Changing Teacher Behavior Through Staff Development: Implementing the Teaching and Content Standards in Science

Abstract

For the last five years, the Center for Precollege Programs of the New Jersey Institute of Technology has operated the Urban Elementary Outreach Program, a staff development program intended to bring improved math and science education to the elementary schools of Newark, New Jersey. Teachers in urban settings have been hampered in their efforts to provide enriching, student‐centered and constructivist science and math teaching ( Huinker, 1996 ). The Outreach Program has attempted to provide teachers with sustained support through training and direct classroom assistance in an effort to develop a sense of self‐efficacy ( Bandura, 1982 ) in relation to desired teaching and student behaviors that are part of a standards‐based learning experience. Traditional training approaches for teachers are supplemented by weekly classroom visits by graduate assistants, who both model standards‐based science teaching and assist the teacher in assuming effective instructional methods. The combination of workshops, orientations, newsletters, and weekly classroom visits make up a staff development program of two years in duration for teacher participants. Through this intensive program, we intend to change teaching behaviors in the many complex ways identified in the National Science Education Standards.