Classroom of the Future™ Session Shines at Conference
Wed Nov 14 2007
The NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future's NASA Explorer Schools session presentation proved a hit at Evaluation 2007: Evaluation and Learning, the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association held Nov. 7-10 in Baltimore.
More than 50 people participated in the session led by Laurie Ruberg and Karen Chen of the Classroom of the Future™ and Center for Educational Technologies®. Their session, titled "Value-added Assessment: Teacher Training Designed to Improve Student Achievement," highlighted the data and analysis resulting from the three-year evaluation of the NASA Explorer Schools (NES) program completed by the Classroom of the Future.
This evaluation report was of interest to many attending this conference because it addressed a key concern across federal programs: Can effective teacher professional development have a stronger influence on student achievement than demographic factors? The evaluation concluded that NES met or exceeded guidelines for implementing the program and showed significant increases in use of effective teaching strategies, integration of educational technology, family involvement, and student interest and achievement in science and math.
In addition, Chen presented a poster session at the conference on the NES evaluation. "Promoting STEM Through Professional Development: Learning from Evaluation" was coauthored by Ruberg and Judy Martin. The poster session covered the mixed-method design used to evaluate NES and the various qualitative data analyzed, which revealed emerging trends consistent with quantitative results the evaluation team had gathered.
