Professional Development Aligned with AP Chemistry Curriculum

Jul 23, 2014 - This article is part of the Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry special issue. ..... during three professional development in-service day...
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Professional Development Aligned with AP Chemistry Curriculum: Promoting Science Practices and Facilitating Enduring Conceptual Understanding Deborah G. Herrington† and Ellen J. Yezierski*,‡ †

Chemistry Department, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan 49401, United States Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, United States

‡

S Supporting Information *

ABSTRACT: The recent revisions to the advanced placement (AP) chemistry curriculum promote deep conceptual understanding of chemistry content over more rote memorization of facts and algorithmic problem solving. For many teachers, this will mean moving away from traditional worksheets and verification lab activities that they have used to address the vast amounts of content in the AP chemistry course. Moreover, a substantial shift in teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning of chemistry will be needed to facilitate the transformation of their instructional practices. Research has shown that such substantial shifts in beliefs and practices also requires a shift in professional development (PD) models, away from the traditional one-day to one-week workshops and toward PD that is sustained, coherent, content- and inquiry-focused, and supported. This paper uses the Target Inquiry (TI) program as an example of this latter type of PD to highlight important considerations in developing PD experiences that will support teachers in making the instructional changes called for by the revised AP curriculum. Additionally, this paper introduces AP chemistry teachers to a set of inquiry-based chemistry activities designed and tested by teachers who have completed the TI program. A key feature of these activities is the effective blending of both chemistry content and science practices. TI teacher-developed activities, as well as teacher interviews, indicate an inclusion of more particulate-level modeling and a focus on student conceptual understanding that is strongly aligned with the revised AP curriculum. This contribution is part of a special issue on teaching introductory chemistry in the context of the advanced placement (AP) chemistry course redesign. KEYWORDS: High School/Introductory Chemistry, Continuing Education, Curriculum, Laboratory Instruction, Hands-On Learning/Manipulatives, Inquiry-Based/Discovery Learning, Professional Development, Student-Centered Learning

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INTRODUCTION It is encouraging to see the alignment between the revised AP Chemistry curriculum and research-based teaching reform documents. For example, Table 1 shows an overlap of the science practices from the revised AP Chemistry curriculum1 and the Framework for K-12 Science Education.2 Furthermore, similar to the performance assessments in the Next Generation Science Standards,3 the learning objectives in the revised AP Chemistry curriculum combine essential content and science processes. The research on teaching and learning clearly supports this instructional shift, indicating that such approaches are more likely to increase conceptual understanding in science.4 Additionally, students taught with these types of inquiry-based approaches outperform students receiving verification laboratory instruction5 and students receiving “commonplace instruction” from the same teacher.6 However, realizing the substantial shift in pedagogy called for in the revised AP Chemistry curriculum will require teachers to have access to sustained, coherent professional development (PD) as well as quality, studentcentered instructional materials aligned with the AP Chemistry curriculum goals. This paper aims to show the importance of © 2014 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

quality PD in effecting the kind of instructional change envisioned by the revised AP Chemistry curriculum as well as provide some examples of inquiry-based materials aligned with the AP Chemistry curriculum goals. The call for teachers to engage students in inquiry-based science programs to “actively develop their understanding of science by combining scientific knowledge with reasoning and thinking skills”7 (p. 2) is not new. This same call was issued two decades ago in the National Science Education Standards (NSES)7 and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy.8 Unfortunately, a recent survey of science and math education conducted by Horizon Research, Inc.9 indicates that while teachers report fairly regular student engagement in hands-on laboratory activities and requirement of students using evidence to support claims, the majority of chemistry classrooms across the country still rely heavily on lecture and discussion and students completing worksheet or textbook problems. Furthermore, the data show Special Issue: Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry Published: July 23, 2014 1368

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Table 1. Overlap of Science Practices AP Chemistry Curriculum1

Framework for K-12 Science Education2

The student can use representations and models to communicate scientific phenomena and solve scientific problems. The student can use mathematics appropriately. The student can engage in scientific questioning to extend thinking or to guide investigations within the context of the AP course. The student can plan and implement data collection strategies in relation to a particular scientific question. The student can perform data analysis and evaluation of evidence. The student can work with scientific explanations and theories. The student is able to connect and relate knowledge across various scales, concepts, and representations in and across domains.

