Teacher-Driven Professional Development and the Pursuit of a Sophisticated Understanding of Inquiry

TL;DR

This paper discusses a teacher-driven professional development program that enhances physics teachers' understanding of inquiry-based teaching, leading to more expert-like conceptions and improved classroom practices.

Contribution

It introduces the Streamline to Mastery program, emphasizing teacher choice and inquiry development as a novel approach to physics teacher professional growth.

Findings

Teachers' conceptions of inquiry became more expert-like.

Teachers successfully adapted lessons toward inquiry orientation.

Participants improved their classroom practices through the program.

Abstract

The need for highly qualified physics teachers in the U.S. is well established, and reform efforts are underway to develop novel and innovative teacher professional development experiences to improve the quality of K-12 physics education. Streamline to Mastery is an NSF-funded, learner-centered professional development program that seeks to capitalize on teachers' knowledge and experience to move physics teachers toward mastery in their fields. Teacher participants in this teacher-driven program choose their own goals and areas of growth. One of these areas has been the development and implementation of inquiry-oriented curriculum, as well as the adaptation of traditional lessons toward a greater inquiry orientation. Results indicate that teachers' conceptions of inquiry teaching and learning have become more expert-like as they have engaged in teacher participant-driven experiences in the pursuit of greater understanding and more effective classroom practice.