2007 ANNUAL REPORT - cosmos - Bowling Green State University

professional development workshops), this year the number of workshops increased to nine.
The BG SECO meetings’ attendance ranged from 8 to 30, with the average of 17 students. The
BG CTM meetings’ attendance ranged from 45 to 80, with the average of 61 students. The
membership of BG SECO/CTM also increased dramatically. Thus, the BG SECO had 40 new
members this year while the BG CTM had 150 members, compared to the total of 49 members
last year (i.e., the BG/UT SECO/CTM increased its membership by more than four times).
The NWO Center also promoted deeper content learning through Praxis II workshop. A total of
30 pre-service teachers attended Praxis II tutoring mathematics and science (biology) sessions
on February 22, 2007. This was 13% more than last year. Based on the evaluation of the Praxis
II tutoring workshop by 21 participants (13 attending the Life Science tutoring session and 8
attending the math tutoring session), three most common objectives for attending the workshop
included learning the content (6), learning test taking strategies (12), and learning about the test
format, types of questions and what to expect on the test (13). These objectives were satisfied
partially or completely on the average in 55% of the cases (i.e., the participants said they
received exactly or partially what they wanted from the workshop) – 50% for content, 67% for
test taking strategies, and 46% for learning about the test. In 25% of the cases, the participants
received what they expected and even more. In 75% of the cases when the expectations were
not met, the participants admitted that they learned some other things from the workshop. Most
of these cases (i.e., when the expectations were not met) involved wanting to learn about the
test but learning the test taking strategies instead.
Furthermore, under the auspices of the NWO Center, COSMOS continued to provide MAT
scholarships to 10 students at BGSU. On the average, these students completed 14.4 credit
hours in 2005-2006 and were estimated to complete 10.2 – 10.8 credit hours in 2006-2007.
Scholarship funding was also provided to 4 new MAT students with the expectation that these
students will complete on the average 10.5 – 11.25 credit hours. The total number of credit
hours that the funded MAT students were expected to complete was 144 – 153. The data show
that this expectation was fulfilled.
The opportunities to gain content knowledge were also provided through such initiatives of the
NWO Center as the NWO Symposium attended by 325 people, Inquiry Series attended by xxx
participants affiliated with different programs as well as specific programs such as TEAMS,
TeachOhio, PRISM, etc.
Evaluation Highlights: Ways in Which Participants Transfer Their Knowledge into
Classroom
Comparing classroom observation ratings and comments across the three groups, several
commonalities were observed. The aspects of the design in which the NWO participants seem
to be very successful in their teaching include: careful planning and/or organization (98% of
observed lessons), incorporating tasks, roles, interactions consistent with investigative science
(78% of observed lessons), using collaborative approach to learning (51% of observed lessons).
The observed teachers appear to need to improve on the following: providing adequate time for
sense-making and wrap-up (was observed only in 39% of observed lessons), attention to
students’ prior experience, preparedness and learning styles (was observed only in 19% of
observed lessons), using instructional strategies and activities that reflected attention to issues
of access, equity and diversity (was observed only in 6% of observed lessons). Among the
recommendations for improving teaching, the following were mentioned across the three groups