HR: 10:50h
AN: ED22A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Evolution of a Teacher Professional Development Program that Promotes Teacher and Student Research
AU: * Pompea, S M
EM: spompea@noao.edu
AF: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 United States
AU: Croft, S K
EM: scroft@noao.edu
AF: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 United States
AU: Garmany, C D
EM: kgarmany@noao.edu
AF: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 United States
AU: Walker, C E
EM: cwalker@noao.edu
AF: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 United States
AB: The Research Based Science Education (RBSE) and Teacher Leaders in Research Based Science (TLRBSE) programs at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory have been evolving for nearly ten years. Our current program is actually a team of programs aiding teachers in doing research with small telescopes, large research-grade telescopes, astronomical data archives, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Along the way, as these programs evolved, a number of basic questions were continuously discussed by the very talented program team. These questions included: 1) What is real research and why should we encourage it? 2) How can it be successfully brought to the classroom? 3) What is the relative importance of teacher content knowledge versus science process knowledge? 4) How frustrating should an authentic research experience be? 5) How do we measure the success of our professional development program? 6) How should be evaluate and publish student work? 7) How can teachers work together on a team to pursue research? 8) What is the model for interaction of teachers and researchers - equal partners versus the graduate student/apprentice model? 9) What is the ideal mix of skills for a professional development team at NOAO? 10) What role can distance learning play in professional preparation? 11) What tools are needed for data analysis? 12) How can we stay funded? Our evolving program has also been used as a test bed to examine new models of teacher's professional development that may aid our outreach efforts in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope program, the Thirty-Meter Telescope program, and the National Virtual Observatory program. We will describe a variety of lessons learned (and relearned) and try to describe best practices in promoting teacher and student research. The TLRBSE Program is funded by the National Science Foundation under ESI 0101982, funded through the AURA/NSF Cooperative Agreement AST-9613615. NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0830 Teacher training
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005