The Impact of Teacher Leaders on Students' Achievement In Science

Authors: Dan Hanley, Phil Buly

Figure 1 below illustrates the development and retention of TLs' content knowledge due to their participation in NCOSP SAs, as measured by pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests.

Figure 1:  Increases in Teacher Leader content knowledge resulting from 2004, 2005 and 2006 NCOSP Summer Academies. (95% Confidence Intervals bars shown).

On surveys at the end of each NCOSP SA, teachers responded to "retrospective" questions in which they rated their understandings before and after the academy in a number of areas that reflect the important aspects of effective instruction (Bransford et al., 2000). The results in Table 1 below suggest that each SA helped increase teachers' understanding of effective teaching and learning in science. Additionally, there was a significant increase over the three SAs in the percentage of teachers beginning the SA with a clear understanding of effective teaching and learning in science.

Table 1:  Inservice teachers' responses to a survey administered at the end of each Summer Academy.

Rate your understanding of the topics below both BEFORE and AFTER your Summer Academy (SA) experience.	% Clear to Very Clear Understanding
	SA 2004 (N=144) Before/After		SA 2005 (N=152 ) Before/After		SA 2006 (N=130) Before/After
How to elicit students' thinking	46	90	68	92	70	98
How to help students construct their understandings	49	91	60	90	66	96
How students learn science	59	95	79	98	81	99
My own learning process	72	98	87	99	90	100

These increases in NCOSP teacher leaders' content knowledge and understanding of effective instruction have had positive impacts on the science achievement of their K-12 students, particularly for those students who had a teacher leader for more than one year (Figure 2). We also observed differential benefits for various subgroups of students (e.g., Special education, Hispanic, students qualifying for Free/Reduced lunch program). These students tested significantly higher on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) in science when taught by NCOSP teacher leaders (Figure 3).

Figure 2:  Students with more contact with NCOSP Teacher Leaders show significantly higher levels of proficiency on the science WASL in 5th and 10th grade.

Figure 3:  In 2005 through 2007 several subgroup populations scored higher with NCOSP Teacher Leaders. (Positive effect sizes indicate higher test scores from students with teacher leaders).