Aupress-Admin, Marrero
Aupress-Admin, Marrero
Aupress-Admin, Marrero
March – 2010
Abstract
Teachers are searching for new venues through which they may meet stringent professional
development requirements. Under competitive funding from NASA’s (National Aeronautics and
Space Administration) Office of Education and the NASA Explorer Schools Project, U.S.
Satellite Laboratory, Inc. created a series of live, online, interactive short-courses. In this case
study, a mixed methods analysis of a variety of data sources reveals that diverse educators from a
variety of classroom contexts view the short-courses as a useful professional development tool,
both as a vehicle for a teacher’s own professional growth and for classroom applications.
Teachers were particularly interested in the ability to participate in a collaborative community of
practice with other educators, instructors, and scientists from across the country, and they found
the flexible design of the professional development to be useful. This short-course design offers
promise for future professional development opportunities.
Traditional professional development for educators has been criticized for being irrelevant,
ineffective, and fractured, and for not giving teachers what they actually need to teach students
(Corcoran, 1995; Wilson & Berne, 1999). The current educational culture of accountability has
revamped the definition of teacher quality. In this culture of quality, teachers are largely
responsible for their own professional development – often in order to maintain their state
certification and their delineation as “highly qualified.” For example, in New York State,
professional certification is no longer granted for a lifetime; teachers must complete requisite
hours of professional development within five-year cycles (New York State Education
Department [NYSED], 2007). Faced with stringent content standards and high-stakes testing,
Live, Online Short-Courses: A Case Study of Innovative Teacher Professional Development
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teachers are turning to new and different sources for quality professional development. Many of
them are looking to online sources (Garet, et al., 2001). In particular, teachers of science seek up-
to-date resources for professional development. Science is a dynamic and exciting field in which
new information is constantly forthcoming; science educators need access to up-to-date research
and curricular materials ready to be implemented in classrooms.
To that end, U.S. Satellite Laboratory, Inc. (U.S. Satellite), a small business focused on the
design, development, and delivery of curriculum and professional development programs, sought
to create online professional development opportunities that 1) were relevant to teachers’ day-to-
day practice, 2) provided an opportunity for professional sharing and collaboration, 3) contributed
to teachers’ professional growth, and, 4) were in a format accessible to a wide range of educators.
The short-courses, and therefore this study, were underpinned by a theoretical framework of
social constructivism. In this framework, knowledge built by the learners is intertwined with
their own world experiences and those shared with others. Social constructivism contends that
knowledge is constructed as a group through interaction and knowledge-building. In social
constructivism, “there are social aspects of the construction process; although individuals have to
construct their own meaning...the process of constructing meaning always is embedded in a
particular social setting of which the individual is a part” (Duit & Treagust, 1998, p. 8). The
teachers in this case study developed their scientific understanding and pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK) (Shulman, 1986) through interactions with colleagues, NASA scientists, and
teacher educators. Richardson (1997) notes in her discussion of social constructivism in teacher
education, “It is within this interaction that cultural meanings are shared within the group, and
then internalized by the individual” (p. 8). The design of the short-courses promoted constant
discourse and collaborative knowledge-building among both participants and instructors.
Participants brought their own sociocultural context to the dialogue and contributed to the
understanding of others. Teachers were encouraged to share their own ideas and experiences; the
instructors viewed these as important starting points for knowledge growth, as suggested by the
professional development literature (van Driel, Beijaard, & Verloop, 2001). The mutual growth
and understanding is inherent when exploring the participants’ perceptions of the short-courses.
The case study methodology is also consistent with the constructionist epistemology and
constructivist theoretical perspective in that it “will put all understandings, scientific and non-
scientific alike, on the very same footing” (Crotty, 1998, p. 16). The goal of this study was to
examine the educators’ views on the efficacy of this professional development model.
Methodology
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educational content in classrooms. The U.S. Satellite professional development for NES
educators consisted of seven short-courses, live (synchronous) online courses each comprising 4-
6 one-hour sessions, with independent assignments as follow-up activities between sessions.
