Supportive Structures For Successful Science Teachers’ Professional Development

The Omaha Public Schools (OPS) Science Office collaborates closely with community partners to facilitate a private foundation grant that seeks to improve science education by focusing on in-service, science teachers’ professional learning in the context of professional development (PD) experiences and targeted graduate coursework. The three goals of the K-12 Comprehensive Science Teaching and Learning Grant are to 1) increase student achievement in science, 2) increase teacher effectiveness, and to 3) align and enhance science curriculum. At the end of year one, 83 teacher participants have taken graduate courses, attended professional conferences, completed action research projects, and/or have participated in content immersion workshops based on personalized professional learning plans. All of the participating teachers complete an action research portfolio and are assisted by one of 11 science instructional coaches—master teachers who ensure that the teachers’ professional learning is translated into improved classroom practice. The science instructional coaches’ preparation included training from the Institute for Inquiry affiliated with San Francisco’s Exploratorium, Discipline-Based Educational Research and other graduate courses through the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), The Art of Instructional Coaching Training and consulting from Elena Aguilar, and a series of Science Research Immersion Workshops by Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, as well as the University of Wisconsin-Extension affiliated with Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center. The OPS K-12 Science Supervisor is the principal investigator and the UNO STEM Community Chair and the UNO Science Community Chair are the co-PIs for the collaborative grant effort. The shared-leadership model in OPS also includes two Elementary Supervisors and the Science Lead Teacher to ensure full alignment among district goals, participants’ plans for growth, and partners’ agendas. Additionally, a grant advisory team including district-level leadership and grant officers participates in quarterly meetings to oversee the progress. Education Northwest conducts the external grant evaluation. Included in this report is the structural context of the project and implementation data from year one. These preliminary data are collected from surveys, interviews, observations, field reports, and standardized tests. Briefly, the data from assessments of youth in science from standardized test results showed slight district-wide gains at elementary school (+2% of students meeting standards) and middle school (+3% of students meeting standards) while high school standardized scores remained unchanged. Although the initial student data are encouraging, at this point in the project timeline the focus of this paper is on three of the four main structures of PD opportunities within the grant (i.e. graduate course work, conference attendance, and content immersions). The authors will discuss the details of these structures and identify potential and valuable next steps for research. The Omaha Public Schools (OPS) Science Office collaborates closely with community partners tofacilitate a private foundation grant that seeks to improve science education by focusing on in-service,science teachers’ professional learning in the context of professional development (PD) experiencesand targeted graduate coursework. The three goals of the K-12 Comprehensive Science Teachingand Learning Grant are to 1) increase student achievement in science, 2) increase teachereffectiveness, and to 3) align and enhance science curriculum. At the end of year one, 83 teacherparticipants have taken graduate courses, attended professional conferences, completed actionresearch projects, and/or have participated in content immersion workshops based on personalizedprofessional learning plans. All of the participating teachers complete an action research portfolio andare assisted by one of 11 science instructional coaches—master teachers who ensure that theteachers’ professional learning is translated into improved classroom practice.The science instructional coaches’ preparation included training from the Institute for Inquiry affiliatedwith San Francisco’s Exploratorium, Discipline-Based Educational Research and other graduatecourses through the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), The Art of Instructional CoachingTraining and consulting from Elena Aguilar, and a series of Science Research Immersion Workshopsby Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, as well as the University of Wisconsin-Extensionaffiliated with Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center. The OPS K-12 Science Supervisor is theprincipal investigator and the UNO STEM Community Chair and the UNO Science Community Chairare the co-PIs for the collaborative grant effort. The shared-leadership model in OPS also includestwo Elementary Supervisors and the Science Lead Teacher to ensure full alignment among districtgoals, participants’ plans for growth, and partners’ agendas. Additionally, a grant advisory teamincluding district-level leadership and grant officers participates in quarterly meetings to oversee theprogress. Education Northwest conducts the external grant evaluation.Included in this report is the structural context of the project and implementation data from year one.These preliminary data are collected from surveys, interviews, observations, field reports, andstandardized tests. Briefly, the data from assessments of youth in science from standardized testresults showed slight district-wide gains at elementary school (+2% of students meeting standards)and middle school (+3% of students meeting standards) while high school standardized scoresremained unchanged. Although the initial student data are encouraging, at this point in the projecttimeline the focus of this paper is on three of the four main structures of PD opportunities within thegrant (i.e. graduate course work, conference attendance, and content immersions). The authors willdiscuss the details of these structures and identify potential and valuable next steps for research

Comparative effectiveness of standard vs. AI-assisted PET/CT reading workflow for pre-treatment lymphoma staging: a multi-institutional reader study evaluation

2024 Frood, Willaime, Miles, Chambers, Al-Chalabi, Ali, Hougham, Brooks, Petrides, Naylor, Ward, Sulkin, Chaytor, Strouhal, Patel and Scarsbrook.Background: Fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) is widely used for staging high-grade lymphoma, with the time to evaluate such studies varying depending on the complexity of the case. Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) within the reporting workflow has the potential to improve quality and efficiency. The aims of the present study were to evaluate the influence of an integrated research prototype segmentation tool implemented within diagnostic PET/CT reading software on the speed and quality of reporting with variable levels of experience, and to assess the effect of the AI-assisted workflow on reader confidence and whether this tool influenced reporting behaviour. Methods: Nine blinded reporters (three trainees, three junior consultants and three senior consultants) from three UK centres participated in a two-part reader study. A total of 15 lymphoma staging PET/CT scans were evaluated twice: first, using a standard PET/CT reporting workflow; then, after a 6-week gap, with AI assistance incorporating pre-segmentation of disease sites within the reading software. An even split of PET/CT segmentations with gold standard (GS), false-positive (FP) over-contour or false-negative (FN) under-contour were provided. The read duration was calculated using file logs, while the report quality was independently assessed by two radiologists with >15 years of experience. Confidence in AI assistance and identification of disease was assessed via online questionnaires for each case. Results: There was a significant decrease in time between non-AI and AI-assisted reads (median 15.0 vs. 13.3 min, p < 0.001). Sub-analysis confirmed this was true for both junior (14.5 vs. 12.7 min, p = 0.03) and senior consultants (15.1 vs. 12.2 min, p = 0.03) but not for trainees (18.1 vs. 18.0 min, p = 0.2). There was no significant difference between report quality between reads. AI assistance provided a significant increase in confidence of disease identification (p < 0.001). This held true when splitting the data into FN, GS and FP. In 19/88 cases, participants did not identify either FP (31.8%) or FN (11.4%) segmentations. This was significantly greater for trainees (13/30, 43.3%) than for junior (3/28, 10.7%, p = 0.05) and senior consultants (3/30, 10.0%, p = 0.05). Conclusions: The study findings indicate that an AI-assisted workflow achieves comparable performance to humans, demonstrating a marginal enhancement in reporting speed. Less experienced readers were more influenced by segmentation errors. An AI-assisted PET/CT reading workflow has the potential to increase reporting efficiency without adversely affecting quality, which could reduce costs and report turnaround times. These preliminary findings need to be confirmed in larger studies