners of who are majoring in chemistry or other scientific disciplines
this content, aware of rapidly changing disciplinary content, in college to become K-12 teachers through scholarships
able to guide and assess STEM learning in age-appropriate and stipends. Future teachers agree that for every year of a
ways, confident in the use of cyber-enabled tools, prepared to scholarship they will work two years in a high-need district.
engage an increasingly diverse student population, and sup- The program also targets people who are changing careers
ported by STEM faculty, in collaboration with teacher edu- by supporting their preparation in a teacher credentialing
cation faculty and practitioners. This last point is especially program. “It’s not enough that they know the content,” said
important, said Prival, because STEM faculty at colleges and Prival. “They need to learn how to convey that excitement
universities are a critical part of the education community; and the knowledge that’s associated with their field.”
in fact, many DEHR programs require that STEM faculty be Discovery Research K-12 is another large program at
involved in educational projects. NSF that supports research about, and the development and
Teacher education in STEM requires a research base that implementation of, innovative resources, models, and tech-
can serve as a foundation for improved teacher education nologies for use by students, teachers, and policy makers.
models. For this reason, DEHR has a strong research program Assessment, public literacy, workplace readiness, and cyber-
that addresses such issues as teacher preparation, induction, enabled learning are emphasized in the program.
and professional development. The directorate also requires A program that features resources specific to chemistry
that teacher education programs have a rigorous evaluation education is the National Science Digital Library (http://nsdl.
component that measures outcomes in terms of increased org). In addition, the ChemEd Digital Library (http://www.
production of well-qualified teachers, knowledge and dis- chem.com/chemed) has links to many chemistry education
semination of proven strategies, and evidence of a relation- resources.
ship between teacher education components and improved Other DEHR programs that have an influence on STEM
K-12 student learning. The directorate does not require that teacher education include the NSF Graduate Teaching Fel-
a certain percentage of a grant be spent on education. Rather, lows in K-12 Education (GK-12) program; the Advanced
the evaluation component is part of the intellectual merit Technological Education (ATE) program; the Course, Cur-
that is considered in reviewing a proposal. Evaluation also is riculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program; the
connected to the dissemination plan included in a proposal, Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engi-
“because if you’re going to be disseminating anything that’s neering (REESE) program; and the Louis Stokes Alliances
worthwhile, people are going to ask how do you know and for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program. For example,
what’s the evidence.” the GK-12 program trains and then places graduate fellows
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INITIATIVES BY FEDERAL AGENCIES
in K-12 classrooms so they can bring their research expertise
to students. 50
45
Outside of DEHR, other NSF programs have a substantial Division of Elementary,
Secondary, and Informal
40
influence on teacher education. Katharine Covert, a program Education
35
officer in NSF’s Division of Chemistry, described some of Division of Chemistry
Percent of Awards
30
the ways in which the research supported by the Directorate
25
for Mathematical and Physical Sciences is integrated with
20
efforts to support teacher learning.
15
The Division of Chemistry has about 1,500 research
10
grants active at any given time, with an annual budget of
5
about $200 million. A recent inventory of these grants
0
showed that their educational components fall into a number
Mentor/Tutor/Train
Activities/Camps
Experiences for
Lab work for
Student Workshop
Visits/Demos
Development
Workshop
Teacher
Curri./Mod.
Students
of discrete categories: teacher workshops, research experi-
Research
Teachers
Class
Special
ences for teachers, student workshops, laboratory experi-
ences for students, providing help for science fair projects,
judging science fairs, classroom visits or demonstrations,
mentoring and training teachers and students, tours of labs, FIGURE 4.1 An estimated comparison of NSF outreach activities
conducted in July 2006, shows that the Division of Chemistry
working with science museums, science camps, and cur- New 4-1
conducts more outreach programs focused on research experiences
riculum and module development.
and direct mentoring, while the Division of Elementary, Secondary,
Not surprisingly, said Covert, a particular area of expertise
and Informal Education devotes more attention to workshops and
within the Division of Chemistry is providing teachers and
special activities for students and teachers. SOURCE: Covert, K.
students with research experiences and visits to laboratories.
2008. K-12 Outreach Supported by NSF Chemistry. Presentation to
A comparison of outreach activities sponsored by the Divi- Chemical Sciences Roundtable, Washington, DC, August 4, 2008.
sion of Chemistry and the Division of Elementary, Second-
ary, and Informal Education showed that the former engaged
in more classroom visits, research experiences for teachers
Partnerships will be an important way to carry out evalua-
and students, and mentoring and training, while the latter
tions of programs within STEM departments, Prival pointed
specialized more in curriculum development and teacher
out in the question-and-answer session. New activities can be
workshops (Figure 4.1).
added to existing evaluation programs, and discipline-based
Evaluation of outcomes is an “Achilles’ heel” within
programs can partner with researchers in other academic
the Division of Chemistry, said Covert, partly because the
departments who are skilled in evaluations.
