Charles A. Dana Center - Research and Evaluation

The University of Texas Master Teacher Summer Institute

Evaluator: Rahel Kahlert, kahlert@mail.utexas.edu

Recipient: Dr. Mary Walker, Director of The University of Texas at Austin Master Teacher Summer Institute

Funder: Eisenhower Teacher Quality Grant

Program description

Since 2000, the Charles A. Dana Center has been evaluating the effectiveness of the Master Teacher Summer Institute at the College of Natural Sciences on a yearly basis. The institute is an intense three- or four-week training taught by university professors and experienced high school teachers during the summer break.

The goal is to promote inquiry-based teaching of advanced-level courses in mathematics and science. The participants are teachers, often attending in vertical teams from all across Texas, with various backgrounds and experience levels. The ultimate purpose of the institute is to increase the diversity and academic skills of Texas public school students in advanced-level mathematics and science courses. To accomplish this purpose, the -nstitute provides participating teachers with a wide range of experiences targeted at increasing their content and pedagogical knowledge in mathematics and science.

Evaluation goals

Examine usefulness of the institute experience for participants in the classroom setting

Assess the gain of participants' content knowledge through pre- and post-tests

Explore the impact of the training on classroom instruction and student performance

Data sources and methods

Qualitative data

Data on teacher perceptions included application materials, focus groups, and short open-ended surveys at various stages. Focus groups with teachers a year after the training provided valuable information about the applicability to the classroom. Focus group interviews and surveys were transcribed. Qualitative software was used to code and compare text segments. The analysis was an iterative process to discern similarities and to generate emerging themes.

Quantitative data

To gauge the progress of the participants' content knowledge, pre- and post-tests were administered in each subject area. Most were pre-existing, validated tests. The test results were matched to gauge the change in knowledge and to compare to a comparison group.

Example of findings

Participants in the 2003 institute were able to translate hands-on activities to their classrooms and shared these with other teachers. They observed a positive effect of these hands-on materials on students' visual and conceptual understanding. Faced with the challenge of time constraints, teachers abbreviated certain activities in the classroom.

The 2004 Physics institute emphasized inquiry-based teaching, which teachers found to be highly useful in their classrooms. For more information, see the presentation (PowerPoint 60kb) and executive summary (pdf 172kb) prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 2004.