TISS: A Summary of Findings on Program Impacts

Read a report from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning about the TISS program.

Launched in 2009 in tandem with the opening of the completely renovated California Academy of Sciences facilities, the Teacher Institute on Science and Sustainability (TISS) was designed as an immersive, two-year professional development program for third to fifth grade teachers. This program focused on increasing scientific and sustainability literacy, with the goal of increasing the quantity and quality of science teaching and learning in the classroom. 

Overview

By focusing on sustainability and the science behind sustainability, TISS provided a relevant and accessible entry point for teachers who may be intimidated by science. By interacting with the teachers for an extended period of time, TISS followed best practices and moved beyond one-off professional development workshops for teachers. As research has shown, professional development needs to be intensive, ongoing, collaborative, and aligned with school improvement priorities and goals to make a lasting impact on teachers (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009).

TISS staff models good teaching practices and provides individualized and team coaching. External evaluations by Rockman et al and SRI International have documented that teachers:

• have enjoyed and valued the program
• felt it filled an important need for inquiry and sustainability-oriented professional development not otherwise available
• believed they learned valuable science content and pedagogy
• felt they did more and better science instruction as a result, and
• saw greater student engagement in the classroom

Additionally, many teachers have expressed to evaluators that TISS is the best professional development experience of their careers (Burg et al., 2010; Montell et al., 2010; Hazer et al., 2012; Michalchik et al., 2012).

Since 2012, a team of researchers from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning has served as developmental evaluators to the TISS program, studying teacher experiences in the program and their subsequent impacts on science teaching identity, confidence, competence, reflection, and collaboration. What follows is a summary of findings on TISS’s impacts on its teacher participants.

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Cohort 5 Interviews

SRI conducted interviews with Cohort 5 teachers over the course of their two years in the TISS program (2013-2015) to better understand their experiences. Teacher provided evaluative feedback on TISS program components, reported on their use of TISS tools, and spoke to how the program affected their teaching practice.

Cohort 5 teachers experienced significant growth as a result of their two years of participation in TISS. The most consistent impacts teachers reported were:

• an increase in confidence and comfort with science
• moving towards more student-directed science lessons
• appreciation and growth stemming from the collaborative nature of TISS
• the forming of goals to more effectively incorporate NGSS practices in their classrooms
• empowerment to adapt the science curriculum they were given by schools
• deeply valuing coaching sessions, especially the non-judgmental approach of coaches
• greater student participation and engagement as a result of their teaching growth

While some tools TISS provided were underutilized by teachers, all teachers spoke of multiple program attributes that were improving their teaching practice. The two program features most commonly credited as attributing to their positive growth as science teachers were:

• the trainings they received on science notebooks
• the one-on-one support provided by coaches

Other effective program features commonly cited were:

• the approach of learning by doing
• the consistent collaboration in a space dedicated to reflection around science, something they rarely experience outside TISS

Cohort 6 Survey

Over the course of the 2014-2015 school year, SRI measured teacher change through a before and after survey. It was first given to Cohort 6 TISS participants on their first day of programming in the summer of 2014 to provide a baseline for tracking change. The follow-up survey was administered during the final professional development (PD) workshop of the school year in April 2015.

Survey items were designed to elicit teacher insight into their own teaching practices and experiences in the classroom. Survey topics included relevant NGSS science practices, pedagogical strategies, science identity and confidence, collaboration with colleagues and experiences in the TISS program. Teachers reported positive growth in many areas over the course of their first year in the TISS program.

NGSS Practices: During 2015-2016, TISS focused on several NGSS science practices in PD workshops and supported teachers in implementing these practices in their classrooms through observations and coaching.

Survey data show that Cohort 6 teachers reported an increase in their confidence to enact the following NGSS practices in their classrooms: planning and carrying out investigations; having students analyze and interpret their own data; having students engage in argument from evidence; and having students construct their own explanations with a claim, evidence, and reasoning.

Collaboration: Across the cohort, teachers reported an increase in the frequency with which they collaborated with their colleagues at school on science. Prior to the TISS program, over half of Cohort 6 teachers reported infrequent collaboration, at most once per month. However, over the course of their first year in TISS, well over half of these same teachers reported collaborating on science at least 2 to 3 times per month.

Student-Centered Teaching: Lastly, SRI explored how student-directed teachers perceive their science teaching to be, a major emphasis of TISS training. Student-directed investigations were defined as those times when students have a great deal of autonomy to pose their own questions, design their own investigations, and discover and explain their own results. Teacher-directed investigations were those in which teachers pose questions for students, provide methods or procedures for students to follow, identify results, and provide explanations for the results. Data from the pre- to post-survey showed that a greater percentage of teachers were moving towards more student-directed investigations. While student-centered teaching is not objectively better teaching, it implies the degree to which students have agency and ownership over their science activities, which TISS holds as a pedagogical stance.

