Case Study: "Maxwell" Elementary School

Maxwell began participating in the California Academy of Sciences’ Teacher Institute on Science and Sustainability (TISS) during the professional development program’s third year in 2011, with a small group of teachers in Cohort 3, and have sent teachers to TISS in each subsequent year through Cohort 6. During the 2015-2016 school year, as Cohort 6 was approaching graduation, the Academy engaged SRI International to conduct interviews with the teachers at Maxwell to better understand individual growth by TISS participants, in addition to collective change at the school.

Over time, some participating TISS teachers have moved grades; as such, this cohort now includes teachers covering grades kindergarten through five in addition to the science resource specialist who teaches almost all Maxwell students at least once a week. Additionally, the teachers range in experience from new teachers with two years of experience to those with up to two decades of experience in the classroom. To be able to serve teachers with such different experience levels in the classroom is a testament to the TISS model of professional development, which focuses on modeling effective teaching practices, then individualizing support for each educator.

While the TISS program has shown that it is flexible enough to support teachers on their individual development, a lingering question has remained: does TISS produce a systemic school-wide shift as more of its teachers participate in this professional development?

The need for support from schools and districts to make a substantial impact on teaching cannot be underscored. Teachers and educators are universally emphatic that they increasingly have less and less time to devote to lesson planning, collaboration with their peers, and professional development. These are all key components of creating a cultural shift in a school, and are also key components of the TISS program. TISS accepts teachers into their program on a school cohort basis, with multiple teachers from each school per year, and when lucky, multiple years of teachers from the same school. Their hope is to inseminate the school site with teachers trained in the TISS way of science, confident in science content knowledge and empowered with current teaching strategies, who have two years of communicating and collaborating together on science, and who will continue to collaborate with their peers on science. How does this actually happen, though? Is participation in this 2-year professional development enough to create lasting change at schools through the conduit of continually improving TISS alumni? Or, rather, are a school’s ecosystem and the external forces that shape it too impermeable to allow these long-term impacts? This case study explores these questions in detail.

A former principal at Maxwell Elementary with a passion for science education spearheaded the school’s shift to science-focused professional development (PD) when he/she encouraged the first teachers to apply to the two-year program with TISS. After the first two cohorts of Maxwell teachers shared their positive experiences from participating in this intensive program, the principal at the time asked for the remaining teachers in grades 3-5 to apply; as a result, the entire upper elementary team would be trained in the TISS method of science.

This administrative support would prove to be instrumental to the promotion of science education at Maxwell. As teachers progressed through the two-year TISS program, their understanding and appreciation for science investigations grew. These teachers began doing more and more science investigations as they participated in TISS, as their understanding of how to modify lessons and open them to student inquiry increased through the coaching and workshops they received. Although the investigations take longer, teachers see the benefit of having youth have more hands-on investigations in science. As one Maxwell teacher explained, “They, the students, are discovering and learning by themselves. They are asking the questions.”

Maxwell teachers had various motivations for applying to TISS, especially the first teachers from Maxwell to join the program. One of the teachers with over ten years of experience noted that she was interested in an intensive PD program that would allow her to “learn how to teach science better, and in different ways” than she had before. Another teacher noted that her interest in sustainability is what brought her to the TISS program as part of Cohort 3. “I thought those were the best PD’s, when we learned about carbon. It was exciting, it felt like we discovered things on our own.”

By the beginning of Cohort 4 in summer 2014, TISS moved away from focusing on sustainability education. Some teachers at Maxwell from earlier cohorts lamented the loss of the sustainability lens in TISS PD, sharing that they now turn to the school’s garden educator and other local outdoor educators for lesson plan ideas. One teacher noted that while she has been able to find other resources on sustainability education, she had hoped that the TISS program would help her incorporate this content into her existing science curriculum.

This shift away from sustainability was strategic, however. As California adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in 2013, TISS saw an opportunity to offer Bay Area teachers a chance to begin learning how to apply the NGSS in their classrooms, in addition to focusing on student inquiry as an engaging teaching practice. In fact, the only training on NGSS that Maxwell teachers received that school year was from TISS staff; teachers reported that the workshops and coaching were invaluable to ground them in these new science standards.

Pivoting towards teaching practice rather than focusing merely on content standards had a positive effect on that reached beyond just participating teachers. In 2014, three TISS teachers at Maxwell worked together to lead a half-day, schoolwide training on NGSS. Incorporating knowledge and resources from the Academy, with some support from TISS coaches along with resources from their district, these teachers led an overview of the NGSS science standards and practices to share this valuable knowledge with their colleagues. A teacher in attendance who later joined Cohort 6 who attended this PD shared that she was “grateful that the people who first went to TISS looked at NGSS and drew more interest in it,” as this was the first introduction many Maxwell teachers had to this content.

