Annual Report OverviewsA Systemic Partnership Annual Overview
A Systemic Partnership for Improving the Teaching and Learning of Science for All Students
Rachel E. Wood and John W. Collette OVERVIEW
The objective of the Delaware LSCI is to build capacity at the district and school level to ensure that all children in Grades K-8 have the opportunity to obtain the skills and knowledge needed to meet the expectations of the Delaware Science Standards and performance Indicators. The LSCI is the responsibility of The Delaware Science Coalition, a coalition of fourteen school districts in partnership with the Delaware Department of Education and the Delaware Foundation for Science and Mathematics Education. MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS GOAL 1: Provide exemplary professional development to all teachers. Elementary
Middle School As reported last year, a middle school program was initiated to expand the science program to Grades 7 and 8 with strong encouragement and support from all fourteen school districts in the Coalition.
GOAL 2: Nurture a network of teachers to lead and sustain the reform
GOAL 3: Support an organizational culture, which embeds science as an integral part of the elementary curriculum and legitimates informed curricular decisions
GOAL 4: Build a process to ensure that school, district and state policies are supportive of systemic reform.
GOAL 5: Focus community stakeholders to support systemic science reform Informal science organizations such as The Delaware Nature Center, The Delaware Aquatic Center, The Brandywine Zoo coordinate their activities and field trips to align with specific science units in the curriculum. Others such as the Environmental Control Dept(DENREC) are assisting in developing middle school curriculum on Delaware Watersheds. LESSONS LEARNED Developing a Comprehensive Science Assessment System that is user friendly and will help teachers better understand what their students are learning and not learning has been a powerful learning opportunity for both Coalition leadership and participating teachers.
ADDENDUM ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE DELAWARE LOCAL SYSTEMIC CHANGE INITIATIVE A Systemic Partnership for Improving the Teaching and Learning of Science for All Students Rachel E. Wood and John W. Collette STATE AND DISTRICT POLICIES The state environment for science reform turned significantly less favorable as the public began to face the reality that student accountability would become high stakes next year and many students could be retained for failing reading or mathematics. The situation was confused by a highly contentious legislative debate on teacher accountability. Because reading will be a gateway for promotion from grades 3 and mathematics from grade 8, there is growing pressure in many schools to reduce the time spent on science. At the time of this writing, accountability legislation is on hold and may be postponed for several years. The failure of state leadership to inform and build a common vision of educational excellence in the broader statewide community has the potential of undermining progress to date. In this environment, science has continued to be viewed favorably both because of the positive impact it has on students and the systemic approach to reform taken by the LSCI. We expect the elementary science program to proceed at full speed, given the strong grassroots support for the program and the continued progress being made by teachers in integrating reading, writing and mathematics with science To help this situation, Coalition leadership will be working proactively to communicate the progress being made in science to a wider audience and to promote the urgent need for K-16 systemic reform that would build on the progress in K-8. In spite of the state environment, district support for the science program has grown stronger in the last year as the benefits from collaboration become more apparent. The rate of teacher training has increased significantly and new districts have requested to join the coalition to participate in the middle school expansion. We have expanded our outreach to high schools to inform teachers and administrators of the significant changes occurring in the elementary and middle school curriculum. PROJECT TRAINING/DEVELOPMENT All elementary science teachers will take 150 hours of professional development in the course of this project. The PD is designed to help them become conversant with exemplary instructional materials, to deepen their content knowledge, and their understanding of effective instruction and assessment that promotes student learning. Teacher training continued at rapid pace last year with 1383 teachers taking professional development in specific science curricular units. (see table below). The number of professional development courses offered and the number of teachers participating continued at a much higher level than originally forecast and is expected to stay high. This is due to a number of factors including an influx of new teachers in Grades K-3 resulting from legislation reducing class size in these grades; the shift by some districts to move from three units/year to four in some grades; and an increase in the number of teachers changing grades or moving to other schools. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SCIENCE MODULES
Note: Professional development consists of structured training in groups combined with As of June 30, 1999, 55 % of the teachers have taken professional development in two or more modules. In a number of the districts that began the program in 1995, the majority of teachers are "trained" as defined by completing three modules. A growing number of teachers throughout the Coalition have continued their training to complete four, five or six units; in addition, more districts are moving to using four modules in certain school years.
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