The Teacher’s Toolbox: STEM Pedagogy

Currently professional development (PD) for teachers is limited to one time workshops that are ineffective at creating change in instructional practice. Additionally, PD for teachers lacks personalization that connects to their classroom teaching experiences. Programa de enseñanza reflexivo para ciencias, matemáticas e ingeniería (PERCIM), a two semester program offered to secondary school teachers throughout Colombia virtually, as well as in Bermuda and the US. The program adopts the cognitive apprenticeship format with three phases and creates a community of practice among a cohort of teachers in synchronous and asynchronous sessions for one year. During the second and third phases the teachers drastically improve their instructional practice by receiving instant feedback from program facilitators and their cohort that is personalized to their teaching goals. Teachers not only gain a wealth of theory and practical knowledge, but support to create long lasting change that will impact student learning.

Access to quality STEM education in secondary science schools is not equitable among all economic levels in Colombia. Colombia, which is stratified socioeconomically, has secondary schools with resources that rival with universities, but others fail to provide computers, technology, or lab spaces to their teachers. Colombianas are less likely to pursue STEM with only 40% majoring in STEM at the university level. Teacher preparation programs that are specific to STEM teaching and facilitated by a professional with expertise in pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for STEM are rare. In fact at Universidad de los Andes, the degree for science education is mostly facilitated by educators that are not science teachers. Teachers need expertise in both STEM content and have PCK to teach their subject well to secondary students. Without quality teacher training in STEM, we cannot improve the percentages of students pursuing STEM from all socioeconomic levels. All teachers regardless of their class need access to professional development that provides personalized feedback on their practice, not just theory, to improve their ability to teach and inspire students to pursue STEM. By influencing the teaching at all socioeconomic levels, we can have a greater impact on the exposure to quality STEM education.

Through our 1-year innovative program, STEM teachers interact with our platform that provides feedback for their beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and instructional practices across different domains of their teaching that include lesson planning, student interactions, classroom culture, and pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers create goals based on these diagnostics and continue to monitor their growth as they work towards specific instructional goals. The program, not limited only to Colombians, provides access to detailed ongoing feedback regarding their growth as an educator that is personalized to their needs for instructional growth. The platform is bilingual, so teachers in English and Spanish speaking countries could potentially access and register for the complementary workshops that improve the theoretical knowledge in addition to the practical experience of STEM teaching. As they progress through the the three phases of the cognitive apprenticeship program including its workshops, training, and coaching sessions, they are able to continuously monitor their progress towards their teaching goals on the platform and visualize the growth through graphs that show their changes for the different domains of teaching. Showing feedback motivates them to continue improving and making changes, and also directs their growth in a direction of positive impact without an expert on campus.

PERCIM is a professional development program that supports STEM teachers to improve their instructional practices by providing theoretical and practical learning experiences with personalized feedback from facilitators and their community of practice developed through participation in a cohort. Any STEM teacher at the secondary or tertiary level can receive expert training and feedback from a facilitator with more than 18 years of practical experience teaching, as well as theoretical experience from years of education research and advanced degrees. It reduces the gap for schools of lower socioeconomic status or in rural areas in which there is not access or the opportunity to quality STEM teacher training. 

The program has been in implementation for the last 3 years with professors and secondary STEM teachers in Bogotá. Knowing that the economy of Colombia is diverse, we want to use a low income client model to provide scholarships that cover the costs of almost 50% of the participants. PERCIM provides the tools for STEM teachers to become autonomous in their own growth and development, skills that will lead to continued improvement in their teaching years after their participation. Because enrollment at universities in Colombia is composed of only 40% females in the STEM majors, we hope to target females especially. Given that PERCIM is facilitated by a female previously a professor at the Universidad de los Andes, we want to empower more female STEM educators to become leaders and role models for their female students. These professors will greatly enhance their teaching through the individualized feedback they receive as they integrate best practices from STEM education research.

