Research Experiences for Teachers as a Capstone for Content Knowledge

Research experiences for teachers have been shown to change teacher beliefs and transfer learning about the nature of science, experimental design, process skills, and the ability to communicate complex science research to the classroom. In addition, collaboration with scientists has been shown to improve teachers' science teaching and learning. This article examines the outcomes of 22 teachers who participated in summer research experiences in both science and mathematics. In this study, teachers' content knowledge; beliefs about the nature and discovery of math and science; tools, processes, and technology use; pedagogical content knowledge; and pedagogical knowledge changed as a result of their participation. Transfer of the experiences to the classroom varied, and many barriers to transfer were identified.