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2009/HRDWG31/029

Item: EDNET 8

Project Proposal (Self-Funded): International Comparative Research to Identify Unique and Promising Practices in Mathematics and Science Teacher Preparation for APEC Economies

Purpose: Consideration

Submitted by: United States

/ 31st Human Resources Development Working Group Meeting
Chicago, United States
22-26 June 2009
APEC SELF-FUNDED PROJECT INFORMATION
Project number:
(To be filled in by Secretariat: ) / Date received by Secretariat:
Name of Committee/Working Group: Human Resources Development Working Group
Title of Project: International Comparative Research to Identify Unique and Promising Practices in Mathematics and Science Teacher Preparation for APEC Economies
Proposing APEC Economy: U.S.
Co-sponsoring APEC Economies:
Date Approved by Working Group:
Project Overseer: Name, Title and Organization (M/F)
Carole Ames, Dean, College of Education, Michigan State University (F)
Cheng Davis, Vice Dean, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (F)
Susan Fuhrman, President, Teachers College Columbia University (F)
Alan Ginsburg, Director of Policy and Program Studies in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education (M)
Andrew Porter, Dean, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (M)
Bob Schwartz, Associate Dean for Academics, Harvard University Graduate School of Education (M)
Postal address:
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
3700 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA / Tel: (1 215) 898-5244
Fax: (1 215) 898-5616
Email:
Total cost of self-funding in US $4,000,000 over 5 years
Type of Project: Seminar/symposium Short-term training course Survey or analysis and research
Database/website Workshop Other (pls specify)
Project start date: 07/01/2009 / Project end date: 06/30/2012
Brief description of Project : its purpose and the principal activities (including when and where) :
The four-year research project will analyze secondary school mathematics and science teacher preparation in each participating economy to generate informed and detailed hypotheses about how teacher preparation might be improved in one economy, drawing on promising practices from one or more other economies in the comparative study. The study will bridge together experiences of the East and West and enable mutual learning from each other. The ultimate goal is to identify unique and promising teaching practices, as well as approaches to meeting key challenges in each economy using standardized research protocols that facilitate comparative analysis. The primary audience for the work are policymakers and research institutions in each economy.
The work will proceed in three phases. The first phase, which is already underway consists of designing the studies and the research protocols. The second phase consists of conducting the studies with common protocols that will facilitate comparisons across economies. Each economy will conduct its own research using its own resources following the international protocols. In the third phase, each economy will draw on the international comparative research to identify and undertake reforms to secondary school teacher preparation in mathematics and science. Phase Three is necessary because a) teacher education practices in one economy are unlikely to work exactly the same way in another economy’s culture and b) establishing causal effects for teacher education practices requires planned interventions and target research.
There are five areas of research:
o  Structured case studies of mathematics and science secondary school teacher education systems to describe in detail and for comparative purposes the context of teacher education (e.g. the status of the teaching profession, work conditions) and the teacher education system (e.g. curriculum, both pre-service and in-service, accreditation, and certification requirements)
o  Case studies of unique and promising practices as well as challenges to secondary math and science teacher education in each economy
o  Competency assessment of teacher content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge (ideally assessed at the conclusion of education prior to becoming a teacher of record and also five years after becoming a teacher of record)
o  A broad survey of approaches to secondary school mathematics and science teacher education in each economy to determine the degree of variance within economies
o  Generating and disseminating new tools to improve teacher preparation and practice (e.g. teacher networks, wiki-based resources, Institute of APEC Collaborative Education workshops)
At the invitation of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, representatives from governments and organizations in Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States had met on June 16-17 and again on October 27-28, 2008 to plan the comparative research. The project will continue to follow the already established collaborative research strategy as it moves from Phase One to Phase Two and Three.
Each “data-contributing” economy will fund research of its secondary school mathematics and science teacher education system, as well as participation in the international meetings. In addition, each of them will pay a participation fee of $30,000 USD, a common practice of international comparative studies in Education. The International Programs at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (GSE-International) will provide the central infrastructure for the international comparative analyses and dissemination.
There will also be a “non-data contributing” group of participating economies. These economies will not be required to submit the participation fee. They will not collect, analyze or interpret data, but will be given results of the study from the “data-collecting” economies, and will be invited to select study meetings. They will also be invited to join in Phase Three of the study, at their own expense. This “non-data contributing” group will be open only to developing economies.
Annual reports useful to participating economies will be published. At the end of the study, the final outcomes and corresponding recommendations will be presented in the APEC economies at the ministerial level to promote effective policy and practice in secondary school math and science teacher education.
Signature of Project Overseer:
(Separate written confirmation acceptable for email submission) Date:
Signature of Committee Chair/WG Lead Shepherd: (Not applicable to Progress Report and Evaluation Report)
(Separate written confirmation acceptable for email submission) Date:


Details of the Project Proposal

Please provide your answers in point form or as succinctly as possible below each paragraph heading.

A. Project Design

Project Objectives

1)  Describe briefly how this project directly responds to the priorities set by APEC Leaders and Ministers and/or the vision of the host economy. Please make reference to the relevant parts of APEC documents.

The Fourth APEC Education Ministerial Meeting Joint Statement in June 2008 in Peru cited mathematics and science as “essential to navigating the data-driven and technological world of the 21st century.” As the Math-Science Subgroup of the 2nd APEC Symposium on Education Reform in Xi’an, PR China in January 2008 indicated, the Subgroup has targeted teacher preparation and induction as a critical area of study to ensure 21st century competencies in math and science for all students. The Fourth APEC Ministerial Meeting Joint Statement also emphasized the importance of teacher quality and training as a means to improve instruction and student outcomes.

