Next Gen PET: A model of educational transformation

A model of educational transformation: Developing a community of faculty implementing Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (Next Gen PET)

Co-PI: Fred Goldberg, San Diego State University. Funded by: NSF. Period: September 2016 – August 2022.

This new five-year project will establish a nationwide community of faculty implementing Next Gen PET.  The Next Gen PET set of curriculum materials, recently developed with support from NSF, the Chevron Foundation and the Bechtel Foundation, consists of a set of modules that align with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and is intended mainly for an audience of prospective elementary teachers.  The community of faculty will consist of a leadership team and ten clusters, each of which will include a lead faculty member and four or five other implementers.  The whole community will document implementation strategies, challenges, and lessons learned, and each cluster will engage in action research on its implementations. Project research focuses on how the community of practice can lead to effective educational transformation. Research questions address the development and functioning of the community, its support for faculty in responding to known challenges associated with course transformation, the extent to which faculty take up the Next Gen PET materials and core pedagogical practices, and impacts on other faculty. Project evaluation will assess student outcomes in content knowledge and science and engineering practices, and these outcomes will be correlated with implementation formats. Impacts on instructor beliefs about teaching and learning will also be assessed, as well as their perceived efficacy with the curriculum.