Teacher Professional Development in Science: A Case Study of the Primary Science Programme’s CTLI Course 2007

Evaluator: Professor Peter W. Hewson, University of Wiscons in Madison, USA

Conclusion:

The PSP staff set a goal for themselves of developing a course that would “introduce and consolidate an integrated way of planning, teaching and assessing the Natural Sciences” (PSP, 2006). In order to achieve this goal, the PSP team adopted a two-part strategy of focusing on sophisticated, complex educator planning on the one hand, and expert implementation of the course on the other. With respect to educator planning, the course provided multiple opportunities for educators to engage with the different elements of the NCS both separately and in combination; it also supported these activities with a broad set of resources that were accessible and appropriate. The comments of the educators indicate that the majority emerged with a detailed and powerful conception of planning that they would immediately be able to use in their teaching. With respect to course implementation, a key feature was the way in which the team modeled the philosophy of learning that underpinned the course design. Thus participants were able to learn in ways that they would then implement with their own learners. In short, the PSP team’s implementation of both aspect of its two-part strategy was excellent.

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