Beyond the Professional Development Academy: Teachers' Retention of Discipline-Specific Science Content Knowledge throughout a 3-Year Mathematics and Science Partnership

The Teacher Academy in the Natural Sciences (TANS) provided middle school (U.S. Grades 6-8) teachers (N = 81) with intensive professional development (PD) in chemistry, geosciences, and physics, with teachers enrolled in one scientific discipline per year. Because some teachers were retained and rotated into different disciplines, the TANS program investigated retention of science content 1-2 years beyond an instructional year. All teacher participants exhibited significant gains (p < 0.001), in chemistry, geosciences, or physics content, between their incoming knowledge and the 10-day summer academy's conclusion. Chemistry and geosciences content were retained until the end of the PD year. Physics participants reported a significant loss (p < 0.001), although gains from teachers' incoming knowledge were still significant. When retention was measured beyond the instructional year, only the geosciences content was retained. Chemistry and physics gains were not retained, with no significant differences between incoming teachers' knowledge and content 1-2 years post instruction. Our research indicates that science content support is needed after PD programs, and importantly, that the support differs between scientific disciplines.