BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN SCIENCE AND EDUCATION THROUGH COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

The inclusion of earth science as one of the 8 core content domains in the K-12 National Science Education Standards has fostered the recognition of earth science education as an important field of study. Effective teaching of fundamental concepts requires teachers to have in-depth content knowledge and pedagogical understanding of the subject matter. However national indicators continue to show that those teaching in the physical sciences are inadequately prepared, the least prepared of which are middle school teachers in earth science. To address this critical need for better-prepared middle school science teachers, this study examines the effects of a 2-week earth science content institute comprised of 30 middle school science teachers from 15 school districts across New Jersey. A unique aspect of the professional development program is the collaboration in both program design and teaching between scientists and science teacher educators to provide learners with a knowledge base representative of expertise in both fields of study. Two essential components of teachers' learning are developed through this collaboration. First is the focus on pedagogical strategies to foster learning of earth science processes relevant to the environment in which students live. Second, is the opportunity for teachers to take part in a field exercise to put the skills and content that they learn in the professional development program into practice. Teachers' development of subject matter knowledge, self-confidence and enthusiasm will be measured through quantitative and qualitative data collection. Analysis will be in the form of a quasi-experimental design. In addition, teachers' transfer of knowledge gained during the professional development program will be measured through the evaluation of student data against a control group of teachers and students.