Funding agency: National Science Foundation
Program: Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement (LSC)
HRI Role: Evaluation (Cross-Site)
Project Description
NSF initiated its Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement (LSC) program in 1995 in order to improve instruction in science, mathematics, and technology through teacher professional development. NSF funded the first cohort of LSC projects in 1995, and a new cohort of projects was added each year. By 2002, a total of 88 projects across the country had received LSC funding, typically for a period of five years each, with some projects using the first year for planning. By 2005, the LSC initiative had reached 70,000 elementary and secondary teachers (predominantly K-8) and two million students in 4,000 schools. The LSC projects aimed to involve all teachers of the targeted subjects in particular grade bands in project-designated professional development. Each targeted teacher was to participate in a minimum of 130 hours of professional development over the course of the project. Professional development activities aimed to prepare teachers to implement high-quality mathematics and science materials in their classes and to use inquiry-based practices that the materials supported.
Project Website: https://horizon-research.com/LocalSystemicChange/
Evaluation Services
HRI designed and coordinated a cross-site evaluation of the LSC projects, known as the LSC Core Evaluation. The core evaluation addressed the following questions:
- What is the overall quality of the LSC professional development activities?
- What is the extent of school and teacher involvement in the LSC?
- What is the impact of the LSC professional development on teacher preparedness, attitudes, and beliefs about science and mathematics teaching and learning?
- What is the impact of the LSC professional development on classroom practices in science and mathematics?
- To what extent are school and district contexts becoming more supportive of the LSC vision for exemplary science and mathematics education?
- What is the extent of institutionalization of LSC reforms?
In addition to developing instruments that would be used for data collection by each LSC (e.g., classroom observation protocol, teacher questionnaires), HRI developed a data collection schedule; provided training for observers; drew random samples for questionnaires, classroom observations, and teacher interviews; and providing each project with tables of questionnaire results, both for individual items and for composites.