There was a groundswell of energy and support for science teaching at Maxwell during the 2014-2015 school year, as there were seven teachers involved with TISS. To capitalize on their own investment in science teaching and learning, these seven teachers aimed to disseminate the TISS philosophy and pedagogical strategies with the full Maxwell teaching staff, hoping to mobilize the teaching staff to spend more time on science during the school year. However, these teachers knew that increasing time dedicated to science would require buy-in from school administrators and the district. Fortunately, the principal at the time was a former science resource teacher, and was a critical stakeholder in pushing science as schoolwide priority.

In the fall of 2014, TISS teachers convened a meeting with two TISS coaches, the principal, and two district representatives. Together they created a plan to support Maxwell staff in collaborating on science. Specifically, it would involve professional development for teachers who wanted to learn more about science, the creation of a Fall Science Night to complement the annual science fair, and updating of the school’s shared stockpile of FOSS science materials. The district agreed to provide support and pay for substitutes so that teachers could conduct more grade-level planning around science.

Unfortunately, this plan was never enacted. For one, there were some staffing shifts at the district level. More critically, a new principal arrived at Maxwell shortly thereafter, and the support for science waned significantly. The focus on math and language arts, especially considering the high population of English Language Learners at the school, had taken priority at the school level, pushing back on time for science across the grades.

In spite of this disappointing setback, teachers at Maxwell have continued to independently apply what they have learned at TISS in their own classes. The use of student notebooks in a TISS-specific way, modification of FOSS lessons to be more student-centered and hands-on, and the use of focus questions for science lessons and unit planning have shown to be the enduring mainstays of the TISS pedagogy. Teacher collaboration in science lesson planning has also continued, albeit to a much lesser degree than during each teacher’s two-year TISS stint.

Most of the teachers involved in TISS continue to teach science once or twice per week for 45 minutes each session. Additionally, all but one teacher sends their students to the TISS-trained science resource specialist once a week. On average, students in these classrooms receive between 1.5 to 2 hours of science per week, during weeks where there is no testing. This is more time spent on science than non-TISS teachers at the school, who primarily teach the lower grades. This is a point of contention at the school, as students in these lower grades often only had exposure to science during their weekly session with the science resource teacher. However, TISS teachers are finding ways to not only continue to focus time on science, but also individually encourage other teachers to do the same. One TISS teacher who is now teaching Kindergarten shared that although the other K teachers were not teaching science, she “was excited about TISS and would always try to bring in the science perspective in our grade level meetings.”

This lack of abandonment of science in spite of systemic challenges, and the support teachers are providing to one another, demonstrates these teachers’ continued engagement with the content. However, it’s not just time spent on science that may signal TISS impact, but also the increased rigor in teaching methodology. Teachers reported doing more hands-on science investigations that have been very successful, as students “can manipulate the materials to answer the questions they’re trying to answer.” Many teachers are continuing to use focus or essential questions to guide their lesson planning and science instruction. The use of notebooks has also deepened and improved. One teacher notes, “I wasn’t using them in such a clear and organized way before TISS. The structure they had, with codes for investigation, notes, vocabulary, they’re more organized now after TISS.”

While on average teachers were quite positive of TISS impact, it is not always as easy job to implement. One teacher notes that since she has been implementing a more TISS-style science instruction, students “are more engaged, but in terms of classroom management it is more difficult. You really have to have the classroom management down for this to be successful.”

In the current educational climate, schools in the Bay Area are getting pushed harder and harder to focus on math and language arts. This trend persists even with the continued adoption of NGSS. While TISS cannot entirely overcome school or district pressures on teachers, it can and has encouraged individual teachers in schools to both improve science teaching, increase (or maintain) time on science, and promote some level of leadership within schools around science. The TISS model of recruiting several teachers over several years from the same school increases the chance of more school-wide penetration of science, but this study did not find strong evidence of that penetration outside of current and past TISS participants.

Creating powerful, long-term change at schools across teaching staffs within the current education climate is no small task. In light of this case study and the case study on Posey Elementary, it is clear that having both early and ongoing buy-in from administration is an essential ingredient for positive change. Considering the fluidity of administrative personnel, the TISS program should consider grooming science champions within teacher cohorts and maintaining support for them following completion of the program. Alternatively, TISS could make administrative buy-in a requisite part of school eligibility, focusing more energy on developing relationships with school leaders to facilitate some degree of science advocacy (e.g., encouraging school leaders to allow and support TISS teachers in running science workshops). Other strategies could include follow-up visits from TISS coaches or follow-up correspondence via email. As time is drained from science to boost ELA and math minutes, some science professional development groups have placed more emphasis on teaching subject integration strategies. In other words, by showing teachers how to connect subjects like ELA and science, those educators can better maintain science instruction in the midst of pressure to boost ELA minutes. Whatever direction TISS takes in its efforts to catalyze long-term staff-wide change within schools, it is quite apparent that additional resources, energy, and creativity will be requisite and TISS has a strong record of adaptability to meet shifting goals.