Although Lesson Study keeps the focus on student learning, where it belongs, it’s expensive because substitutes must cover for the teachers who are observing, says Roehrig. As co-director of Minnesota’s Math and Science Teacher Partnership, a statewide professional development program for K–12 science and math teachers, Roehrig instead fosters what educators call “professional learning communities.” Science and math teachers are allowed paid time to meet at the school after hours to discuss what worked in the classroom and how they can improve next time.

Teams of science teachers can also help develop an inquiry-based curriculum. Ninety-six middle school science teachers from Loudoun County Public Schools in Northern Virginia collaborated with faculty at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania, over five years to develop an inquiry-based middle school science curriculum. When that HHMI-funded program ended in 2008, about a dozen of the teachers began meeting each summer to update and expand the curriculum, which now underlies middle school science instruction countywide, and to design HHMI-funded training programs for their colleagues around the district. Now “the teachers own the program,” says Odette Scovel, the district’s K–12 science supervisor.

		Making Inquiry Elementary Teaching through inquiry poses special challenges to elementary school teachers. Read More STEM Teaching 2.0 What does it take to upgrade a STEM teacher’s abilities? Read More

Help for Rookies

Peer support is particularly important for new teachers, who struggle to get the hang of content and lesson plans as well as issues that more experienced teachers have mastered, such as how to manage their classrooms and deal with student misbehavior, says Francis Eberle, president of NSTA. In the past, fledgling teachers were often tossed into the classroom to sink or swim. That still happens, but today more school districts try to ease their transition into the job, a process educators call “induction.”

It’s important that induction for new science teachers focus on teaching science, and not simply teaching, according to research by Luft and Roehrig. Teachers in science-specific induction programs use more inquiry-based lessons than those in general induction programs or those who’ve had no induction at all, the two reported in 2003 in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching. And teaching habits acquired early often last. Those first years are “when teachers are really forming who they’re going to be as teachers,” Roehrig says.

And beginning science teachers still need strong support during their second year, according to Luft. Otherwise they’re apt to revert to the easier but less effective methods that rely on lectures and textbooks, her group reported in 2011 in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

One common strategy is to appoint as a mentor a more experienced teacher who covers the same subject and grade level. NSTA and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics have called for more intensive induction programs in which competent, experienced science and math teachers mentor novices. But “there are actually very few” good induction programs, says NSTA’s Eberle.

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