2007 ANNUAL REPORT - cosmos - Bowling Green State University

elieved that doing such experiments would prepare their kids do better on tests. Many other
comments about TEAMS professional development pointed to the impact of TEAMS on the
following teacher beliefs. Examples of these are: understanding how students learn is important,
not teaching from a book is important, engaging students is important, linking assessment to
indicators is important, group work is important, letting students ask and answer their own
questions is important, helping students see science as fun is important, students learn better
when they are actively engaged, stepping out of the box for both teachers and students is
important, using discovery and investigation is important. Several teachers re-examined their
own lessons after participating in TEAMS, which is yet another indicator that their beliefs and
practices of teaching has been impacted. One teacher believes that TEAMS ideas and
strategies help develop life-long learners in the children by putting the responsibility of learning
back in their hands.
TeachOhio Participant Interview Results: Similar beliefs and practices can be inferred from
TeachOhio participants’ interview data. Thus, one participant said hat learning about
constructivist teaching strategies and 5E’s was the most helpful aspect of the TeachOhio
program. Other beliefs mentioned in the interviews included but are not limited to the following:
increasing content knowledge and confidence is important; using the hands on/visual examples
in the classroom is an eye opening experience for kids; fair assessment of student learning is
important; learning about productive group work and making sure students are responsible for
work are important; and encouraging students to think more deeply is important.
Other NWO Participant Interview Results: Similar beliefs and practices were mentioned by
the other NWO participants as important: doing more hand-on activities, teaching inquiry by
intent instead of by accident, always looking for ways to become a better teacher, doing
laboratory exercises and demonstrations inquiry-based (one teacher said that it was more
important than reading a book or watching a movie in that the kids “have to write their own lab
procedure, they have to come up with it and of course it’s great because they all come up with a
perfect solution and it doesn’t work, so then they have to go back and do the problem solving
and it’s a double period, so they have enough time to problem solve this. So it’s fun to do this”),
being aware of the standards, learning more content and becoming more confident as a
teacher.
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Goal 1 – Evaluation Question 4: How have the universities responded by
developing/revising courses and/or programs to better prepare teachers?
Course and Program Modification: The NWO Center continues to make progress in
encouraging faculty to develop new courses and modify the existing ones to prepare better preservice
and in-service teachers. In the last year’s evaluation of the Center, four course
modifications and six new course developments were reported. The trend is consistent in that
this year four BGSU faculty modified their courses and aligned them to the Ohio Content
Standards. Thus, two math and two science courses have been and continue to be revised.
These include “Active Chance” course for 7-12 mathematics teachers, Introduction to
Secondary Mathematics course, “Earth as a System” undergraduate course and Teaching