2007 ANNUAL REPORT - cosmos - Bowling Green State University
2007 ANNUAL REPORT - cosmos - Bowling Green State University
2007 ANNUAL REPORT - cosmos - Bowling Green State University
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
In order to determine progress towards these goals, the Center worked with MetriKs to align the Center’s<br />
activities with each goal, formulate specific evaluation/research questions for each goal, and identify<br />
multiple instruments and data sources that could be triangulated to enhance the validity of the findings.<br />
Example: Goal 1: Effective Professional Development<br />
Evaluation of the effectiveness of the NWO professional development was accomplished<br />
by thematically analyzing and summarizing data gathered from six different sources:<br />
1. Teacher Beliefs and Practices Instrument (TBI survey).<br />
2. Session evaluation data (e.g., written evaluations of the professional development sessions).<br />
3. Faculty interview data.<br />
4. Teacher participant interview data.<br />
5. Professional development session observation data (ratings using Horizons Research PD<br />
Observation Protocol) provided by external observers.<br />
6. Other statistics collected by the Center about different activities (e.g., course and program<br />
modification documents, PD attendance data, MAT credit hour completion data, and<br />
Symposium participant involvement data).<br />
Further details on the evaluation methods can be found in the evaluation report (see Appendix T).<br />
Highlights of Findings<br />
Self-Efficacy and Participant Beliefs about Classroom Practices<br />
NWO programs have facilitated a significant increase in participant self-efficacy and<br />
participant beliefs about research-based classroom practices. Survey<br />
instruments, session evaluations, and interviews revealed that<br />
participants experienced greater confidence their ability to be<br />
effective leaders of inquiry-based and student-centered learning.<br />
I’m definitely a more inquiry-based teacher. I feel that my<br />
questioning skills have increased greatly and I have become<br />
more of a facilitator and not so much a giver of knowledge.<br />
– NWO Inquiry Series Teacher Participant<br />
[The students] have to write their own lab procedure, they have<br />
to come up with it and of course it’s great because they all come<br />
up with a perfect solution and it doesn’t work, so then they have<br />
to go back and do the problem solving and it’s a double period, so<br />
they have enough time to problem solve this. So it’s fun to do this.<br />
– NWO Inquiry Series Teacher Participant<br />
2 0 0 7 N W O Ce n t e r o f E xcellence • A n n u a l R e p o r t 21