Educators participated by simultaneously logging into an online classroom and using a telephone
to dial into a conference call. This innovative format offered teachers the ability to take courses
from home or school and to still interact live with expert instructors, guest research scientists, and
other educators. The intent of the short-courses was to give educators an opportunity to actively
learn content and applications for the classroom. Both the content and applications were to be
incorporated within the teacher’s curriculum in line with the professional development goal for
the NES initiative, “to address local challenges in science, technology and mathematics
education” (NASA, 2007).
Each short-course began with introductions, and the participants soon realized that the unique
online environment included educators from Florida to Nebraska, New York to Alaska. The fast-
paced, interactive atmosphere of the short-course meant that each participant received an
opportunity to ask and answer questions aloud and to share their unique, personal experiences.
Additionally, instructors used embedded technological resources, such as online quizzes/polls, as
a formative assessment and as a way for participants to share ideas quickly.
The participants were self-selected members of the NES community, including educators from
active and alumni NES schools as well as from schools that had unsuccessfully applied to be an
NES location. NES schools were given many professional development opportunities in different
formats, online, onsite, and through travel. Other distance learning opportunities available to
these educators included one-session webinars and events through NASA’s DLN (digital learning
network), a videoconferencing tool. Participants indicated that they had participated in many
diverse professional development events within the NES network, and the lead members of the
NES teams, all of whom were state certified, at each school were mandated to participate in
professional development and were expected to encourage other teachers from their site to attend.
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For teachers who began short-courses with U.S. Satellite, the attrition rate was less than 1%.
Data for other NES activities is unavailable to the authors.
The short-course design was grounded in the research in online training; although, research in
synchronous online design is sparse. Previous studies demonstrated online training to be as
effective as in-person training and much more efficient and inexpensive (Schmeekle, 2003).
Training sessions normally taught in person could be taught in one-half to two-thirds of the time
using the online learning environment (Barker & Brooks, 2005; Schmeekle, 2003). These
studies, although they did not take place within teacher education, contributed to the compact
design of the short-courses.
The live aspect of the short-course sessions was also deliberately designed to reflect research
findings. In a classic study, Threlkeld and Brozoska (1994) found that support and interaction
between students and instructors as well as between students are keys to success in distance
learning environments. Carr-Chellman (2000) took this argument a step further to live contact,
stating,
Northrup (2000) highlighted the importance of the interaction between participants, explaining
that it may mitigate feelings of isolation and frustration common in distance learning participants.
Data Collection
Questionnaires
As a primary data source to study these short-courses as a professional development tool, the
researchers administered an online mixed questionnaire to examine teacher views about the
shared experience of the online short-courses. The mixed methods approach included open-
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ended questions embedded in a series of Likert and yes/no questions. The purpose of this design
was to allow the researchers to gain a deeper understanding of teachers’ feelings and impressions
about the strengths and limitations of this approach to professional development while also
collecting quantitative data to assess their general beliefs about the program’s efficacy. The
questionnaire was answered anonymously and questions were based on general program
evaluation questions as put forth by NASA’s office of Managements and Budgets. Both
qualitative and quantitative sources of information gained were important; mixed methods design
draws from the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative approaches (Creswell, 2003,
Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Using mixed methods allowed the authors to support the
qualitative data of the case study with additional information that could be quantified.
In 2007, educators who had participated in short-courses from November 2005 to March 2007
were invited to complete the online questionnaire concerning their experience. Respondents
logged into the online survey system and answered fifteen questions, a mix of Likert-scale,
yes/no, and open-ended items. Items were designed to discover information about the teachers’
classroom context as well as how the short-courses contributed to their professional growth,
whether the short-courses were relevant to local curricula, and whether they were able to use what
they learned in their classrooms. Two of this study’s authors were instructors in the short-courses
under study and therefore took on the role of participant observers (Jorgensen, 1989).
Reflective Essays
While we cannot be certain, we believe that most teachers did not take advantage of the graduate
credit opportunity for two reasons. First, these teachers were given many opportunities to earn
credit through NES, often for simply attending workshops/events at their school; whereas, to earn
credit for these courses, the educators were required to complete additional work beyond the
course itself. Also, more of the teachers (approximately 20%) earned continuing education units
(CEU’s), which did not require essay submissions yet are often accepted for teachers who wish to
advance on the pay scale and/or to maintain state certification.