Using mathematics and computational thinking Asking questions and defining problems Planning and carrying out investigations; Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information Analyzing and interpreting data; Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information Constructing explanations and designing solutions; Engaging in argument from evidence No specific Practice analog found, but overlap with Crosscutting Concept of scale, proportion, and quantity

that would be seen in traditional, teacher-centered instruction.11 Fortunately, PD organized around characteristics of high-quality and transformational PD can produce the kind of instructional changes that are being called for in the revised AP curriculum. Research has identified several characteristics of high quality PD:12 (1) duration, PD should be sustained over time; (2) collective participation, teachers can better integrate what they have learned when they can discuss students’ needs; (3) active learning, teachers need to be engaged in planning, discussion, and practice; (4) coherence, PD activities are part of a program and aligned with larger goals fosters deeper understanding; and (5) content/pedagogical-focus, PD should develop specific subject expertise as to how students learn the subject.

that two-thirds of the chemistry teachers who completed the survey (N = 787 teachers from across the United States) believe that students need to be taught definitions and vocabulary at the beginning of instruction on a new idea. These results tell us that teachers need more teaching materials aligned with hands-on and process-focused laboratory experiences, but that they also need to learn more about the theory and knowledge that underlie the instructional strategies required to implement the materials with fidelity.

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Developing and using models

THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN REALIZING AP CURRICULUM REFORM I think that if teachers truly have the time and the energy to do everythingnoyeah, the time and the energy to learn about inquiry and use it the right way, that they would really love it. The problem is how do you get teachers to do that? And that’s something that we [the Target Inquiry (TI) I teacher cohort] have really seen over the course of this year and trying to get teachers to use our labs and try our labs and teach [other teachers] about [the TI activities]. And I’ve really come to realize toothat I did not appreciate beforewas that just because you hand the teachers the labs, and you give them really great notes, does not mean that they’re going to use them and doesn’t mean that they can use them properly, but there are so many other things that are involved that I’m not sure that any of us truly appreciated. That it would take a lot more work to get them to that point that it is.

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EVIDENCE OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TRANSFORMING TEACHING PRACTICES Our personal experience with the Target Inquiry (TI) program has shown that a PD program incorporating these key features can help teachers construct beliefs about teaching and learning that are consistent with those embodied by the revised AP curriculum to subsequently transform teaching practices. Briefly, the TI program is a 2.5-year PD program designed to improve the frequency and quality of inquiry instruction in high school chemistry. The three key components of the TI program are a research experience for teachers (RET), inquiry materials adaptation (MA), and action research (AR) delivered over three summers with intermittent academic year coursework.13 Each cohort of teachers begins the TI program with an authentic laboratory research experience to provide them with first-hand knowledge regarding how scientists construct knowledge. Concurrent and subsequent courses facilitate the integration of this research experience into their classrooms through the design, implementation, and evaluation of inquiry-based curricula. As part of the program, each teacher develops two inquiry-based chemistry activities complete with accompanying teacher guides which include important materials preparation and disposal, facilitation tips, typical student data/outcomes, answer keys, and in several cases additional assessment questions. The quality of the teacher developed materials is ensured through a process of development, piloting of the activities with the teacher cohort and revising the activities based on feedback before implementing them the classroom, and collecting student level data to inform further revisions. Although these teacher designed and tested materials are important products of the TI program and can serve as excellent resources for other chemistry teachers, the critical outcomes of this process are that teachers have shifted

Comment from AP Chemistry teacher after completion of the Target Inquiry program (bolded emphasis is ours)

This teacher’s statement describes the difficulty that she and many of her colleagues experienced as they tried to help other chemistry teachers effectively implement activities they developed as part of the Target Inquiry (TI) professional development program. Namely, well designed materials with comprehensive teacher guides and facilitation notes are not implemented with fidelity if teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning chemistry are not aligned with the theories that underlie the materials.10 This same result can be expected if AP Chemistry teachers are simply handed materials, even well designed materials, without beliefs about teaching and learning that are consistent with student-centered instructional methods. As most teachers’ science education experiences relied heavily on traditional lecture and verification methods, they tend toward these methods in their own classrooms and will often adapt student-centered materials to resemble materials and methods 1369

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their beliefs about the process of science14 and teaching and learning science,15 have transformed their teaching practices to better align with research proven practices,16 and now have the tools necessary to continue to reform their teaching practices. The program outcomes are best summarized by one TI teacher: I guess it has changed the way I think.... But what TI did for me is bridge the gap between what I think and believe and what I practice... And it also not only started to bridge that gap, it’s given me the tools that I can see one of these days, they may actually meet each other, and that’s exciting to me.