Additionally, we have expanded into the US and Bermuda as well as working with public schools in Virginia and Texas, as well as the Ministry of Education in Bermuda. We have a greater potential to reach more people through the use of the platform and build more diverse international cohorts. 

By developing a virtual platform to provide feedback for more than 7 different domains of teaching, we can expand access to high quality professional development and the ability to collaborate with other STEM teachers to remote regions, schools of lower socioeconomic status, and those without access to an expert STEM pedagogy expert. We are reducing the barrier of many teachers to improve their pedagogy that lack time and feedback from an expert with participation in our 1-year program and platform. By increasing the competency of secondary school STEM teachers, we increase the quality of STEM education provided to all students.

While the program has been implemented for the last 3 years mostly in Colombia and in Bermuda, we are ready to scale up and provide our product to more people. In order to do so, we will need to develop a platform that provides the feedback for beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and instructional practice in a more automated and instant way that does not require analysis done by an individual researcher. The platform will greatly reduce time, but also allow participants to be able to log into their account and easily access all of their diagnostics, visually see their growth through graphs and other visualizations, and chart their progress toward instructional goals. 

Thus overall, we are in the process of scaling up, but will be done by prototyping and piloting the to be developed platform. Currently we use the features of the platform, but not in a centralized location with automization.

Just as with student learners, professor learners also need authentic contexts and environments for their professional development in order to engage in deeper understanding (Putnam & Borko, 2000). Learners need opportunities to apply and integrate their understanding into specific authentic contexts or otherwise those concepts remain abstract and not concrete learning moments. Our program and its platform provide detailed data about 7 domains of teaching to help teachers see their current capacities, develop goals, and work towards improvement of their STEM teaching. This feedback is unique in that teachers rarely receive this much information so frequently and quickly about their teaching. 

According to Lumpe (2007), the one-time professional development produces little impact on changing the practices of professors. It is through repeated interactions that changes in beliefs and practices can occur, not because of the intervention itself (Peterman, 1993). A long lasting professional development with opportunities for discussion and exchanges of experience produces the greatest impact on changes in beliefs about teaching and learning, which affects changes in instructional practices. It is the process of change not just a single moment of information acquisition provided by a workshop that leads to the change in instructional practice. Over time participants build upon current mental schemas and change pre-existing mental models that are erroneous with the research of teaching and learning (Bianchini & Cavazos, 2007). There is time for collaboration and feedback about their progress and development. This change in belief and ultimately instructional cannot occur without opportunities for reflection and application.

Currently PERCIM only accepts contracts for a maximum of 45 teachers per year. We are limited by the amount of time required for observations, since each teacher receives 4-5 full observations. Each teaches 40-100 students per semester, who are directly impacted and benefit from the improved teaching practices, so in total approximately 2,800 to 4,500 students have a teacher participating in the university track of PERCIM each year. In order to scale the project up and expand, we will need a platform to reduce the need for data analysis by hand that provides the results of diagnostics for the monitoring and feedback for teachers. By automizing this process we will be able to accommodate more participants. We will also be able to hire administrative and support staff for scheduling and other tasks. Once the platform is completed, we hope to be able to have a minimum of 100 participants each year with as many as 200 participants per year. Because these are teachers, this means the impact on STEM learning could be as many as 20,000 students per year in Colombia, United States, Bermuda, and potentially other English or Spanish speaking countries. Also the impact is much larger, as teachers continue teaching, their impact continues with more students each year for a compound effect. 

We measure beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and instructional practice for different domains of teaching that include lesson planning, pedagogical content knowledge, formative and summative assessment, student interactions, classroom culture, and others. This data is also useful for the teachers in their own monitoring of their growth.  