Personal Communications
Throughout the Live, Short-Courses program (2 years), U.S. Satellite team members remained in
constant communication with participating educators, both during the courses as well as while
teachers implemented what they had learned in the classroom. Team members, including
scientists and teacher educators, were available by phone and email to discuss content,
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pedagogical strategies, and other issues. The nature of these communications varied but occurred
quite often. Instructors often received several emails a week from participants. Field notes were
recorded during this time and these notes as well as emails are an additional data source.
The use of diverse data sources provided triangulation for the themes that emerged in this study,
which is considered to be a way to approximate validity in qualitative studies (Guba & Lincoln,
1989). Additionally, these sources contributed to the rich, thick description (Merriam, 1998) of
the case study within the Findings section.
Data Analysis
Data collected through the online survey tool were exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Responses from the Likert and yes/no items were separated and percentages calculated for each
response. To analyze the open-ended questions, the researchers followed the procedures of
grounded theory analysis (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). We first examined all of the data and made
general notes of the results. Then data was broken into chunks for coding based on emerging
categories or themes (open coding). Two of the researchers followed this independent procedure
then peer-debriefed to agree on emergent themes (Creswell, 2003; Merriam, 1998). We then
compared the themes across data sources and created categories (axial coding; Guba & Lincoln,
1989). For example, one questionnaire response stated, “Interacting with teachers from a variety
of locations was great!” During open coding, this response was categorized as interaction by
both coders. In the axial coding process, the coders observed this theme across data sources and
eventually determined that this was indeed an emergent theme, interaction with instructors,
scientists and other educators.
After determining the emergent themes, each theme’s frequency was calculated. This
quantitative aspect of the study added another layer of validity; the numbers helped to justify the
themes found, and “determine the distribution of a phenomenon within [the] chosen population”
(Creswell, 2003, p. 216).
We followed the same procedure of open and axial coding, without quantifying results, to analyze
the other data sources, including field notes, reflective essays, and personal communications.
Then all data sources were considered together to build the case study.
Findings
Quantitative Data
Demographics.
Before delving into the results of the study, it is important to examine the demographics of the
population of educators under study. Fifty-nine teachers (out of approximately 248 educators
who participated in the Live, Short-Courses program) responded to the questionnaire, a response
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rate of almost 24%. At least 13 respondents had participated in all seven possible short-courses.
The respondents indicated that their schools represented a variety of demographic areas,
including urban (41%), suburban (19%), rural (36%), and other (4%) (Figure 1).
The respondents teach pre-college grade levels from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Most
taught within Grades 4 through 9, consistent with NES educator demographics. Forty percent of
the participants reported teaching science subjects including physical science, earth science,
general science, astronomy, biology, and environmental science. Other subject areas included
health, physical education, gifted education, language arts, social studies, special education,
mathematics, and reading. Respondents reported teaching students of a wide range of ability
levels from students with emotional disturbance or learning disabilities to Advanced Placement
courses. Five percent of respondents were informal educators.
Relevance of Short-Courses
The researchers were very interested in whether the participating educators felt that the short-
courses were relevant to their work at their schools. Regardless of their location or the myriad
subjects taught, 79.6% of respondents reported that they were using what they learned in the
short-course (content, activities, and strategies) during the current school year, and 96.6% of
respondents anticipate using what they learned during the current school year. When asked who
in their school community might benefit from participating in short-courses, 95% chose other
teachers, 51% chose parents, 44% chose paraprofessionals, and 34% chose administrators. One
hundred percent of respondents would be interested in taking future short-courses.
When presented with the statement, “The content I learned in this course fits with my
curriculum,” 86% chose “agree” or “strongly agree.” The remaining participants chose “neutral.”
Respondents were also presented with the statement, “The Short-course(s) contributed to my
professional growth.” In response, 78% chose “strongly agree,” 21% chose “agree,” and 1%
chose “neutral” (Figure 2).
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Format of Short-Courses
Because traditional online courses are held asynchronously, not live, and are self-paced, it was
important to ask participants to compare their experience in this format with other online courses.
Respondents were presented the statement, “I feel that a live, online course is a good model for
professional development.” Seventy-three percent chose “strongly agree,” 20% chose “agree,”
and 7% chose “neutral” (Figure 3).
Next, participants were presented with the statement, “I prefer live, online courses to online
courses that are not live” (Figure 4). Fifty-four percent chose “strongly agree,” 24% “agree,”
19% “neutral,” and 3% “disagree.”