[TI] changed how I think and how I do things in a way that certainly no 1 week or a 2 day or a conference is going to do because it’s a mindset, and you don’t change a mindset in 1 day or 1 afternoon or 1 45 minute session; all you can give is little pieces that somebody might plug into their current curriculum, so now they have a new demo to do, but it doesn’t really change anything in a major way. The second major teacher concern Benigna and Hnatow18 identified was “accessing appropriate professional development support.” We share this concern. While there are certainly a number of programs across the country that, much like TI, incorporate the key features of effective PD, these programs are fewer in number and markedly different from the shorter-term workshops that make up the majority of teacher PD across the U.S. In fact one TI AP chemistry teacher sees the program as so different from other PD she has participated in over her career, she puts TI in a different category of experiences than PD: I don’t really consider this to be professional development because to me professional development is a two hour session or whatever, where you walk in you learn something, you’re like oh that’s cool and then you leave and that’s it. And I get it, this is actually the ultimate professional development if you are truly going to think about this [but] I don’t think of it in terms of that. The good news is that research shows that programs like TI, which incorporate key features of PD, can provide adequate support for teachers to make substantial instructional reforms like those called for in the revised AP Chemistry curriculum. Furthermore, the activities developed and tested by TI teachers, which they all admit are made infinitely better through piloting and revising with their colleagues in their cohorts, are available free to all teachers.

TI Teacher, postprogram

From the perspective of the AP community, it is important to note that in interviews conducted following the MA and AR components of the TI program, teachers, several of whom were AP chemistry teachers, identified key changes to their classrooms that parallel instructional changes outlined in the revised AP Chemistry curriculum. This is not surprising given the similarities between the literature and theory bases of TI and those of the new AP documents. In fact, The AP Chemistry Guided-Inquiry Experiments17 document specifically calls for teachers to develop an understanding of inquiry instruction (p. 14), essential features of inquiry (p. 15), and the learning cycle (p. 15). These are addressed throughout the TI program as teachers develop an understanding of how students learn and effective techniques to promote conceptual understanding in chemistry. Teachers reported on the value of understanding how students learn, ways to implement this knowledge in the classroom, and how this has influenced their teaching practices. And I think that the big thing now is that I’m much more interested in developing students’ thoughts and ideas and concepts, or I think I wanted that beforehand again, but I just didn’t know how to do that. But I think I am better at that now than I was before. My focus was on my curriculum, and like how the sheet looked, and you know how the kids were going to read it, and I think I’m more focused now on thinking more about how the kids perceive things, and how they experience things, and that the curriculum is part of that experience, but more focused on what’s going on with them, as opposed to what am I throwing in front of them. The themes that emerged from the analysis of the teacher interviews (N = 22) about their experiences in TI and key changes to their classrooms are summarized in Table 2 and are organized around key excerpts from the AP Chemistry Guided Inquiry Experiments,17 along with representative teacher quotations. These teacher comments indicate that adequate PD experiences can help address major teacher concerns about the AP Chemistry redesign. According to a presentation at the 2012 Annual AP Conference by Jamie Benigna and John Hnatow,18 the first major teacher concern about the new curriculum was “getting students to think conceptually.” As shown in Table 2, TI teachers were focused on substantive conceptual development and understanding and were given the background, tools, and supports to modify their teaching away from facts and memorization toward conceptual depth and understanding. However, these types of sustained instructional changes do not happen overnight or as the result in a 1 day or 1 week workshop. In the words of one of the TI teachers:

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TEACHER-DEVELOPED AND TESTED CLASSROOM MATERIALS ALIGNED WITH NEW AP CHEMISTRY CURRICULUM Even when teachers have adequate PD, supports to enact reform, and personal beliefs about teaching and learning aligned with the revised AP Chemistry curriculum, it is likely that many realize that past worksheets and verification laboratory activities are no longer appropriate. Materials teachers used to enable them to progress through the extensive amount of content in a given school year are now misaligned with the new AP learning objectives and will not serve to prepare their students for the revised AP Chemistry exam. Furthermore, simply incorporating new laboratory activities from the revised AP laboratory manual into their curriculum is a great start, but it is not enough. In the AP Chemistry Course and Exam Description document1 the College Board calls for the use of inquiry instruction, which they define as “any teaching method that encourages students to construct and/or discover knowledge with an understanding of how scientists study the natural world,” that goes beyond the laboratory investigations to include classroom activities. Though there are certainly other sources of good materials, the TI Web site offers more than 40 teacher-designed and tested laboratory and classroom activities.19 Several of these activities were developed by AP chemistry teachers and have been used in AP chemistry classes as well as college general chemistry classes. Several of the activities have also been used by AP consultants in AP chemistry workshops. Each activity is accompanied by a teacher guide including important supporting information such as materials preparation and disposal, facilitation tips, typical student data/outcomes, answer keys, and in several cases additional assessment questions. The majority of these activities 1370

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Excerpt from AP Chemistry Guided Inquiry Experiments

In a guided-inquiry laboratory, the instructor’s main role is to serve as a facilitator who listens to students and asks guiding questions rather than providing answers.17 (p. 20)

The AP Chemistry course addresses this challenge [balancing breadth of content coverage with depth of understanding] by focusing on a model of instruction which promotes enduring, conceptual understandings and the content that supports them. This approach enables students to spend less time on factual recall and more time on inquiry-based learning of essential concepts, and helps them develop the reasoning skills necessary to engage in the science practices used throughout their study of AP Chemistry.17 (p.7)

By doing an experiment in a traditional manner, students may become proficient in basic manipulative skills, and they may have some insights that bolster their conceptual understanding. Educational research, however, tends to indicate the vast majority of students doing traditional laboratory experiments will often miss basic concepts. Traditional labs offer little hope that they develop any sense of the scientific process and the nature of science. Students in traditional labs miss the opportunity to develop the skill of designing an experiment to answer a research question. Finally, the prescriptive nature of the traditional lab often means students will be unable to apply what they have learned to slightly different situations.17 (p. 13)

Emergent Theme

Teacher as Facilitator

Developing Conceptual Understanding/DeEmphasizing Factual Recall

Discovery and Design Rather than Verification

I try to open them up a little bit more and be less directing and more facilitating. So instead of telling everybody what these three or four items are to be used for, I simply say, and how to use them, I say okay here are some materials you have, and you can use them to meet this end goal. I’m not necessarily going to tell you how to use them, but this is what you have to work with. I think I’m much more a hands-on instructor and I have tried to learn to answer questions with questions, so that the students can figure out the answers. Well I think I have def initely moved away f rom memorized processes f rom learning a specif ic kind of mathematical step and doing that same thing for a hundred dif ferent problems towards a conceptual understanding of chemistry, and seeing that, you have to have the conceptual side in order to have the kids to be able to really work with and understand the mathematical side. ...allowing students to question what they thought they knew and it’s been really neat for me to see that a lot of students don’t understand how they think and they are so, I don’t wanna say brainwashed, but they have been taught to memorize and they’ve been taught to be given information without really processing if it’s true or not. I think I focus more on particulate level than I ever did before. I think that’s the biggest concept change for me, so I tend to always come back to that. I don’t know if I just do that or if the process of inquiry has made them relate it back, but I hear students when they’re in their group discussion coming back to the particulate level and explaining things to their partners. I think I’ve changed around what would be the design labs, where they have to come up with the experiment themselves and gotten better ways to teach it to them. I think that all of my labs have changed [since completing TI], they really have... [All I thought about was] what it is students need to know, what backgrounds might they need, but then I try, and what will they be able to do on their own? Before my labs were all about eff iciency  Let’s get it done in 45 minutes, and have it all wrapped up; everybody gets the same answer. And now it’s much more what thought process are they going to need to go though. I think I’ve become more focused on experienced experiential learning and trying to get the kids to actually discover things and actually pull things out of labs. And, learning through their experiences in inquiry versus here’s the lab, do it; we will talk about it brief ly and move on. It is more about focusing on what the kids need to learn, and getting them to f igure it out.

