Improving Science Education in Chicago Public Schools. After their presentation, the Board had the following discussion:
Chairman Kaplan said, “The people from IMSA are here today. Do you have any communication with them in the course of your partnership?”
Dr. Slavsky said, “Not too much.”
Chairman Kaplan said, “I think it would be a great synergy if you could work with IMSA on this.”
Dr. Slavsky said, “One of the things we are learning is that there are many areas in Chicago and throughout the state working on this, and, as we do more and more, we build up those synergies and build capacity that way.”
Chairman Kaplan said, “The Board would encourage you to work with IMSA, because I think they are doing some of the same things.”
Ms. Meyer said, “I thought it was great in terms of informing us on the work you are doing with your education school as well as delivering it to the teacher. How about the rubrics and looking at this as teacher evaluation? What is the type of feedback mechanism that you give to teachers during this process? As we look at it, data is critical in terms of performing, but what other types of feedback are you giving to the teachers?”
Dr. Shefner said, “You are asking what are we collecting from the teachers?”
Ms. Meyer said, “What are you giving as feedback to the teachers in terms of improving their practice and evaluating their performance during this?”
Dr. Shefner said, “We have training for new users and experienced users. In the experienced user training, that is when we really get to hear back from them, how did something go and how do we improve on it further. This program has a fairly complicated, very interesting, assessment system. They often would focus on that, and that gives a very good platform for figuring out what do we need to work on to improve their practice.”
Ms. Meyer said, “In terms of assessing the teachers and what they have learned, you say you have a complex assessment platform. Give me a couple examples.”
Dr. Shefner said, “In terms of assessing what the teachers have learned from us, we give an evaluation after every session asking them specifically: were the CPS staff contributions helpful, were the Loyola staff contributions helpful, and some open-ended questions as well, that have led us to understand that they have really increased their confidence in delivery and that the content is very helpful also.”
Ms. Meyer said, “What I am trying to get at is how do you prove that the teachers gained the specific material that you want, as opposed to their feedback on how they think the program is?”
Dr. Shefner said, “We do not go back and test that group on content. We do in our endorsement courses, have pre- and post-tests in terms of content knowledge gained. What we would like to see more of is having those teachers taking those content courses, getting the in-depth content. We give them
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