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Qualitative Data
The final section of the questionnaire consisted of open-ended questions, intended to reveal some
of the participants’ specific attitudes and criticisms concerning the short-courses. Other
qualitative data sources included subject-produced documents (i.e., reflective essays), field notes,
and personal communications. Three major themes emerged from the qualitative sources: 1)
interaction with other educators, 2) immediate feedback from instructors and scientists, and 3)
flexibility of the course structure.
The most common theme (54% of questionnaire respondents) was the ability to interact with,
collaborate with, and gain knowledge from other educators. In addition to the questionnaire, this
theme was evident in the reflective essays of participants as well as in the field notes. The fact
that educators had the opportunity to interact and share across diverse contexts without traveling
was a very positive feature of short-courses.
For instructors, it was noteworthy to observe the development of socially constructed knowledge
building and of a professional network. At the first live session of participants, four to six logged
onto the online classroom and called into the conference call about 10-15 minutes early for the
one-hour class. The instructor typically made small talk, asking perfunctory questions about the
weather or current events, although these brief interactions were punctuated by periods of
science. By the second session, pre-class chatter was no longer facilitated by the instructor.
Instead, teachers began sharing ideas, experiences, and strategies. They asked one another how
they might incorporate what they had already learned and shared lessons into which new material
could be incorporated. By the last class, the classmates were exchanging emails and the instructor
needed to break through the animated conversation in order to begin class.
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The significance of this developing network of knowledge-sharing was also evident to the
participants. Sample questionnaire responses centered on this theme included the following:
Many individual educators felt that working with other diverse educators, sharing best practices,
and discussing content in locations across the country were positive aspects of the short-courses.
In her reflective essay, one teacher wrote,
The lessons were excellent and the live part was so important. I
feel confident that I can implement them in my 5th grade class.
Students will appreciate learning from ongoing interesting
research. I also liked learning from other teachers across the
country.
This teacher, like many others, viewed learning from other educators as an important aspect of
her short-course experience. Similarly, another educator explained, “There were excellent
applications of the subject matter . . .This is also an excellent venue for interacting with teachers
nationwide.” The diverse group of educators – encompassing Grades K-12, myriad subjects
from Advanced Placement Physics to kindergarten to physical education – felt that it was
valuable to interact with and learn from one another in the live format.
Additionally, it was evident that through their interactions, the teachers were building knowledge
together, reflecting the social constructivist theoretical framework. For example, in the course
entitled Astro-Venture, which is based upon the NASA-developed curriculum module (accessible
at http://astroventure.arc.nasa.gov/), each participant prepared a short presentation on content
within the Astro-Venture curriculum guide. Content topics included the Doppler effect,
calculating orbital eccentricity, and comparing tectonic activity on different planets. Several
teachers remarked that these presentations allowed them to improve their understanding of these
topics, both by presenting and by listening to and interacting with the other educators. For some
of these teachers, the content was novel and seemed overwhelming, yet the friendly atmosphere
of the short-course evidently assisted them in learning the topics.
Another common theme, cited by 24% of questionnaire respondents, was the ability to receive
immediate feedback to questions. In more common and traditional asynchronous online courses,
students may post questions for a professor to be answered days later. During the live, short-
course sessions, participants were highly encouraged to ask questions both of the instructors and
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of the guest scientists taking part in the class. The difference was that the answers were
immediate and often resulted in reciprocal discussions.
During a typical class session, the instructor presented a PowerPoint presentation interspersed
with live links, videos, animations, visualizations of scientific data, and much more. Along the
way, participants were asked to try their hand at interpreting data, making predictions, and
reflecting on new content. Brief poll questions were embedded throughout the lesson to check for
understanding. Each short-course included a presentation by at least one guest speaker, such as a
Mars volcanologist, oceanographer, astrobiologist, etc. These scientists presented current
research in the field, enhancing the cutting-edge content of the courses. After the presentation,
the educators often engaged in animated discussions with the guest, asking many questions and
relating classroom applications.
The theme immediate feedback was very prevalent throughout the data sources as an important
aspect of the short-courses. In their essays, teachers wrote, “I liked the live part for me because I
could ask questions and communicate with others in the course,” and “For me, the interaction
with the presenters and the scientists they included in the short course was so important. I was
able to ask questions and reflected on brand-new content.” Another comment was, “I had a lot of
questions and the immediate feedback was invaluable.”
