Teacher Preparation Efforts in Other EHR Divisions

While primary responsibility for teacher preparation resides in the Division of Undergraduate Education, other Divisions within the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) also provide support to the effort to improve the SME&T preparation of teachers. This section highlights teacher preparation efforts in the Divisions of Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education; Educational Systemic Reform; and Human Resource Development.

The Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education supports projects that enable all students from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 to succeed in science, mathematics, and technology (SMT) and to increase the scientific and technological literacy of all students and adults. The Teacher Enhancement (TE) Program strengthens teachers’ content and pedagogical skills and creates an infrastructure of educators, researchers, and administrators to support SMT education reform. Several TE projects link pre-service teacher education programs to in-service teacher enhancement activities. Instructional Materials Development (IMD) Projects create curricula, materials, and student assessments incorporating investigative, hands-on science, mathematics, and technology education activities that are aligned with content, teaching, and assessment standards.

A nationwide cadre of 300 grade 7-12 teachers at six sites (California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, and Ohio) are implementing the discrete mathematics standards in their classrooms and sharing instructional experiences with their students and colleagues. Sixty collegiate faculties are participating with the secondary teachers in professional development and are implementing a course in discrete mathematics or topics in discrete mathematics within an existing course that includes pre-service teachers.

The Colorado College-lntegrated Science Teacher Enhancement Program (CC-ISTEP) is a comprehensive teacher enhancement effort that also supports a new graduate degree for teachers. The objectives of CC-ISTEP include the use of teacher development principles to ensure long-term changes in pedagogical skills and the use of CC-ISTEP as a model for teacher development at other colleges.

Teacher Enhancement Through An Elementary Science Education Partners (ESEP) Program

This project involves undergraduate science majors in the professional development of K-5 teachers in the Atlanta Public Schools while also providing teaching experience. Undergraduate "science partners" from Emory University and five collaborating colleges (Clark-Atlanta, Georgia State, Morehouse, Morris-Brown and Spelman) register for a two-credit course or a service learning program, receive training in inquiry-science instruction, and spend 5-6 hours every week in the classroom team-teaching science lessons with an assigned teacher who has participated in in-service training in guided discovery instructional methods of teaching science and mathematics.

One component of the Minneapolis Local Systemic Change project is the development of stronger linkages between the Minneapolis Public Schools’ science program leadership and the state's higher education institutions that train the majority of future Minneapolis teachers. The goal is to align preservice teacher training in science closer to the MPS standards for science curriculum, instruction and assessment.

The KITES project, managed by a partnership between Rhode Island College and the East Bay Educational Collaborative (EBEC), is implementing an integrated, hands-on, kit-based science curriculum in the eight school districts in EBEC. Unique to this project is the linking of students in pre-service teacher preparation programs with project teachers providing opportunities to co-teach, engaging students in problem solving and presenting a case-oriented approach to teaching and learning.

Institute for Science and Technology

This project provides five-week institutes for 290 inservice and 40 preservice teachers of grades K-12. The goals of the project are to provide pedagogical and philosophical foundations for improving science education, develop strategies for increasing student learning of science, and develop a significantly improved delivery system to encourage creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and communications. The project also includes internships and a mentorship program offered at such places as the Indianapolis Zoo and Lilly Research Corporation.

Maricopa County Community College District is conducting a 60-month Local Systemic Change project for 187 teachers in grades 9-12 in 5 Arizona school districts and schools in the Utah Colorado Arizona New Mexico Rural Systemic Initiative (UCAN RSI). The project's partners, the unified districts of Chandler, Sunnyside, Nogales, Mingus and Sedona-Oak Creek, Maricopa County Community College, Arizona State University and the Intel Corporation, will implement the Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP) in those districts through: in-service on the mathematics and pedagogy of IMP; follow-up support activities; developing an internal capacity for professional development by establishing school teams for support of teachers and involving teachers from schools considering IMP; articulation with feeder schools; and impacting preservice teacher training.

This project is developing a set of video and print materials to inform and support teachers’ understanding of hands-on elementary science teaching and learning. The materials are designed for use in both in-service and preservice teacher education, science center or museum training, and community-based programs. The videos will illustrate a complete teaching/learning cycle in which students explore a single phenomenon.

The Allegheny Schools Science Education and Technology (ASSET) Inc. is a local non-profit consortium of business, education, and community leaders committed to reforming science education initiated in 1993. They are implementing a plan for reform that includes: the development of a comprehensive curriculum for each district; the creation of a regional materials support center; the preparation of coalition resource teachers responsible with scientists for in-service and the support of teachers district-wide; and the improvement of preservice education.

This four-year project is presenting alternating 3-year programs of mathematics content, pedagogy, and assessment for all elementary school teachers and school administrators in Montgomery County, Maryland. School administrators and teachers of special subjects are involved with focused activities for improving student performance in mathematics. Additional support is being developed through area colleges and universities to provide extended offerings for teachers and in order to use the program as a model for preservice education.

The publication of the National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy demonstrates a strong national consensus on specific learning goals in science and necessitates a procedure for evaluating the extent to which materials address Standards or Benchmarks. This project is refining the process for evaluating materials for both pre-service and in-service professional development, providing an evaluation mechanism with examples and case studies, disseminating the process, and developing a cadre of developers, teachers and teacher educators who understand it and can advocate for its use.

