The Knowles Science Teaching Foundation (KSTF) has awarded a 2009 Research Fellowship to Alicia Alonzo, who will join MSU’s College of Education as an assistant professor of science education starting in fall 2009. Alonzo is one of two scholars to receive the foundation’s two-year, $110,000 post-doctoral fellowship, intended to support research with high school teachers in active classrooms and provide a direct benefit to educators.
Alonzo’s research will explore video-based professional development designed to help beginning physics teachers deepen their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The research would contribute understanding for teaching force and motion and a model for supporting beginning teachers’ PCK.
“Most studies of pedagogical content knowledge development have focused on students in teacher preparation programs who typically have limited experience in the classroom,” said Alonzo. “PCK is essential for good teaching, yet we know frustratingly little about how to help teachers to acquire this specialized knowledge.”
The other 2009 recipient is Indigo Esmonde, an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the University of Toronto.
The KSTF Research Fellowship program is led by Ralph Putnam, an associate professor of educational psychology on leave from the MSU College of Education.