Professional Recommendation

Professional development is key to supporting effective science instruction. We call for a dramatic departure from current professional development practice, both in scope and kind. Teachers need opportunities to deepen their knowledge of the science content of the K-8 curriculum. They also need opportunities to learn how students learn science and how to teach it. They need to know how children's understanding of core ideas in science builds across K-8, not just at a given grade or grade band. They need to learn about the conceptual ideas that students have in the earliest grades and their ideas about science itself. They need to learn how to assess children's developing ideas over time and how to interpret and respond (instructionally) to the results of assessment. In sum, teachers need opportunities to learn how to teach science as an integrated body of knowledge and practice to teach for scientific proficiency. They need to learn how to teach science to diverse student populations, to provide adequate opportunities for all students to learn science. These needs represent a significant change from what virtually all active teachers learned in college and what most colleges teach aspiring teachers today.

One sound recmmendation: State and local school systems should ensure that all K-8 teachers experience sustained science specific professional development in preparation and while in service. Professional development should he rooted in the science that teachers teach and should include opportunities to learn about science, about current research on how children learn science, and about how to teach science.

Another sound recommendation: University based science courses for teacher candidates and teachers' ongoing opportunities to learn science in service should mirror the opportunities they will need to provide for their students, that is, incorporating practices in the four strands that constitute science proficiency and giving sustained attention to the core ideas in the discipline. The topics of study should he aligned with central topics in the K-8 curriculum.

At last, Federal agencies that support professional development should require that the programs they fund incorporate models of instruction that combine the four strands of science proficiency, focus on core ideas in science, and enhance teachers' science content knowledge, knowledge of how students learn science, and knowledge of how to teach science. To improve science education in the United States, changes are urgently needed throughout the system. Beginning with what is known about how children learn science, changes in teaching and in the education of teachers can and should begin now.