Teachers’ attitudes and perceptions of their teaching practices are measured with 23 modified statements from the Postsecondary Instructional Perception Survey (PIPS) (Walter, Henderson, Beach, and Williams, 2016) and their self-efficacy for seven categories of teaching practices using an instrument created by Connolly, Lee, and Savoy (2018). The Teacher Belief Interview created by Luft and Roehrig (2007) is a semi-structured protocol that results in five categories for teachers ranging from traditional to reform based. Finally, we measure actual teaching practices from a video recorded lesson using the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP). With the survey, interview, and classroom observation we have a strong understanding of teacher’s attitudes, perceptions, self-efficacy, and teaching abilities demonstrated in the classroom both at the beginning and end of the program. 

For our purposes only to better understand how teachers change we use the Attitudes toward Pedagogical Change determines teachers’ motivations for change and determines barriers preventing change in pedagogical practices. This ten-question survey is distributed at the beginning of the program and after each of the three phases. Data collection is centralized through a platform that participants access not only to input their responses, but also allows them to see summarized results and graphs of their progress.

Full time staff consists of only Dr Stephanie Toro, who developed and implements the program. We do contract work with an assistant for translations and other support, as well as a data scientist, who analyzes the data and works to develop the algorithms for the platform. 

Dra Stephanie Toro’s ultimate goal is to help others love teaching and learning about science, as much as she does. She has a diverse background in both science and science teaching with undergraduate degrees in Biology, Environmental Science, Chemistry and Psychology, a Masters in Science Teaching, a Masters in Oceanography, and a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in science. She has over 20 years of classroom experience and has taught 5th grade through 12th grade, as well as community college, university, and professional development for teachers and professors. She now focuses her efforts on courses and programs for teachers in training and current teachers. Her teaching and education research experience has been recognized through various awards and scholarships including the Houston Science Teacher of the year award in 2016. She also has been recognized as part of several NSF funded groups including the Teaching STEM Faculty Learning Program Fellow in 2019 with Berkeley University and as a 2019 BioTAP Fellow to improve training for undergraduate TA. She also received the International Contributor Scholarship from NARST in 2019. She now provides consulting to schools and informal education organizations in Bermuda, United States, and Colombia.

With the exception of Dr Stephanie Toro, all members of the team are Colombian. When possible, we try to include Colombianas to have representation of Latinas in STEM. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential in our work. Our nonprofit focuses on providing services not only to those that can afford our services, but those from lower socioeconomic communities as well. We also do not want to restrict our services only to those in large cities or those who have access to a STEM pedagogy expert and find methods to reduce barriers of participation. 

We think it is essential to hire staff that reflect this diversity in our mission. Since we truly are an education program, we believe in the power of investing in people. With the right motivation anyone can be trained to work for us. In the past we have had graduate research assistants who unfortunately did not have any prior experience in science education research. That was not a barrier for employment and only meant that we need to motivate the student more to learn the necessary methods with support and training. 

I am extremely passionate about helping others to love teaching and learning STEM as much as I do. Teachers possess the ability to make their passion for STEM infectious to their students. I want to help ALL teachers through my experience, both theoretical and as a classroom teacher of 18 years, find the joy of teaching and reduce barriers that hinder their success. PERCIM has been highly successful thus far and we have a waitlist for future participation. 

We are applying to Solve because it would be beneficial to receive support and advice on how to launch the course and expand into the international market. We want to increase access and opportunity for all teachers even those in rural areas or low socioeconomic schools. All teachers should have access to quality STEM pedagogy training and be able to receive feedback from an expert to guide them on their journey to improve their teaching practice. 

My biggest barrier now is that I cannot meet the demand with only myself doing physical in person courses. I need to scale the program larger with a virtual platform and automated routines to provide feedback. This includes with finding funding and technological support to develop our platform.

We need help to find investors and donors that will be willing to support this project if we are unable to get the necessary grant money. As a nonprofit, loans are not of interest to us. The second greatest area of need will be help with the creation of the platform. We have the personnel for the science, curriculum writing, and data science collection, management, and visualization, but we do not have a technology person that is capable of creating the actual app or platform itself. We would need support in this area to help us determine how to advertise and communicate our needs to a potential individual or company that would need to be hired to do the work for us. Given that we have no expertise in this area, it will be difficult for us to even know our options or have the correct terminology to communicate our desires. 

The area of most support is solution technology because we need to transition the existing PERCIM to a virtual platform. This will require reformatting the material and create virtual resources accessible through the platform. Given our expertise is delivering such programs with experts in teaching and learning for STEM, we do not have expertise with programming or making virtual resources. We need someone that can best advise us on how to make a platform that provides feedback based on inputs from the diagnostics. 

At this time we would be most interested in finding a partner that is capable of supporting the technology aspects of developing a platform and app for us. We want someone who has experience in development of tools that use inputs to analyze data and then can make suggestions to teachers based on their data inputs. 

We provide pedagogical training and support for STEM teachers in the US. One of the main conceptual knowledge that teachers obtain through participation is not just project/problem based learning (the current fad), but a foundational understanding in scientific inquiry first introduced by John Dewey. With this foundational knowledge in scientific inquiry teachers are then equipped with further specializations to determine which type of student-centered teaching to use whether it is PBL or design thinking/engineering design, or others that fall under the umbrella of scientific inquiry. 

Our approach focuses on the teachers, rather than students, as teachers have a great potential for students to pursue STEM in the future. Our program includes pedagogical content knowledge for teaching STEM and basic pedagogy for teachers to improve their interactions, engagement, and motivation in their students for learning STEM. The ultimate goal is to spread our passion of teaching and learning STEM, so that teachers can be the teachers their students need them to be to inspire them to pursue STEM. 

Our program features frequent and continuous feedback of the teachers' progression towards their individualized instructional goals. Through diagnostics they receive feedback regarding their beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and classroom teaching to improve their lesson planning, pedagogical content knowledge, interactions with students, class culture, formative and summative assessment, and other aspects of teaching. 

Our program provides coaching to those in rural areas and those of low socioeconomic status that may not be able to afford or have access to an expert in STEM pedagogy. 

We provide pedagogical training and support for STEM teachers in the US and abroad in Colombia and Bermuda. Our program provides coaching to those in rural areas and those of low socioeconomic status that may not be able to afford or have access to an expert in STEM pedagogy. Anyone can participate and receive individualized support based on their teaching context. The program is available in Spanish and English.

Our approach focuses on the teachers, rather than students, as teachers have a great potential for students to pursue STEM in the future. Our program includes pedagogical content knowledge for teaching STEM and basic pedagogy for teachers to improve their interactions, engagement, and motivation in their students for learning STEM. The ultimate goal is to spread our passion of teaching and learning STEM, so that teachers can be the teachers their students need them to be to inspire them to pursue STEM. 

Our program features frequent and continuous feedback of the teachers' progression towards their individualized instructional goals. Through diagnostics they receive feedback regarding their beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and classroom teaching to improve their lesson planning, pedagogical content knowledge, interactions with students, class culture, formative and summative assessment, and other aspects of teaching. 

We use a cognitive apprenticeship model that develops expertise through three phases over the course of 1 year. We use best practice in professional development that includes modeling, socialization of knowledge with a cohort, ongoing mentoring and support, and implementation of action plans towards personalized goals with feedback. 

We provide pedagogical training and support for STEM teachers in the US and abroad in Colombia and Bermuda. Our program provides coaching to those in rural areas and those of low socioeconomic status that may not be able to afford or have access to an expert in STEM pedagogy. Anyone can participate and receive individualized support based on their teaching context. The program is available in Spanish and English. We emphasize participation among women, since it is essential to have female role models in STEM. 

Our program includes pedagogical content knowledge for teaching STEM and basic pedagogy for teachers to improve their interactions, engagement, and motivation in their students for learning STEM. The ultimate goal is to spread our passion of teaching and learning STEM, so that teachers can be the teachers their students need them to be to inspire them to pursue STEM. 