Questionnaire responses centered on this theme included, “being able to ask questions and discuss
answers,” “real-time interaction and feedback,” “live questions were answered on the spot,” and
“immediate feedback and clarification to any question or misconception.”
In addition to the live interactivity and feedback, an emergent theme of course flexibility was
often cited as an important positive aspect. For example, one questionnaire respondent wrote,
“The fact that it was online gave me more flexibility. I'm a single mom and didn’t have to seek
child care to participate.” Another respondent explained that “[the] short amount of time works
better because of scheduling issues.”
The short-courses were held after school, in the evenings, or during the summer breaks in order to
accommodate the busy schedules of educators. Teachers often shared that they liked being able
to participate at night, after dinner and putting children to bed, or during the summer early in the
morning. A session was normally offered twice in one day; participants were encouraged to
attend the same session (i.e., 4 p.m. or 9 p.m. throughout a course), but having multiple sessions
allowed changes if necessary. As noted by one teacher, “I really like the flexibility when they are
offered more than one time per day because things come up at the last minute.”
Limitations
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The methods for data collection and analysis were limited by the researchers’ ability to identify
first-hand how participating educators implemented short-course content in their classrooms. In
addition to self-reporting through Likert and yes/no questions, future data collection may include
an interview process, whereby researchers visit and interview randomly selected teachers from
each demographic, such as urban and rural, high-need, and affluent schools. Teachers could also
provide evidence of student work to show how short-course content fit into their existing
curriculum.
Short-courses for NASA Explorer Schools primarily targeted Grades 4-9 science teachers, and
the majority of participants teach science. However, representatives from other disciplines,
including math, physical education, special education, social studies, language arts, and others,
participated in short-courses. Intended implementation of curricular materials and use of content
was effective across disciplines as 96.6% of study participants indicated that they anticipate using
the materials during the same school year, which shows that the courses provided ‘something for
everyone.’ Teachers in every discipline are responsible for maintaining a standard of excellence
and completing professional development requirements. Short-courses provided educators with
expert training and resources, which they may not have had access to through their local district.
We are, however, unclear about how such diverse educators perceived that they benefitted from
the courses themselves. This aspect of our findings certainly requires further study.
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by opportunities for knowledge sharing, but that face-to-face interactions often increase
familiarity and therefore willingness to share knowledge. We wonder whether the synchronous
interactions via telephone in the short-courses bred the same sort of increase in familiarity. Thus,
our findings seem to refute the ideas asserted by Schlager and Fusco (2003) that online
community development should be situated within local face-to-face teacher professional
development communities, such as those that develop within local school districts. Our study
shows that giving teachers a forum for sustained interaction might support the development of an
online community of practice. Further study in this area is needed. Most of the respondents
indicated that they preferred the live short-course format over the traditional asynchronous online
course format. While it is possible that this result is due to participants’ familiarity with the
format, the researchers believe that the live format is particularly promising for professional
development in science education as cutting-edge content can often be challenging. The
synchronous course design allows participants to ask and receive answers, clarifying questions on
the spot, thus eliminating some of the frustrations that may be the result of learning difficult
content.
While these findings are promising, the next step would be to examine changes in the teachers’
content knowledge as well as their in pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to see if there are
any resulting changes in teaching practice. The results of this study are nevertheless important
because in order for professional development to be effective, teachers must ‘buy in’ to the model
and what they are learning.
Conclusion
Increasing numbers of educators are seeking online sources to meet their professional
development needs. This mixed methods study examined the views of teachers from NASA
Explorer Schools about the viability of the live, online short-course model for professional
development. Findings indicate that the teachers felt it was an effective model. Emergent
themes indicate that teachers felt it was important to interact with and learn from other
educators who are located across the country. Also, the live nature of the courses was critical in
terms of working through new science concepts and ideas because teachers were able to receive
immediate feedback from instructors and participating scientists. Of course, the online design
also offered flexibility that traditional professional development workshops do not. The
response to this online community of reflective educators includes positive professional growth
and overwhelming enthusiasm for participants to continue to use short-courses as a solution for
meeting their professional development needs.
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