The impact of field experiences in Yellowstone National Park on practice in secondary classrooms
Abstract
The current study focused on how six participants of a 2009 professional development activity at Yellowstone National Park described their experience and classroom instructional impact. The author focused on words and phrases illustrating perspective gathering, reflection and public performance to determine the impact of both the experience at Yellowstone National Park and the impact of that experience on the participants' classroom instructional practices. Using transcriptions of participants' reflective journals, semi-structure interview responses, as well as the author's hand-written observation journal notes, the author described a shared experience of the participants. The shared experience illustrated that there was evidence that the experience had an impact on the participants, but that there was very little evidence to show that there was any impact from the experience on the six teachers' classroom practices. The author described a number of limitations about the current study, as well as provided suggestions for future research that could overcome those limitations. These included strategies for collecting more data about the participants. Those data would reflect the reasons teachers choose to teach. In addition, the author suggested that data should be collected about the level of support teachers are provided by their school administration for making curricular decisions, the teacher's previous professional development experiences, and to determine the impact of statewide high stakes assessments on teacher instructional decision-making.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
VanFossen, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Teacher education|Secondary education|Social studies education
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