American Museum of Natural History

Sharks and Rays

Evaluation

Inverness Research Inc. is a national, independent educational research organization that assessed the Seminars on Science program over an eight year period. Their evaluation reveals that educators achieve a deeper understanding on science through these courses, mastering significant new material, gaining a better sense of how science is conducted, and aquired valuable classroom materials. Here are some highlights of the course evaluation for this course.

Course Experience

83% of teachers say "my students now better appreciate the natural world"

83% of teachers say "the course was more valuable than other professional development available to me locally"

Content and Resources

75% of teachers say "my curiosity about the course topics is piqued"

"I just thought that the assignments that they gave were more meaningful. I felt like when I was working on something, I was accomplishing something and learning, instead of just being busy." —Anatomy and physiology teacher

Interaction and Instruction

How does the course help strengthen teaching?

92% of teachers said "it helped me to learn a new content area that I may teach in the future"

77% say "it provides a bank of resources that I can share with their students"

"The scientists involved were so knowledgeable and the feedback was so personal ... when I gave a response, each of the scientists who were involved responded exactly to what I said." —Biology and forensics teacher

Further Reading

You can explore the complete evaluation results from Inverness Research Inc. by downloading these reports (PDF):

Seminars on Science Full Report
Sharks and Rays Course Specific Report
Inverness Research Inc. is based in Inverness, CA and provides insight into the design, quality and effectiveness of educational improvement initiatives.

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