Our program features frequent and continuous feedback of the teachers' progression towards their individualized instructional goals. Through diagnostics they receive feedback regarding their beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and classroom teaching to improve their lesson planning, pedagogical content knowledge, interactions with students, class culture, formative and summative assessment, and other aspects of teaching. 

We use a cognitive apprenticeship model that develops expertise through three phases over the course of 1 year. We use best practice in professional development that includes modeling, socialization of knowledge with a cohort, ongoing mentoring and support, and implementation of action plans towards personalized goals with feedback. 

We provide pedagogical training and support for STEM teachers in the US and abroad in Colombia and Bermuda. Our program provides coaching to those in rural areas and those of low socioeconomic status that may not be able to afford or have access to an expert in STEM pedagogy. Anyone can participate and receive individualized support based on their teaching context. The program is available in Spanish and English.

Our approach focuses on the teachers, rather than students, as teachers have a great potential for students to pursue STEM in the future. Our program includes pedagogical content knowledge for teaching STEM and basic pedagogy for teachers to improve their interactions, engagement, and motivation in their students for learning STEM. The ultimate goal is to spread our passion of teaching and learning STEM, so that teachers can be the teachers their students need them to be to inspire them to pursue STEM. 

Our program features frequent and continuous feedback of the teachers' progression towards their individualized instructional goals. Through diagnostics they receive feedback regarding their beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and classroom teaching to improve their lesson planning, pedagogical content knowledge, interactions with students, class culture, formative and summative assessment, and other aspects of teaching. Through data science we hope to motivate and inform teachers of their progress towards their instructional goals. Our platform use data science to visualize their changes in their teaching. 

We provide pedagogical training and support for STEM teachers in the US and abroad in Colombia and Bermuda. Our program provides coaching to those in rural areas and those of low socioeconomic status that may not be able to afford or have access to an expert in STEM pedagogy. Anyone can participate and receive individualized support based on their teaching context. The program is available in Spanish and English.

Our approach focuses on the teachers, rather than students, as teachers have a great potential for students to pursue STEM in the future. Our program includes pedagogical content knowledge for teaching STEM and basic pedagogy for teachers to improve their interactions, engagement, and motivation in their students for learning STEM. The ultimate goal is to spread our passion of teaching and learning STEM, so that teachers can be the teachers their students need them to be to inspire them to pursue STEM. 

Our program features frequent and continuous feedback of the teachers' progression towards their individualized instructional goals. Through diagnostics they receive feedback regarding their beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and classroom teaching to improve their lesson planning, pedagogical content knowledge, interactions with students, class culture, formative and summative assessment, and other aspects of teaching. Through data science we hope to motivate and inform teachers of their progress towards their instructional goals. Our platform use data science to visualize their changes in their teaching. 

We provide pedagogical training and support for STEM teachers in the US and abroad in Colombia and Bermuda. Our program provides coaching to those in rural areas and those of low socioeconomic status that may not be able to afford or have access to an expert in STEM pedagogy. Anyone can participate and receive individualized support based on their teaching context. The program is available in Spanish and English.

Our approach focuses on the teachers, rather than students, as teachers have a great potential for students to pursue STEM in the future. Our program includes pedagogical content knowledge for teaching STEM and basic pedagogy for teachers to improve their interactions, engagement, and motivation in their students for learning STEM. The ultimate goal is to spread our passion of teaching and learning STEM, so that teachers can be the teachers their students need them to be to inspire them to pursue STEM. 

Our program features frequent and continuous feedback of the teachers' progression towards their individualized instructional goals. Through diagnostics they receive feedback regarding their beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and classroom teaching to improve their lesson planning, pedagogical content knowledge, interactions with students, class culture, formative and summative assessment, and other aspects of teaching. Through data science we hope to motivate and inform teachers of their progress towards their instructional goals. Our platform use data science to visualize their changes in their teaching. 

We would be open to cryptocurrency funding for our programs to help increase internationalization.