Key Findings of School Case Studies

In 2015 SRI researchers conducted retrospective case studies on two elementary schools that have each sent four cohorts of teachers to TISS, interviewing each TISS participant to better understand his or her individual growth as a science teacher and the collective change at the school.

Maxwell Elementary School
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• Maxwell has sent several teachers to participate in each of four different TISS cohorts, starting in 2011.
• Initially, many TISS teachers collaborated with administration to create a schoolwide plan for science support and instruction.
• Three TISS teachers taught an NGSS workshop for the school, with support from TISS staff. This was the only NGSS training Maxwell teachers have received to date.
• Administrative shifts at the school, and an increased focus on other content areas, curtailed these systematic efforts. Independently teachers remain fervent in their science engagement.
• TISS teachers are currently spending more time on science than non-TISS teachers, typically 1.5-2 hours per week.
• Some collaboration with lesson planning still occurs at Maxwell among TISS teachers, but far less once teachers complete their two years of professional development.
• Enduring mainstays of the TISS program at Maxwell include the use of student notebooks in a TISS-specific way, modification of FOSS lessons to be more student-centered and hands-on, and the use of focus questions for science lessons and unit planning.
• When former TISS teachers moved to teaching lower grades, they continued to bring a science perspective to grade level meetings and encouraged other teachers to do more science.
• The current educational climate, including Common Core and high-stakes testing, has inhibited systematic TISS impact at a schoolwide level.
• TISS teachers have remained dedicated to implementing science that aligns with TISS pedagogy.

Posey Elementary School
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• Overall, TISS teachers at Posey genuinely desire to implement student-centered science, giving students time to play and experiment with materials and to make sense of them on their own.
• Students ask more of their own questions and spend more time on discourse and groupwork.
• The initial principal (2010) encouraged science professional development and significant classroom time dedicated to science teaching. Principal turnover led to less science focus.
• There is significant variation in the amount of student-centered science, the chief prohibitor being lack of time to teach science due to the school’s recent focus on literacy.
• Teachers experienced markedly different TISS programming over five years. Early cohorts gained more sustainability knowledge; later cohorts gained more pedagogical tools for teaching within their current curriculum.
• Currently, no teachers dedicate a significant amount of time to teaching sustainability, reporting that there is no time for content outside the curriculum.
• The district has given focus-area designations to schools. Posey is dominated by its focus on literacy; other subjects have been deprioritized.
• Most recent TISS participants continue to focus much energy planning and teaching student-centered science; less recent cohorts teach the FOSS curriculum with small alterations to meet student needs or increase student agency; Non-TISS teachers teach very little science.
• Collaboration around science teaching occurs mainly between teachers in the same cohort during their two years in the program; after, teachers mostly revert to isolation.
• Teachers cite three main causes for the lack of science collaboration: diminished teaching time for science due to school literacy focus, complete absence of school-wide science professional development, and the lack of a champion/facilitator to encourage science collaboration.
• All TISS teachers continue to use science notebooks with their students; most use a system that closely resembles the TISS model.
• Notebooks are the most visible and enduring impact of TISS and they encourage students to produce critical thinking, writing, and sketching using the scientific method.
• One TISS alumnus is currently serving as a district science coach and credits TISS with preparing her. A second alumnus is currently developing guides for the district that offer guidance to teachers on how to use FOSS to meet NGSS goals.

References

Burg, S., Reisman, M., Fung, M., Blazevski, J., & Lee, R. (2011). California academy of sciences teacher institute on science and sustainability: Year 2 evaluation findings. San Francisco, CA: Rockman et al.

Darling-Hammond, L., Wei, R. C., Andree, A., Richardson, N., & Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional learning in the learning profession. Washington, DC: National Staff Development Council.

Hazer, J., Reisman, M., & Burg, S. (2012). California academy of sciences teacher institute on science and sustainability: 2011-2012 evaluation. Rockman et al.: San Francisco, CA.

Michalchik, V., Rosier, S., & Sauerteig, D. (2012). Interim developmental evaluation report on the teacher institute on science and sustainability: Cohorts 3 and 4, summer/fall 2012. Menlo Park, CA: SRI International

Montell, F., Mushin, S., Weissler, H., Wenzel, A., & Woulfin, D. (2010). California academy of sciences teacher institute on science and sustainability: Year 1 evaluation findings. San Francisco, CA: Rockman et al.