Effective STEM Professional Development: A Biomedical Engineering RET Site Project

摘要

The Vanderbilt University Biomedical Engineering RET Site Project was created through the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Teachers program with the goals of giving teachers a broad overview of biomedical engineering, engaging the teachers in meaningful research experiences, and helping teachers to take their research experiences back to their high school science classrooms. Forty-four teachers participated in a twenty four day summer program with academic year follow-up in which they completed a research project in a biomedical engineering laboratory, designed an instructional unit based on that research experience, and implemented it in their high school classroom. As judged by two attitude surveys given to the participants, this RET program seems to have been an effective program for engaging teachers in meaningful research experiences that allowed them to experience and understand the research process, giving them the ability to relate this to their students. Teachers were able to contribute to the overall research goal of their lab and they were able to complete a small project during their tenure in the lab. Teachers were able to develop an instructional unit based on their research experiences that helped them to bring back into their classrooms what they had learned about STEM research. The teachers' self-confidence grew along with their views of the importance of science research in the classroom and their willingness to seek help. The combination of research and structured instructional materials development based on educational research has created a highly effective professional development program for improving STEM instruction in our high schools and meeting the NSF's program goals.