Rider awarded grant to help provide advanced-training program for local science teachers

In an effort to help school districts statewide improve their science curricula and ensure that what the schools are teaching is aligned with a new set of national standards, Rider University has been awarded grant funding to offer a program called the Science Teacher Academy for Rigor and Success (STARS). The program was developed in partnership with Princeton University and involves a long-term professional program for science teachers in the Freehold Borough, Ewing Township, Lawrence Township and Hillsborough Township public school districts.

Funded by the New Jersey Department of Education using federally allocated dollars, STARS aims to provide university-level training to teachers with the goal of improving their students’ achievement in science. STARS was developed in response to New Jersey’s adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a multi-state effort to establish a new benchmark for the science content students are taught in grades K-12.

“At Rider University we have created a model for assisting districts as they prepare exemplary STEM teachers,” says Sharon Sherman, dean of Rider’s College of Education and Human Services. “We know budgets in school districts are tight and therefore have developed a range of opportunities, which include long-term projects, such as STARS, STEM mentor training, online courses, certificates and full master's programs in STEM Teacher Leadership.”

Each of the participating school districts identified a group of teachers, known as “Ambassadors,” to participate in the STARS program. These Ambassadors were chosen to receive professional development and tools needed for NGSS, so they could then work with their administrations and fellow teachers to implement curricula that would be aligned with the new standards.

“STARS Ambassadors are key to improving STEM teaching and learning in districts.  We're pleased that Rider University is able to assist districts in implementing the NGSS through the work of these skilled teacher leaders,” says Sherman.

The training for the STARS Ambassadors began in July of 2016 with a week-long workshop at Rider where teachers were introduced in depth to the science standards and given guidance in how to develop lessons that would be appropriate in this new format. That workshop was followed by a week of professional development at Raritan Valley Community College, which also partnered on the grant.

Since those sessions, the Ambassadors have participated in numerous other professional development workshops, classes and seminars over the last two years. Some of the areas have included:

• A workshop focused on Crosscutting Concepts—a key component of NGSS, which bridge disciplinarily boundaries to create a coherent and scientifically-based view of the world.
• Seminars where Ambassadors participated in hands-on, phenomena-based activities, such as collaborating in groups to investigate the exchange of energy, movement of matter, and forces that affect the natural world.
• Follow-up programs where the Ambassadors could share best practices with each other based on their experiences teaching NGSS in the classroom.
• Collaboration with media center specialists at both Rider and the district level to create a science resource database for educators to utilize for research and discovery investigations.
• The opportunity for participants to take additional courses at Rider, not only in the sciences but also in pedagogy, so they could develop their presentation skills.

Now nearing the end of its second year, the participants in the STARS program are seeing the benefits of the program. “I am far more comfortable with NGSS than most (of my colleagues) and am able to refer to the framework a bit more fluently than those not trained,” says Michelle Liwacz, a first-grade teacher at Slackwood Elementary School in Lawrence.

“My students are experiencing a classroom-learning environment unlike any they have been exposed to," says Matthew Sisk, an earth and space science teacher at Ewing High School. "Students are gaining skills that are allowing them to become better at questioning their surroundings and more keen observers of the world around them.  Students are consistently more engaged in my classroom while participating in these investigations.”

While preliminary data is still in the process of being gathered, there is already evidence that the STARS program is having a positive impact in three key areas: Teachers’ scientific knowledge, the quality of their classroom instruction, and the performance of their students on a standardized science exam.

STARS Ambassadors were given what is called the Misconception-Oriented Standards-based Assessment Resources for Teachers (MOSART) to measure their science content knowledge. The test was administered prior to the start of the STARS program, and again at the end of their Year One training. The Ambassadors’ mean score improved from 80.03 on the pre-test to 86.92 on the post-test.

Another test, the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP), was used to observe Ambassadors’ in-class science lessons to ensure that they were aligned with the NGSS.  RTOP emphasizes a paradigm shift from the traditional lecture-driven class to an activity-based learning environment that typically includes multiple opportunities for collaboration among students. The teachers’ lessons were rated higher in the post-assessment as compared to the pre-assessment. This indicates that their skills, knowledge, and interactions have significantly improved as a result of participating in the program. The results also reflect that the Ambassadors, as a whole, are using the reformed teaching practice.

Finally, with regard to student performance, a study was done using the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) test—a student assessment of science that is administered to all students in grades 4 and 8. In the participating districts of Freehold, Hillsborough and Ewing, students were divided into treatment groups — those who were taught by STARS Ambassadors — and a control group of students who were not.  In all three districts, the treatment group outscored the control group.

Danita Ishibashi, assistant superintendent of The Ewing Public Schools, personally attended the STARS training sessions and has witnessed firsthand how the program is positively impacting her school district.

“Teachers at the secondary level (grades 6-12) are collaborating in a way that I haven’t seen in a couple of years,” she says. “We just implemented NGSS in grades k-5 and I feel like our teachers are approaching this with a bit more confidence than they did when we implemented other curriculum changes because we really took two years exposing them to NGSS with their colleagues.”

Ishibashi adds, “The STARS grant wasn’t just about teaching our staff the Next Generation Science Standards, it was really about how the Ambassadors could coach their colleagues through this shift in thinking about their instructional practice of science. That component of the grant is what makes it unique because it went beyond developing content knowledge — it moved into how to share this in a way that is going to impact what is happening instructionally in classrooms. I think that’s been the most powerful part of this partnership for us.”