Representative Teacher Quotation(s)

Table 2. Themes from Teacher Interviews Aligned with AP Chemistry Guided Inquiry Experiments with Illustrative Teacher Quotes

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Table 3. Alignment of TI Activities with AP Chemistry Enduring Understandings Activity Title World in a Box

a

Particulate modeling of solid, liquid, gas, element, compound, mixture

Trend Setter

Periodic trends

Part 1:Change You Can Believe Ina Part 2:The Only Constant is Change22

Symbolic, particulate, and macro treatment of chemical and physical changes

What Happens to Atoms as They Interact - An Introductiona May the Force be with Youa

Ionic, polar covalent, nonpolar covalent bonding; electronegativity Intermolecular forces

How Many Reactants Does it Take to Make a Producta

Balancing equations, classifying reaction types

Iron Transitions

Very Cool Activity (Thermochemistry)

Redox 1/2 reactions; assigning oxidation numbers Model of voltaic cell - introduction to electrochemistry Enthalpy of dissolving, Thermochemistry

Red Alert

Reaction rates

My Acid Can Beat Up Your Acida25 This Lab is Chaos

Acid strength; dilute v. concentrated acids Enthalpy and entropy; basic thermo

All Things Being Equala26

Equilibrium, Le Chatelier’s Principle

Energizer Laba23

a

AP Enduring Understanding1

Concepts Addressed

1.A: All matter is made of atoms. There are a limited number of types of atoms; these are the elements. 1.D: Atoms are so small that they are difficult to study directly; atomic models are constructed to explain experimental data on collections of atoms. 1.C: Elements display periodicity in their properties when organized by increasing atomic number. Periodicity is a useful principle for predicting trends in properties. 1.E: Atoms are conserved in physical and chemical processes. 2.A: Matter can be described by its physical properties. The physical properties of a substance generally depend on the spacing between the particles and the forces of attraction among them. 3.C: Chemical and physical transformations maybe observed in several ways and typically involve a change in energy. 2.C: The strong electrostatic forces of attraction holding atoms together in a unit are called chemical bonds. 2.B: Forces of attraction between particles are important in determining macroscopic properties of a substance. 3.A: Chemical changes are represented by a balanced chemical equation that identifies the ratios with which reactants react and products form. 3.B: Chemical reactions can be classified by considering what the reactants are, what the products, are or how they change from one into the other. 3.B (see above) 3.C (see above) 5.A: Two systems with different temperatures that are in thermal contact will exchange energy. The quantity of thermal energy that is transferred from one system to another is called heat. 5.B: Energy is neither created or destroyed, but only transformed from one form to another. 4.A: Reaction rates that depend on temperature another environmental factors are determined by measuring changes in concentration of reactants or products over time. 6.C: Chemical equilibrium plays an important role in acid−base chemistry and in solubility. 5.E: Chemical or physical process are driven by a decrease in enthalpy or an increase in entropy or both 6.A: Chemical equilibrium is a dynamic, reversible state in which rats of opposing process are equal. 6.B: Systems at equilibrium are responsive to external perturbations, with the response leading to a change in the composition of the system.

Activities that involve the use of particulate level models.

which assesses essential knowledge 3.B.3: In redox reactions, there is a net transfer of electrons, students are told that vitamin C can help with iron uptake and are then asked to design a procedure to investigate the effects of vitamin C and hydrogen peroxide on iron in the body. The structure of this activity is in alignment with SP 4: The student can plan and implement data collection strategies in relation to a particular scientif ic question. The use of an indicator results in colored solutions which students can then compare to the standard solutions of Fe2+ (blue) and Fe3+ (orange). To assist students with the development of the procedure, they are first asked to consider several questions (for example, “Your body is a salt-water solution. What happens to iron metal when it is placed in salt water? Provide evidence to support your answer.”) and provided with a list of materials available [iron nails, salt solution (for body), well plates, indicator solution, vitamin C pellets, 3% solution of H2O2, and other general equipment]. The only step that students are told they are required to perform is adding the indicator solution to each of their test solutions. Students are then asked to use the results of their test solutions and the colors of the standard iron solutions to determine the effect that vitamin C and H2O2 each have on iron in the body, providing evidence for their claims, which is aligned with SP 5: The student can perform data analysis and evaluation of evidence. All Things Being Equal, on the other hand, has students investigate chemical equilibrium and Le Chatelier’s Principle at both the macroscopic and particulate levels which aligns with essential knowledge 6.B.1: Le Chatelier’s Principle and 6.B.2:

can be classified as structured inquiry or guided inquiry. For the structured inquiry activities, students are given the question to investigate and the procedure but have to construct an answer to the question from the data. For the guided inquiry activities, students are given the question but have to design their own procedure to answer the question1 (p. 110). In addition to being written and tested by the TI teachers, TI classroom materials were evaluated in comparison to inquiry lessons from other RETbased PD programs for high school chemistry teachers. Although the other programs had some similarities to TI, they had fewer program components than TI. The TI materials ranked higher with respect to features supporting inquiry found in the NSES20 than the teacher-designed lessons generated from the other programs.21 The quality of the TI activities is further evidenced by their publication in scholarly journals that serve chemistry teachers.22−26 All but one of the authors for these five published activities teach AP Chemistry or college chemistry. Table 3 provides an example of how some of the teacher developed TI activities align with the revised AP chemistry curriculum Enduring Understandings. A table with more TI activities can be found in the Supporting Information. A focus of the TI program was helping teachers to develop activities that model for students the processes that scientists use. Thus, in aligning with the revised AP chemistry curriculum, these activities address core chemistry content while simultaneously engaging students in one or more of the Science Practices (SP) for AP Chemistry.1 For example, in the Iron Transitions activity 1372

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IMPLICATIONS FOR AP CHEMISTRY TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TI is a good example of a PD program that produces the types of changes in teaching that are prescribed in the AP Chemistry curriculum. However, we assert that any PD program aligned with best practices in PD can help to advance the aims of the College Board and support teachers in robust implementations that fulfill the mission of the curriculum. We also assert that the new curriculum requires new PD offerings for teachers. The nature of this PD reform must go beyond teaching AP Chemistry instructors new strategies. Loucks-Horsley and colleagues29 straightforwardly state key features of PD reforms that resonate with the needs for the new AP Chemistry PD. “Simply changing the way it [PD] is provided ... without changing its content, focus, and duration is not the answer” (p. 332). That being said, one major strength of the current AP Chemistry PD is the deep content focus of the AP workshops which aligns well with findings from Garet et al.12 However, one important caveat comes from their quantitative findings on the relationship between features of PD and teacher outcomes, which showed that “activities that are content focused, but do not increase teachers’ knowledge and skills, have a negative association with changes in teacher practice” (p. 934). This means that attention must be devoted to increasing teachers’ pedagogical skills which requires more than just providing teachers information about learning theories and the learning cycle. It requires engaging teachers in activities to help them develop a deep and personal understanding of these theories. One of TI’s most unique features is its duration. This may be the most worthwhile PD feature for AP PD providers to focus on as they generate new PD approaches to support AP Chemistry teachers. Loucks-Horsley and colleagues29 state that effective PD “cannot happen in a one-shot workshops, during three professional development in-service days a year, or by attending several seminars that are disconnected from each other in their content and focus ... the idea of building new understandings through active engagement in a variety of experiences over time, and doing so with others in supportive learning environments, is critical for effective professional development” (p. 82). The study by Garet et al.12 found that “professional development is likely to be of higher quality if it is both sustained over time and involves a substantial number of hours” (p. 933). The findings from our study of the TI program echo this, as we have heard TI teachers again and again express the importance of time and support in reforming their instruction.