A Proposal to Develop a Coordinated Set of Tools for Science Education Reform and Foster their Effective Use

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is continuing the work of science education reform by developing an Atlas for Science Literacy, expanding Resources for Science Literacy, and supporting educators who want to put these tools, and others already developed by AAAS, to work in their states, districts, and schools. Resources will provide aid to those developing science frameworks at district and state levels; develop workshop guides to help preservice and in-service teachers improve their knowledge and skills in science, mathematics, and technology, along with their instructional skills; and extend the procedure for analyzing science materials to include mathematics and technology materials.

The Statewide Systemic Initiatives (SSI) Program is a major NSF effort to encourage improvements in science, mathematics, engineering and technology education through comprehensive systemic changes in State education systems. The program is competitive and leads to cooperative agreements with State governments that address several objectives: (1) adoption of more effective mathematics and science curricula; (2) use of better materials, technologies, and assessment procedures; (3) higher student achievement in mathematics and science and increased interest in related careers; (4) improvement of science literacy; (5) adoption of new standards and methods for teacher preparation; and (6) improved organizational and decision-making structures.

The Arkansas Statewide Systemic Initiative (AR SSI) features a professional development component known as the Arkansas Mathematics and Science Crusades, a series of college-level courses offered to K-16 teachers by the higher education institutions in the state. The graduate courses offered through this strategy model good teaching practices, address a variety of integrated content areas, and demonstrate a diversity of teaching methods designed to increase the success of students in these two disciplines. Changes in teacher preparation and certification are included in the SSI goals.

The Connecticut Statewide Systemic Initiative's (CT SSI) efforts are supported by 11 of the 15 institutions of higher education (IHEs) with teacher preparation programs in the state. Co-Teaching Partnerships are formed, whereby K-12 and college faculty jointly teaches both content and pedagogy courses on university campuses and in K-12 classrooms. The State's largest teacher preparation programs, Southern Connecticut State University and Central Connecticut State University, are working with CT SSI to accomplish significant restructuring of their mathematics teacher education programs in accordance with the NCTM standards. Both universities are also restructuring their science teacher preparation programs.

The Massachusetts Statewide Systemic Initiative, Partnerships Advancing the Learning of Mathematics and Science (PALMS), receives active support from over 75% of the institutions of higher education (IHE) in the state. A statewide network of IHEs serve as providers of professional development. Through their efforts in reforming mathematics and science, new methods courses have been developed, preservice course requirements have changed, co-teaching partnerships have been established involving college faculty members and PALM Teacher Leaders, and increased attention has been given to the placement of student teachers in classrooms that model an inquiry approach to teaching and learning of mathematics and science.

Attention to the reform of K-8 teacher preparation has been an outgrowth of the involvement of university mathematics, science and education faculty involvement in LaSIP professional development for in-service K-8 teachers. Universities have revised their mathematics preservice program to be more closely aligned to the NCTM standards. Several universities have revised preservice science courses and are collaborating extensively with area parish schools in the placement of preservice candidates in classrooms of teachers who participated in the LaSIP inquiry-based approach to the teaching and learning of science.

The Puerto Rico SSI "Reform of Teacher Preparation Programs" has two main thrusts. The first involves an in depth revision and development of science and mathematics teacher preparation curricula and teaching practices at three universities that are disseminating their reform strategies and curricula to other institutions. Science, mathematics and education faculty as well as K-12 teachers are involved in this endeavor. Teacher preparation curriculum is being revised to upgrade subject matter understanding and instructional methods. Partnerships with exemplary Puerto Rico-SSI schools are being established to integrate laboratory experiences throughout the curriculum. The second thrust includes strategies to bridge the gap between theory and practice in the teacher preparation curricula by revising science and mathematics methodology courses and the teaching practicum.

Teacher preparation is a key component of this systemic reform effort. Initial efforts in the Texas SSI are focused on the Mathematical Preparation of prospective elementary teachers. These efforts center on the initiation of a statewide network of instructors, a standards document on the mathematics studied by prospective teachers, and support structures for instructors including grants, a curriculum resource center, and professional development conferences.

The Urban Systemic Initiatives Program (USI) in science, mathematics, and technology education is a comprehensive and systemic effort designed to enable fundamental reform of K-12 science and mathematics education in large urban school systems. Eligibility for the program is limited to school systems in the 28 cities having the largest numbers of school-aged children (ages 5-17) living in poverty as determined by the 1990 Census. Built upon experience gained from the Statewide Systemic Initiatives (SSI) and the Comprehensive Regional Centers for Minorities (CRCM), the program provides significant support for 5 years to cities that have completed comprehensive planning and demonstrate readiness to make systemic and sustainable changes in the policies, practices, and procedures of urban school systems.

The El Paso Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (El Paso Independent School District (ISD), Ysleta ISD, Socorro ISD and the University of Texas at El Paso), provides mathematics and science professional development and teacher education for the El Paso USI.

Fresno Unified School District has mathematics and science professional development as well as preservice mathematics and science education offered through Fresno State University.

The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee (UWM) is implementing a new Collaborative Elementary/Middle Teacher Preparation Program. All candidates are required to have two focus areas, one of which must be mathematics or science. Candidates must also complete 6 semester hours of core requirements in both mathematics and science, 3 hours of science methods and 5 hours of mathematics methods. UWM is placing K-12 preservice teachers with mathematics and science emphases in MUSI schools for field work and student teaching experiences.

DIVISION OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT