Non Traditional Pre-Service Teacher Experiences as Assistant Professional Development Trainers and as Scientific Research Apprentice
4. Results
Scientific Research apprenticeship. Some highlights of the results obtained are the following:
- Short term benefits for pre-service teachers, as reported by themselves, the researchers and the graduate research assistants: (1) MS learning: Learned new mathematics and science concepts and mastered research methodology. (2) Teaching practices: Developed awareness of the importance of teaching students research skills and providing research experiences; felt more prepared to provide students with research experience; learned the value of integrating technology to their math and science courses. (3) Professional development: Had the opportunity to interact with professional researchers in a real-life laboratory and to develop the skills needed to work in that kind of environment; engaged in professional development activities, like seminars, workshops, and conferences; learned how to work collaboratively.
- Long term benefits for future teachers, as reported by themselves: (1) Teaching practices: Learned how to teach research skills, such as the scientific method, scientific thinking, and problem solving; teaching concepts related to environmental science. (2) Research-oriented classroom activities: Participants, who had had teaching experience, reported that they had implemented classroom activities involving research such as: working in laboratories, using the scientific method, making predictions, reviewing the literature, designing experiments, making and analyzing graphs, integrating technology to science and mathematics lesson plans, writing research reports. (3) Career and professional development: Reflected on or made decisions about future professional and career plans; worked with people from the science or math field after the apprenticeship; some got research-related jobs. (4) Enrichment of personal life: Lost their fear to speak in public: toughened up in various respects; felt more prepared to accept challenges associated with conducting, coordinating, or reporting research.
- Short Term Benefits for Researchers: (1) Previous pre-service teachers' knowledge and skills in mathematics or science were an asset for the performance of their tasks, so they were generally able to competently work as research assistants. (2) Pre-service teachers collaborated with the researchers in their investigations and the planning of their college courses. (3) Researchers learned teaching strategies from pre-service teachers that helped them to better explain science and mathematics research results to students and the general population.
- Short Term Benefits for Graduate Students: (1) Received support from pre-service teachers in research experiments, activities, and projects. (2) Pre-service teachers helped them to complete every day laboratory tasks and tasks related to their graduate student research. (3) Learned with and from future teachers about different science, mathematics, and pedagogy concepts and skills.
Additional results regarding the research apprenticeship are related to the participation of pre-service teachers in publication and presentations of their research work. Five of the students who have participated in this apprenticeship have published the results of their work, as coauthors, in prestigious MS peer reviewed journals, one was coauthor in a presentation made at the International Conference on Finite Fields, and another made herself the presentation of her work at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
PD trainer assistantship. Results derived from quantitative (ranking of capabilities) and qualitative (details about development of capabilities) data are the following:- Ranking of capabilities that the assistantship helped pre-service teachers to develop (first 6 out of 12): (1) Mastery of content knowledge; (2) Planning of teaching; (3) Implementation of teaching; (4) Communication; (5) Professional performance; (6) Professional & personal development.
- Mastery of content knowledge: (1) deepen knowledge about specific topics, derived from working closely with `expert'; (2) relate specific concepts to other concepts; (3) apply knowledge to different situations.
- Planning of teaching: (1) learn to construct curricular maps; (2) better understand MS content standards; (3) plan the use of different educational activities to teach a concept or process.
- Implementation of teaching: (1) ability to explain MS content better, derived from explaining it to teachers; (2) broaden teaching strategies to teach a concept or process.
- Communication: (1) ability to capture learners' attention; (2) improved communication skills when addressing an audience.
- Professional performance: (1) learn to behave professionally in the classroom; (2) enhanced preparation for entering the teaching practicum.