A disturbance to a system at equilibrium causes Q to dif fer f rom K. First, students are introduced to the concept of dynamic equilibrium using the common analogy of water being exchanged between two beakers, a variation of a demonstration published in this journal.27 Students use this physical model to construct an understanding of the dynamic aspect of equilibrium and confront ̈ idea that at equilibrium the concentration of the common naive the reactants is equal to the concentration of the products. This first part of the activity supports SP 1: The student can use representations and models to communicate scientif ic phenomena and solve scientif ic problems. In the second part of the activity, students examine the effects that changes in concentration or temperature have on the position of two different chemical equilibrium systems (the thiocyanatoiron and cobalt(II) chloride systems). From these results students are asked to determine how the addition or removal of reactants affects an equilibrium system (SP 5). Finally, students construct a particulate model of the thiocyanatoiron equilibrium system using colorless chips and two sided math counters (bingo chips with one side yellow and the other side red).28 As a result, students must connect what they observed in the macroscopic systems in part two with what they model at the particulate level in part three, which is aligned with SP 1 and SP 7: The student is able to connect and relate knowledge across various scales, concepts, and representations in and across domains. With respect to the particulate domain, almost half of TI activities involve the use of some type of particulate level models, such as the one described for All Things Being Equal, to help students construct conceptual understanding of a topic (indicated in Table 3 with and asterisk (*)). It is important to recognize that the revisions to the AP chemistry curriculum will require substantial changes to teaching practices, and many teachers will naturally have concerns. Through the TI program, we worked with a number of excellent teachers, who initially expressed apprehension about giving over some of the control to their students and no longer being the primary source of information. They worried that they would not be able to cover the requisite amount of content and that not all students would construct the same ideas. However, at the end of the TI program, all of the teachers identified ways that inquiry-based instruction had transformed their classrooms and their students. In particular, teachers talked about students having a better understanding of the concepts and focusing more on understanding than memorization, remembering the activities and retaining information, and becoming more independent in their learning. The following comments from teachers describe the changes they observed in their students as they incorporated inquiry-based instruction into their classrooms and clearly support the revisions to the AP curriculum. My students are weaned off of me a lot more now, they don’t follow me around the classroom and ask me, can you help me with number three? They are more leaning on each other; it is more a community of learners. I think something has changed for them in what they are frustrated about. It used to be about getting the right answer or making sure you measured the chemical exactly the way the procedure said to do, and there is still a certain amount of that, but there is also more frustration with the actual concept instead of details. I think I get better overall performance out of the students, because they actually try to understand concepts more so for the whole thing versus trying to just look at it and just memorize the facts for the answers for the test. They can actually look at data and make their own conclusions about it, more so than at the beginning.

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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The AP Chemistry revisions strongly align with national reforms in high school science teaching and hold great promise for increased success in AP Chemistry teaching and learning. The changes that TI teachers have reported in their students are not only supported by the TI materials but also the growth in teachers’ knowledge about how to teach using inquiry. What is needed for PD associated with the revised AP Chemistry curriculum is informed by the core experiences and supporting features of TI, as they are based on the literature on effective teacher PD. Although this may mean dramatic reform for the AP Chemistry PD model, as the College Board and school districts continue to support AP Chemistry teachers with PD efforts, we encourage them to examine programs aligned with best PD practices. Programs like TI can serve as models for new and better approaches to enhancing AP Chemistry teacher knowledge 1373

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Journal of Chemical Education

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Professional Development; Wojnowski, B. S., Pea, C. H., Eds.; NSTA Press: Arlington, VA, 2014; pp 33−44. (12) Garet, M.; Porter, A.; Desimone, L.; Birman, B.; Yoon, K. What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results from a National Sample of Teachers. Am. Educ. Res. J. 2001, 38 (4), 915−945. (13) For a detailed description of the Target Inquiry program and its evaluation see Yezierski, E. J.; Herrington, D. G. The Road to Scientific Literacy: How Target Inquiry is Improving Instruction and Student Achievement in High School Chemistry. In Exemplary Science: Best Practices in Professional Development, revised 2nd ed.; Koba, S. B., Wojnowski, B. S., Eds.; NSTA Press: Arlington, VA., 2013; pp 11−130. (14) Kennedy, L. M.; Yezierski, E. J.; Herrington, D. G. Whose Science is it Anyway? Models of Science According to Chemistry Students, Faculty, and Teachers. Sci. Educator 2008, 17 (1), 1−9. (15) Herrington, D. G.; Yezierski, E. J.; Luxford, K. M.; Luxford, C. J. Target Inquiry: Changing Chemistry High School Teachers’ Beliefs about Inquiry Instruction and Their Classroom Practice. Chem. Educ. Res. Prac. 2011, 12 (1), 74−84. (16) Yezierski, E. J.; Herrington, D. G. Improving Practice with Target Inquiry: High School Chemistry Teacher Professional Development that Works. Chem. Educ. Res. Prac. 2011, 12 (3), 344−354. (17) College Board. AP Chemistry Guided Inquiry Experiments: Applying the Science Practices. College Board: New York, NY, 2013. (18) Benigna, J.; Hnatow, J. Understanding the Redesigned AP Chemistry Course: Curriculum and Science Practices for AP Chemistry. Presented at 2012 AP Annual Conference, July 20, 2012. http://media. collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/apac/2012apac/APACAPChemistryRevisions.pdf (accessed Apr. 2014). (19) Teachers can access TI activities by going to the website (www. gvsu.edu/targetinquiry), clicking on the teaching materials link, and registering for a login and password. Registration is free. (20) National Research Council. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards; The National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2000. (21) Herrington, D.; Luxford, K.; Yezierski, E. Target Inquiry: Helping Teachers use a Research Experience to Transform their Teaching Practices. J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89 (3), 442−448. (22) Bridle, C. A.; Yezierski, E. J. Evidence for the Effectiveness of Inquiry-Based, Particulate-Level Instruction on Conceptions of the Particulate Nature of Matter. J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89 (2), 192−198. (23) Cullen, D. M.; Pentecost, T. C. A Model Approach to the Electrochemical Cell: An Inquiry Activity. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88 (11), 1562−1564. (24) Herrington, D.; Scott, P. Get in the Game with Team Density. Sci. Teach. 2011, 78 (4), 58−61. (25) Putti, A. JCE Classroom Activity #109: My Acid Can Beat Up Your Acid! J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88 (9), 1279−1280. (26) Putti, A. All Things Being Equal. Sci. Teach. 2012, 79 (7), 58−63. (27) Kauffman, G. B. Dynamic Equilibrium A Student Demonstration. J. Chem. Educ. 1959, 36 (3), 150. (28) The reactant particles are represented by the colorless (SCN−) and yellow side of dual sided chip (Fe3+). The product (FeSCN2+) is made by flipping over the dual sided chip over to the red side and placing a colorless chip on top. (29) Loucks-Horsley, S.; Love, N.; Stiles, K. E.; Mundry, S.; Hewson, P. W. Designing Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics; Corwin Press: Thousand Oaks, CA, 2003.