programs are so variable. “These are community-driven
The Division of Chemistry makes grants only to faculty
programs, and even within the teacher workshops each is
members in STEM departments at colleges and universities,
unique.” Awards from the division go to chemistry research-
not to K-12 teachers or to K-12 schools or districts, Prival
ers who “are not necessarily conversant with modern educa-
pointed out in response to another question. Yet faculty
tional evaluation tools.” There are exceptions of course, and
members often use part of their grants to work with teachers
the division strongly encourages ongoing evaluation. How-
or schools, in part to achieve the broader impacts sought by
ever, most of the evaluations take the form of questionnaires
NSF. Furthermore, faculty members often are interested in
that are focused on the experience rather than outcomes.
evaluating the impact of these activities to include in their
“The idea of a more scholarly evaluation that looks at the
reports to NSF.
classroom impact is daunting,” said Covert. “We proceed
with a lot of goodwill, a lot of energy, a lot of wonderful
anecdotes, and not a lot of hard outcomes.” The deParTmeNT oF eNerGY:
NSF evaluates all research proposals based on their intel- creaTiNG Teacher scieNTisTs
lectual merit and their “broader impacts” on important soci-
An important part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s)
etal goals. The conversation within the foundation, spurred
work in education is directed toward K-12 teachers, espe-
in part by congressional attention to the issue, is transition-
cially toward middle school and high school teachers of sci-
ing from “what are these impacts” to “how do we track and
ence. “A lot of our emphasis is on educators, because we see
assess them.” NSF has set as a goal to deepen the under-
this as giving us maximal leverage in the K-12 arena,” said
standing of these so-called broader impacts and to study the
Jeffery Dilks of DOE’s Office of Workforce Development
effectiveness of research activities in achieving them. This
for Teachers and Scientists. “We reach one teacher, and one
can be difficult to do with a large collection of relatively
teacher reaches many students, rather than addressing one
small projects, but each part of NSF is being challenged to
student at a time.”
evaluate the full range of outcomes of its activities.
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STRENGTHENING HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY EDUCATION
A recent report from Dilks’ office established a national before the first year to establish a baseline against which to
goal of enhancing the ability of educators and the nation’s measure changes.
educational systems to teach science and mathematics.1 Pri- The scores on these assessments do not necessarily lend
orities are to (1) enhance the capability of K-16 mathematics themselves to evaluations of the program, Dilks said. For
and science educators to boost student achievement in sci- example, it may be more important for a teacher to realize
ence and mathematics and provide a rich learning experi- over the course of a summer that he or she scores a 3 on a
ence for students; (2) expand participation of women and scale rather than a 4. “The core of our assessment process
underrepresented groups in the science-driven U.S. innova- is to get teachers to be reflective and to think about what
tion system; (3) develop and support programs for students they do.”
who wish to pursue science and technology careers at every DOE puts about 150 teachers a year through 10 to 12 of its
step of the learning process; and (4) identify the appropriate laboratories—an average of 15 teachers per laboratory—and
roles and responsibilities for federal science and technology the program could perhaps be expanded to 20 teachers per
mission agencies in STEM workforce development, commu- year per laboratory. However, there are hundreds of federal
nicate these roles to all stakeholders, and serve as a catalyst laboratories that are associated with the missions of federal
for their involvement. agencies, many of them located in places that could reach
In particular, DOE’s expertise is in experiential learn- out to more teachers than can the DOE labs. If each of these
ing, Dilks said. “Whether it’s undergraduates or teachers or laboratories were able to take on 15 teachers, “you’re starting
graduate students, we take them out of their classroom setting to talk some real numbers,” said Dilks. In addition, industry
and we place them into a laboratory and make them part of a could run similar programs in its labs. “This is a scalable
research team to learn what research is all about.” The goal is model if people cooperate.”
for teachers to take this experience back to their classrooms Unlike most federal agencies, DOE has statutory author-
and translate it into something meaningful to their students, ity to accept private funds to support its educational efforts,
whether motivational, curricular, or pedagogical. DOE does though the authority has been used very little so far. DOE
not mandate how teachers should use that experience. Rather, therefore can partner with private industry to develop coop-
DOE seeks to give them the tools to change what happens in erative ventures in delivering outreach to teachers.
the classroom. “We want to change the way teachers think In the question-and-answer period, Dilks was asked
about science so they can change the way that their students how DOE reconciles its goal of attracting more females
think about science.” into science with the federal mandate to be inclusive in its
DOE runs both pre-service and in-service programs educational programs. Dilks replied that the goal is to cre-
for teachers. The largest in-service program is the DOE- ate environments that are receptive to all so that programs
Academies Creating Teacher Scientists (ACTS) program. provide an encouraging atmosphere for young women.
