Qualifying in-service education of Science Teachers (QUEST): a Danish large-scale, long-term, collaborative TPD-project

TY - CONF

T1 - Qualifying in-service education of Science Teachers (QUEST)

T2 - ESERA

AU - Nielsen, Keld

AU - Nielsen, Birgitte Lund

AU - Pontoppidan, Birgitte

AU - Sillasen, Martin

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - The Danish QUEST-project is a large-scale (450 teachers), long-term (4 years) professional development project for science teachers. The project aims at closing the gap between the present inconsequential practice in in-service education and recent research results documenting conditions for effective teacher professional development. It involves repeated cycles of design, enactment, analysis and redesign. The core features of the project are content focus, coherence, active learning, duration, and collective participation. The teachers are involved in such a way that sharing of knowledge and peer involvement in collaborative practices in the school science teacher group is specifically addressed and targeted throughout the project. A special way of working (the QUEST-Rhythm) has been developed to increase the degree of teacher collaboration and networking over the 4 years. The accompanying research has focus on design: How can a professional development program for science teachers be designed to embrace recent research-developed criteria for success, while at the same time adapt to local challenges and needs at the participating schools? Initial and preliminary – and rather encouraging – results based on research during the first year of the project are presented.

AB - The Danish QUEST-project is a large-scale (450 teachers), long-term (4 years) professional development project for science teachers. The project aims at closing the gap between the present inconsequential practice in in-service education and recent research results documenting conditions for effective teacher professional development. It involves repeated cycles of design, enactment, analysis and redesign. The core features of the project are content focus, coherence, active learning, duration, and collective participation. The teachers are involved in such a way that sharing of knowledge and peer involvement in collaborative practices in the school science teacher group is specifically addressed and targeted throughout the project. A special way of working (the QUEST-Rhythm) has been developed to increase the degree of teacher collaboration and networking over the 4 years. The accompanying research has focus on design: How can a professional development program for science teachers be designed to embrace recent research-developed criteria for success, while at the same time adapt to local challenges and needs at the participating schools? Initial and preliminary – and rather encouraging – results based on research during the first year of the project are presented.

M3 - Poster

Y2 - 2 September 2013 through 7 September 2013

ER -