This project aligns with the expressed desire of the Fourth APEC Education Ministerial Meeting to create a “world laboratory,” for analyzing practices within and across economies in order to find effective, evidence-based models and best practices. The project carries out the Ministerial statement to examine different approaches to mathematics and science teacher education, expand the awareness and use of lesson study, and use videos and internet-based resources. The project will also carry out the ministers’ intention to use the HRDWG wiki as a tool for on-going APEC international collaboration. This project also follows the recommendation of the ministers in Peru to facilitate international educational exchanges among APEC economies, particularly bridging East and West for mutual learning.

From the outset, the project links researchers, educators, and policy makers from economies in the East and West to facilitate the implementation of the best practices that are identified in the research.

2)  Describe the key objectives of the project – usually no more than three

1)  Identify promising practices and key challenges in each economy to secondary school math and science teacher education

2)  Through international comparative analysis of these promising practices and unique challenges, identify hypotheses for new reforms in each economy

3)  Undertake secondary school mathematics and science teacher education reform in each economy and study the impact

3)  Assessment. With reference to each objective in paragraph 2), provide the current status and expected end-of-project target, so that the success of the project can be measured over the short and medium term. The targets should be quantitative but if this is not possible then a precise description of the change aimed at should be given. Where appropriate, sex-disaggregated data should be used for assessment in order to detect any differential impact of the project on men and women.

1)  Analyzing the curriculum of teacher preparation programs in APEC economies

a.  Current Status

Two international collaborative meetings have been completed with participation from all nine economies. All economies have agreed to participate in the three phases of the work. All participating economies are committed to conducting the structured case studies of teacher education systems, case studies of promising practices unique to an economy, surveying approaches within each economy to describe variance in approaches, and developing and using new tools to improve teacher preparation. Some economies wish also to participate in the competency assessment of teacher knowledge and some economies do not.

End-of-Project Target

The project will create profiles of teacher preparation programs, identifying the scope, sequence, and depth of content and pedagogical training provided in the curriculum.

The project will compile available research in mathematics and science teacher preparation into a readily accessible format, including a matrix of basic information on preparation programs and a database of current studies so that researchers, policy makers, and educators can easily find information comparing characteristics of teacher preparation and the teaching context in each economy, such as courses taken, length of practice teaching experience, and the compensation and status of teachers.

This information will be available on the APEC EDNET wiki and in published form. The APEC wiki will serve as a connection point for contributing to and disseminating the research. In addition, a website will allow educators, researchers, and policy makers to communicate with each other via web-based modalities, enabling information exchange and windows into teacher education classrooms of participating APEC economies. Educators in different economies will be able to exchange ideas and directly observe different methods of teacher preparation.

2) Comparing the content and pedagogical knowledge of program graduates

a.  Current Status

The work will draw heavily upon the MT21 cross-national study of the preparation of middle school mathematics teachers in Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. That study has developed assessment of teacher competence in content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. These measures are appropriate for secondary school teachers. That work will be extended to science, focusing on chemistry and teachers in tenth grade. International assessments of science knowledge are available and will be drawn upon in this work.

b. End-of-Project Target

Teacher preparation unfolds differently across the nine economies. Thus, an assessment of teacher competence, if it can be done at only one time, should be done after teachers have been teachers of record for at least five years. At that time, across-economy comparisons will be taking place with teachers who have completed the bulk of their teacher education. Ideally, assessment could also be completed for a different cohort of teachers at the time that they have completed their pre-service teacher education. That point may or may not be accessible for international comparative research of this type. At the end of the project, a report on teachers’ content, pedagogical, and pedagogical content knowledge will be produced. Again, some economies are interested in this component of the research and some are not.

3) Studying the nature of in-service learning

a.  Current Status

Through discussions at the June and October meetings, we have already learned that teacher education for secondary school mathematics and science teachers unfolds in different ways and at different paces across the economies. Thus, we have committed ourselves to a study of both pre-service and in-service teacher education.

b.  End-of-Project Target

Because some economies, such as China, have an integrated and highly articulated teacher education system, a full continuum of teacher preparation will be studied, from pre-service through in-service teacher training and professional development. The project will profile in-service opportunities for teacher self-learning and teacher networks, such as Guan Mo (open classes) in China and lesson study in Japan. This will enable economies to learn from each others’ teacher preparation systems.

All of the above information from each objective will be compiled into an easily accessible database for educators, researchers, and policy makers.

4)  Explain who the intended beneficiaries of this project are.

The project aims to illuminate practices that can improve teacher preparation. The ultimate goal of improving teacher preparation is to improve both teaching and student outcomes. This project is the first step in identifying practices to improve teacher education. The project aims to provide policy makers, researchers, and educators with more information to design, implement and test improvements in teacher preparation.

5)  Describe precisely the expected project outputs. Describe how these outputs will benefit the targeted beneficiaries.

·  International comparative analysis of unique and promising approaches to teacher preparation for high school mathematics and science teachers, as well as challenges to teacher education that result in hypotheses to be tested for new approaches to teacher education in each economy.

·  The tools to improve teacher preparation and practice (e.g. teacher networks, wiki-based resources, IACE workshops).

·  Comparative analysis of the nature and amount of teacher content, pedagogical, and pedagogical content knowledge.

6)  For applications under the TILF Special Account: Describe briefly how this project will contribute to the APEC Trade and Investment Liberalization and Facilitation (e.g. relevance to specific parts of the Osaka Action Agenda).