It requires a three-year commitment from the teacher and is Dilks also stated that DOE is seeking to develop an evalu-
housed at a DOE laboratory. It is a residential program where ation that would measure changes in student understanding
the teacher lives at a laboratory for four to eight weeks, with that result from its programs. One complication in any
a housing allowance, travel expenses, and a stipend. The such assessment is that there are many layers between the
teachers are integrated into a research team. Also, using an program and measures of student performance, he pointed
electronic portfolio, they create a professional development out. Another complication is that student scores on many
plan that outlines what they wish to accomplish over their standardized tests are difficult to access directly, making it
three years in the program. The portfolio enables them to difficult to connect a test score with the practices of a par-
report back to program organizers about the changes they ticular teacher.
have made in the classroom. Also during the question-and-answer session, Kaye Storm
The teachers take a content knowledge self-awareness of Stanford University recounted the experience of a teacher
survey before their first laboratory experience, at the end fellowship program that has been operating at Columbia Uni-
of their first year, and again at the end of all three years. versity for many years. New York State has data available for
In particular content areas, the teacher rank themselves on the exam pass rates for students of teachers who have been
a five-point scale, from very knowledgeable to not knowl- through this program versus a comparison group. Although
edgeable at all. For example, they might be asked how much the sample size is small, the scores are higher for teachers
they know about the fundamental structure of atoms and who have gone through the program.
molecules. They also take a professional practices inventory
The deParTmeNT oF eNerGY:
creaTiNG Teacher leaders
1Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists. 2007. Brookhaven National Laboratory, one of 17 national labo-
Future Workforce Deelopment. Washington, DC: Office of Science, De- ratories run by the Department of Energy, has approximately
partment of Energy.
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INITIATIVES BY FEDERAL AGENCIES
2,700 employees on a 5,000-acre campus on Long Island. It A particular emphasis of the Brookhaven program is on
also provides approximately 4,000 guest researchers each creating teacher leaders. By the third year of involvement
year with access to instruments that no other institution with the program, many teachers feel they are ready to use
can provide, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, their new knowledge to take positive action at their schools.
the National Synchrotron Light Source, and the Center for The laboratory is very interested in teaching the skills of
Functional Nanomaterials. science, including critical thinking, observation, analyti -
Brookhaven also participates in the ACTS program, said cal work, and gathering and analyzing data. By exposing
Ken White, the head of the laboratory’s Office of Educational teachers to a model of inquiry-based learning, the program
Opportunity. One thing lab members often heard from teach- prepares them to take such skills back to their schools.
ers in surrounding areas is that they had no place outside Another Brookhaven project, done in partnership with
their schools to do science. “They don’t have places to do Stony Brook University, takes place through the Center for
chemistry or professional development for themselves,” Environmental Molecular Science. A two-and-a-half-day
White said. In response, Brookhaven has developed several workshop for high school teachers enables them to remove
ways for teachers and their students to be engaged in useful metals from soil with citric acid. (Developing the workshop
and authentic research activities. “We’re actually getting the also led to the construction of commercial kits for the extrac -
students out in the field and doing things that people care tion of metals that are available through a private company.)
about.” “We send teachers away with the tools for how to do this
One program takes advantage of the laboratory’s unique and go back and be able to do chemistry in the classroom.”
setting. Water on Long Island comes from an aquifer that Some teachers and their classes also have used the National
needs to be protected. In cooperation with teachers, the Synchrotron Light Source to analyze contaminants in envi-
l aboratory put together one-week summer workshops ronmental samples.
for 20 to 25 teachers focused on open space stewardship. During the question-and-answer session, the speaker and
The teachers learn how to do species classification, water several members of the audience discussed the challenges in
sampling, and environmental testing. Then they team up evaluating the effectiveness of these programs. The programs
with employees from the Suffolk County Department of White runs are small and done on tight budgets, and finding
Parks, the town of Brookhaven, or the U.S. Fish and Wild - money for a thorough evaluation, beyond simple question-
life Agency to do sampling and analysis of water at sites naires, is difficult. It also can be difficult to gather longitu-
close to their schools. The experts work with the teachers dinal data to track students or teachers over time.
on the assays, tell them about the property, and accom- One possibility is to rely on a single evaluation design
pany the teacher and students on field trips. Classes from that more than one grantee of a funding agency can use. If
elementary school to high school have taken data on public such an evaluation were available as a standard design and
property and have shared their results with the agencies that the same definition of outcomes were used, costs could be
have responsibilities for the property. It’s a “community reduced appreciably below a stand-alone evaluation. Joan
partnership,” said White. The program promotes durable Prival of NSF stated that some of the foundation’s evalu-
relationships, facilitates transfer of activities to classrooms, ations are done that way, with a common set of data being
teaches environmental research skills, pairs teachers with collected from major programs. Individual projects also can
properties, and engages students in authentic research. adapt evaluation instruments developed for other projects,
Money has come from DOE, from the schools, from other which cuts down on costs. Another possibility is for a funder
government agencies, and from grants that the teachers to provide support for an evaluation center that will consult
have written. A final celebration, conducted as a scientific with programs about the design of an effective evaluation.
meeting, enables students to present their research and However, because many different models exist, the same
celebrate their achievements. formula cannot be applied to every program.
