Contextualized Content Courses: Lessons Learned and Implications
Six claims are developed in this presentation:
1. Middle and high school teachers consider Contextualized Content Courses (CCCs) to be a successful model for providing challenging content knowledge when particular course attributes are present.
2. CCCs overall provide a positive professional development experience for Boston Public Schools teachers, including increasing their content knowledge and providing new teaching strategies.
3. Collaborations between Boston Public Schools teachers and STEM faculty co-instructors provide an effective teaching model for the CCCs, and offer an array of positive impacts for all members of the instructional teams. These impacts translate into instructors' teaching and professional lives.
4. Teacher involvement in CCCs, either as participants or instructors, can increase student achievement on related course content.
5. CCCs produced continued measurable gains in content knowledge of participating BPS teachers. Preliminary findings also indicate successful differentiation of instruction in the lowest level biology and chemistry courses.
6. Teachers who teach more material related to their summer course during the year following the CCCs experience significantly higher retention and understanding of the course material several months later than those who do not.
