Exploring teacher self-efficacy in human evolution instruction following a dynamic hands-on professional development workshop

Abstract

Abstract Background Human evolution is a topic that is largely excluded from K-12 classrooms for a variety of reasons, including the inability, unwillingness, or lack of preparedness of educators to teach a topic that has been seen as controversial. This study explored how engagement in professional development infused with 3D printing and ways of knowing discussion influenced science teachers' self-efficacy for teaching human evolution. The professional development opportunity was designed to empower teachers and provide them with the tools necessary to incorporate human evolution into their curriculum. During this workshop, participants learned about paleontology and human origins, spoke with professional paleoanthropologists, discussed implementation strategies with evolution educators, and developed lesson plans centered around human evolution. To explore the role of this professional development on teachers’ self-efficacy and perceptions of the teaching of evolution, we used a previously validated survey that was employed in the pre-test and post-test format and semi-structured focus group interviews. Results The results of this study indicate that the workshop positively impacted teacher perceptions of the teaching of evolution with significant improvements on two of the three tested factors and the third factor almost reaching significance. Conclusions Our data demonstrate that a three-day workshop can successfully impact teachers' perception dof the teaching of evolution and, in turn, increase the implementation of human evolution in K-12 classrooms. By specifically structuring the workshop content in a way that addressed many of the previously indicated obstacles in teaching evolution, we were able to positively impact educators and provide them with the information and tools necessary to add human evolution into their curricula.