Over the past few decades, the major goal of the many national and local science education reform efforts is encouraging science teachers to enact reform-based science instruction so that students deeply understand subject knowledge (instead of memorizing facts) and increase their critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making skills.  However, we have not yet seen the wide-spread reform-based science instruction due to barriers, such as lack of teacher preparation (Marx & Harris, 2006). One way to help in-service science teachers shift from traditional teaching to more reform-based instruction is to provide them with high-quality professional development (Garet et al., 2001).

      A considerable body of literature has emerged on teacher professional development during the past decade. The literature on effective professional development provides a list of characteristics that have positive influence on teachers’ classroom practices and student learning. For example, according to Loucks-Horsley, Love, Stiles, Mundry, and Hewson (2003) the design of a high-quality, sustained professional development program has several characteristics: commitment to vision and standards, analyzing student learning and other data, setting goals, planning, implementing, and evaluating. Various factors impact these characteristics. Some of these critical factors are professional developers’ knowledge and beliefs about student and teacher learning and their vision about professional development, the national and state standards, available resources (e.g., money, time, and equipment), the content that is being presented, and the instructional strategies that are being used to present the content (Loucks-Horsley et al., 2003). Recent literature on professional development also shows that professional development programs are more effective when teachers join professional learning communities (PLC) (Mundry and Stiles, 2009). A typical PLC includes a group of teachers who are working in the same school, teaching the same grade level or the content. PLCs are formed for teachers to discuss about their content knowledge and instructional strategies, reflect on classroom practices, and most importantly support each other to enhance their understanding of student learning and find ways to increase their students’ learning.

      In this presentation, I will present a professional development program designed for grades 7-12 life science teachers to help them adapt reform-based teaching strategies. 113 in-service (practicing) life science teachers participated in the year-long professional development program during the 2011-2012 academic year. The professional development module consisted of 5 full day workshops and 16 2-hour long PLC meetings that were held between the workshops. The program was designed based on the list of characteristics of effective teacher professional development appears in the literature.  The goal of the professional development program was to prepare teachers with both deep content knowledge and proficient pedagogical skills required to teach life science effectively. The ultimate goal was to increase students’ conceptual understanding of life science concepts. A research study was conducted to find the professional development program met the above goals. The following research question guided the study: What are the effects of the professional development program on participating teachers and their students? During the presentation, the structure of the professional development program and the study results will be shared.

Creswell, J. W (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Garet, M., Porter, A., Desimone, L., Birman, B., and Yoon, K. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 915-945. Jacobs, C. L., Martin, S. N., & Otieno, T. C. (2007, April). A science lesson plan analysis instrument for formative and summative evaluation of a teacher education program. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, New Orleans, LA. Retrieved April, 2012 from the Math Science Partnership Web site: http://hub.mspnet.org/media/data/JacobsMartinOtieno.pdf?media_000000002425.pdf Loucks-Horsley, S., Love, N., Stiles, K., Mundry, S., & Hewson, P. (2003). Designing professional development for teachers of science and mathematics (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Marx, R. W. and Harris, C. J. (2006). No Child Left Behind and Science Education: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks. The Elementary School Journal, 106(5), 467- 477. Mundry, S. and Stiles, K. (2009). Professional learning communities for science teachers: Lessons from research and practices. National Science Teachers Association, USA.