and practices. We assert that without this type of PD that many of the instructional reforms envisioned in the revised AP Chemistry curriculum may not be realized in practice.

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ASSOCIATED CONTENT

S Supporting Information *

A complete table of Alignment of TI Activities with AP Chemistry Enduring Understandings organizes the available TI materials according to the new AP Chemistry curriculum.This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Author

*E-mail: [email protected]. Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are grateful for the TI teachers’ participation and long-term commitment to student learning. We thank Grand Valley State University, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the National Science Foundation for their financial support. We also thank reviewers, Stephanie Philipp, and Justin Carmel for their editorial suggestions. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials are those of the TI project and do not necessarily reflect the views of our financial supporters.

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REFERENCES

(1) College Board. AP Chemistry Course and Exam Description, effective Fall 2013 revised ed.; College Board: New York, NY, 2013; http:// media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-chemistry-courseand-exam-description.pdf (accessed Apr. 2014). (2) National Research Council. A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas; The National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2012; pp 41−82. (3) NGSS Lead States. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. The National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2013. (4) Minner, D. D.; Levy, A. J.; Century, J. Inquiry-Based Science InstructionWhat is it and Does it Matter? Results from Research Synthesis from Years 1984 to 2002. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 2010, 47 (4), 474− 496. (5) Blanchard, M. R.; Southerland, S. A.; Osborne, J. W.; Sampson, V. D.; Annetta, L. A.; Granger, E. M. Is Inquiry Possible in Light of Accountability? A Quantitative Comparison of the Relative Effectiveness of Guided Inquiry and Verification Laboratory Instruction. Sci. Educ. 2010, 94 (4), 577−616. (6) Wilson, C. D.; Taylor, J. A.; Kowalski, S. M.; Carlson, J. Relative Effects and Equity of Inquiry-Based and Commonplace Science Teaching on Students’ Knowledge, Reasoning, and Argumentation. J. Res. Sci. Teach 2010, 47 (3), 276−301. (7) National Research Council. National Science Education Standards; The National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 1996. (8) American Association for the Advancement of Science. Benchmarks for Science Literacy; American Association for the Advancement of Science: Washington, DC, 1993. (9) Smith, P. S. 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education: Status of High School Chemistry; Horizon Research, Inc.: Chapel Hill, NC, 2013. (10) Roehrig, G. H.; Kruse, R. A. The Role of Teachers’ Beliefs and Knowledge in the Adoption of a Reform-Based Curriculum. Sch. Sci. Math. 2005, 105 (8), 412−422. (11) Krajcik. J. The Importance of Viable Models in the Construction Professional Development. In Models and Approaches to STEM 1374

dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed5000668 | J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91, 1368−1374