New Report: Strengthening After-School STEM Staff Development

Posted by on June 15, 2009

Two new reports from the Coalition for Science After School:

In 2008, with funding from The Noyce Foundation, CSAS undertook a review of staff development for after-school STEM.  A select group of CSAS members, representing key staff development providers, formed a community of practice.  The discussions of that community, combined with the existing research base (summarized in a Research Brief), were used to create the report, Strengthening After-School STEM Staff Development.  I hope you will find the report useful in defining the need for after-school STEM staff development, a range of strategies, and the priorities for future projects.

Report: http://www.scienceafterschool.org/pdfs/CSAS_Staff_Development_2009.pdf

Staff Capacity and PD page:
http://www.scienceafterschool.org/case_comm_staff.html

Research Brief: http://www.scienceafterschool.org/pdfs/StaffDevelopment.pdf

Also in 2008, CSAS conducted a market study in partnership with the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment (REA) at the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS), University of California, Berkeley, with funding from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. The purpose of the market study was to help answer some highly practical questions for CSAS, including: Which after-school programs are doing science? What exactly are they doing? What are their needs? By collecting data that answered these questions, CSAS proposed to gain a greater understanding of existing science programs in after-school settings.  Among our key findings: 88% of after-school programs surveyed are offering science; 80% consider science a priority; but, very few are offering consistent programming, using curricula that has been designed and tested for after-school, and supporting the programming with staff development and evaluation.

Market Study:
http://www.scienceafterschool.org/pdfs/CSAS_Market_Study2008.pdf

As with all CSAS publications, these reports are designed to support your planning and implementation of future projects to the benefit of the after-school STEM field.  Please feel free to distribute them to your partners and funders, and contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you again to our funders – the Noyce Foundation and the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation – for their support of this work.

Coalition for Science After School
WEB: http://www.ScienceAfterSchool.org
BLOG: http://scienceafterschool.blogspot.com/