2007 ANNUAL REPORT - cosmos - Bowling Green State University

NWO Symposium: The overall rating for the NWO Center Symposium was 3.5 across 80
sessions. In their written evaluations of the Symposium sessions, the participants spoke very
positively about the content of the sessions as well as the organization of the entire event, both
pointing to the high quality and usefulness of this professional development experience. More
specifically, the participants noted the impressive variety of the sessions and vendors, were
pleased with more chemistry content, liked the materials and had an overall positive experience.
Several participants want to see more math sessions next year. More preK-3 sessions and
“more workshops on strategies to use in the classroom that will inspire students to like science
and math” were also mentioned. The participants found so many sessions so useful that they
suggested that some sessions be repeated. In one person’s words, it is “hard to choose when
all sound so good.”
Table 8. Average Ratings of Different NWO Professional Development Programs for In-
Service and Pre-Service Teachers
NWO Activity Average
Rating
Inquiry Series 3.6
Praxis II Preparation Workshop 3.6
NWO Symposium 3.5
Reflecting on the quality, relevance and usefulness of the professional development, the
participants thought the Center was effective at providing them with: good ideas to use in the
classroom (e.g., hands-on science lab ideas, understanding that learning requires movement
and that students can’t learn new things under stress) (especially TeachOhio and In-service),
new ways to use technology (TeachOhio, In-service, and MAT), providing good handouts,
science lessons and good content knowledge (TeachOhio and In-service), and a better
understanding of how students learn (TeachOhio, TEAMS, Undergraduate, and MAT). A lot of
participants said they liked speakers and everybody loved breakout sessions and wanted more
of those in the future. As the sessions progressed, almost everybody mentioned the value of
cohort discussions and learning about others’ lesson plans and implementation (TeachOhio,
TEAMS, undergraduate, ). One TeachOhio participant intended to apply the information
immediately. Another said, “I really liked the inquiry series from last year. It truly opened my
eyes.”
In addition to these common comments, participants in different programs pointed out to other
areas in which the professional development was useful and relevant. Thus, in-service teachers
said it reminded them to use inquiry more of often and more effectively in their classes. TEAMS
participants emphasized that in this program they learned creative inquiry-based ideas that they
might be able to implement into teaching right away, developed a deeper and richer
understanding of how comparisons and connections must take place for learning to occur, loved
foldables, learned about three types of inquiry-based lessons, found them very practical and
helpful in planning lessons, and learned better how to make units much better and more aligned
with standards. For the undergraduate students, the professional development was relevant and
useful in terms of learning fun and interactive activities for teaching math science and teaching
in a kinesthetic way and through exploration, developing an understanding of the importance of
differential instruction for reaching students and making connections between things for the
students, developed a better understanding why hands-on active learning was essential, what