Inventory and Assessment of K-12 and PTD Programs

Inventory and Assessment of K-12 and Professional Teacher Development Programs in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System

E. RESULTS

Results are divided into five areas based on the study objectives. They are:

Program Design and Implementation
National and State Educational Standards
Program Evaluation and Performance Measurement
National or System-Wide Program or Activity
Capacity Building

The findings and discussion that follow are based on the surveys and follow-up interviews of the staff, as well as a review of other coastal related educational programs.

While performing the analysis, the study team conducted several cluster analyses (Tukey post hoc) hoping to find two or three recurring distinct groups to categorize the Reserves and to determine specific needs and make recommendations according to their needs. From the cluster analyses it is clear that no distinct groups are found. This supports our earlier assessment that the differences among the Reserves is most likely due to their diverse group of state partners, and the status of the education system and political climate in each Reserve’s state.

Program Design and Implementation

Program design and implementation is a critical objective for this study. Several study questions determine how programs are developed at each Reserve. The key internal and external influences that affect K-12 and PTD program development are reported in this section.

One of the questions on the individual online survey asks each EC to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 equals not at all and 5 equals very much) “How important are the following in your decision to develop and offer this program?” There were seven factors in the question and their means are reported as follows:

K-12 Programs

The two main influences for K-12 programs are it is frequently requested and it is part of a Reserve initiative. To a lesser extent, ECs feel that school districts or individual school curriculum influence the development of their programs.

PTD Programs

Factor	Mean
It is part of a Reserve initiative	3.95
It is frequently requested	3.66
It fits school district curriculum	3.38
It fits and individual school’s curriculum	3.34
It meets funding agency’s guidelines	2.70
It has been done for a long time	2.18
Conducted a needs assessment	1.93

Similar to K-12 programs, PTD program’s two main influences are it is part of a Reserve initiative and it is frequently requested, although reversed in importance. To a lesser extent the factors it fits a school district or individual school curriculum influence the development of their programs.

To gain more detailed information about program development, some questions in the telephone interview focus on program ideas and target audience. The telephone interview question “How do you come up with ideas for programs?” elicits these common responses from ECs:

K-12 Programs

Reserve research
Tradition
Teacher requests
Adapt ideas from other Reserves
Adapt ideas from other environmental education providers
Informally determine gaps that need to be filled

PTD Programs

In conjunction with a partner organization
Specific funding determines program topic
A steering committee or advisory board consisting of teachers, staff and in some cases volunteers

For both PTD and K-12 programs, needs assessments are not commonly used by Reserves to develop programs.

The question “What are the outside influences that determine the content of programs?” elicits these common EC responses about both K-12 and PTD programs:

Teachers frequently contact them to request specific programs
ECs contact other environmental education providers in the community to determine if there are gaps or niches that can be filled by the Reserve
Programming is based on the need to educate the community about a particular local conservation issue
The program has to meet a specific funding agency’s requirements

Within the context of the same question, “What are the outside influences that determine the content of programs?” ECs report some factors that are valid and should be considered as internal influences on program development. These include Reserve specific physical constraints such as:

Physical facilities available
The time of year that the Reserve could offer a program
The remoteness of the Reserve location

Another aspect that guides program design is the target audience. In the inventory summary section, results indicate that the sixth through eighth grade students and teachers are the most common target audiences for K-12 and PTD programs.

More detailed information is determined when each EC responded to the question, “How are target audiences for programs chosen?” For K-12 programs the determining factor is the flexibility to attend field trips. Thus the largest audience is sixth through eighth grade students and the second largest target audience is fourth and fifth grade students.

Target audience selection for PTD programs is approached from two angles. The first approach is to provide trainings for teachers who visit the Reserve with their students. These workshops focus on training teachers to lead a portion of a program or an entire program at the Reserve. The second approach targets specific grade levels for longer workshops (i.e. two days to a week). These workshops are designed to give teachers knowledge on specific estuarine science and conservation topics. An example of this type of workshop is the M.A.R.E. program that some Reserves provide, which gives teachers the tools to transform their elementary or middle schools into dynamic laboratories for the study of the ocean. Since Reserves often partner with other organizations to offer these longer workshops, the partner and the Reserve together choose the specific target audience.

In the online survey results, the relative importance of K-12 programs is rated higher than PTD programs for increasing community support, understanding of estuaries, promoting stewardship, increasing awareness of the Reserve, and changing behaviors. ECs common answers from follow-up telephone interviews are:

By having direct contact with students, they feel that their mission and goals are conveyed in a more effective manner
Tight state budgets and demand on teachers to cover state test objectives make it difficult to get them out of the classroom for even a half-day training
It is increasingly difficult to have weekend trainings because teachers cannot commit the time unless they receive a stipend

Since these factors make it difficult to recruit teachers for training, in many cases ECs find that PTD is too time and labor intensive for the current number of teachers they reach.

The inventory summary section details the amount of time that education staff spends running K-12 and PTD programs. In summary, on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 equals none and 10 equals all) 54% of ECs rate the amount of time education staff spends running K-12 programs as a 5 or less, meaning that they do not spend a lot of time running these programs. In addition, 92% of ECs rate the amount of time education staff spends running PTD programs as a 4 or less, meaning that they do not spend a lot of time running these programs.

A Tukey HSD post hoc cluster analysis shows that three groups form with varying answers (Table 11).

Table 11. Cluster Analysis of Time Spent Running Programs
“How much time does education staff spend running ?”

*Mean: Low = 1-3.33, Medium = 3.34-6.66, High = 6.67-10*
	Group 1 (N=11)	Group 2 (N=11)	Group 3(N=2)
K-12	Medium	High	Low
PTD	Low	Low	Medium

This indicates that about half of the Reserves (Group 2) focus exclusively on K-12 and not PTD. Two Reserves (Group 3) spend more time on PTD and very little on K-12. Overall, about half of the Reserves (Group 1) place less emphasis on these types of education programs, but favor K-12 over PTD.

The question “How do you keep current with new educational initiatives?” indicates the most common methods: