Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
Teacher Education Collaborative (STEMTEC)
Proposal
Return to Table
of Contents
High on the American agenda is the need to improve the science
and mathematics education of all its children. STEMTEC, the
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Teacher
Education Collaborative, draws on diverse educational institutions
committed to providing the next generation of science and
mathematics teachers with the knowledge and skills they need.
These institutions are also committed to bringing under-represented
groups into science and math teaching. They are located in
the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts. A microcosm
of contemporary America, this region has prosperous suburbs,
but the cities have large numbers of low income minority students,
and the rural areas and old mill towns have many poor children.
Thus STEMTEC will have a superb laboratory for testing new
educational approaches.
STEMTEC will link the members of the highly successful Five
Colleges, Incorporated consortium - the University
of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) and Amherst,
Hampshire, Mount
Holyoke and Smith Colleges
- with three neighboring community colleges, Springfield
Technical (STCC), Holyoke
(HCC), and Greenfield
(GCC) and the neighboring school districts. These are
the school systems of Springfield, Holyoke, Amherst, Hadley,
Northampton, South Hadley, and Franklin County. The partnership
of a region's flagship public university campus, private colleges,
community colleges and school districts with highly varied
populations will provide a model with national implications.
The State Department of Education, including PALMS, the Massachusetts
NSF/SSI program, will be a participating agency. The Continental
Cablevision Corporation will be a corporate partner providing
Internet access to area schools and assisting with the dissemination
program.
A major component of STEMTEC will be the support of discipline-based
curriculum teams which will develop new and revised college
science and math courses. In addition to college faculty,
these teams will include K12 teachers and education professors
who are experts in the new pedagogy. Because most teachers
teach the way they were taught (Shymansky, Hedges, and Woodworth,
1990), these courses will model the most effective teaching
strategies and tools: cooperative learning, investigation-based
teaching, educational technology, new assessment techniques,
and opportunities to teach (NCTM, 1991; NRC, 1996; AAAS, 1993).
Since the best way to understand the nature of science is
to actually do real science, we will offer all undergraduates
the opportunity to conduct original research. STEMTEC will
use these established teaching strategies to reform the way
we teach science and mathematics to future teachers.
STEMTEC will serve both elementary and secondary teachers.
Elementary teachers usually identify themselves early in their
college experience and are generally not planning to major
in mathematics or science. Since they will only be taking
a few courses in these fields, these courses must provide
them with strong content, an opportunity to engage in scientific
research, and exemplify the best possible teaching. Math and
science majors who already plan to enter teaching as elementary
specialists or as middle school or high school teachers also
need courses in their major which consciously exemplify effective
teaching.
However, many secondary science and math teachers do not
decide on teaching careers until college graduation or later.
Dramatically improving introductory courses for science and
math majors will help to retain them in those areas. It will
also interest them in teaching careers because they will become
excited about science and math and about learning (Tobias,
1990). We will also offer opportunities for college majors
in science, mathematics, engineering, and related areas to
gain an exposure to teaching by working with teachers who
are graduates of our teacher enhancement projects and to consider
teaching as a career option. Both the courses and the teaching
opportunities will help recruit under-represented groups into
teaching. Inclusion of the community colleges in all aspects
of this project will also be critical in these recruiting
efforts.
We cannot end our support of students when they enter teaching
since we know that many excellent math and science teachers
are lost to the field during those first few years. STEMTEC
will offer a number of support systems for new teachers including
bringing them into the community of school and college faculty
developing new courses, linking them with our teacher enhancement
graduates, and offering them appropriately scheduled courses
which are taught using the methods supported by this
project.
The STEMTEC program will include strong student learning
assessment, project evaluation, and dissemination components.
Much of the program will be exportable, making it an important
national model.
Sustainability of the program after the NSF grant ends will
be a critical issue. One key is meeting the needs of the participating
institutions; what works at one college may not at another.
Another is changing the campus culture and extending the process
of reform. This will be accomplished by an aggressive program
of internal dissemination. Faculty participants will offer
departmental seminars and workshops on their course developments
and on the pedagogical approaches. Their success in creating
more effective courses will encourage their colleagues to
attempt their own reforms. STEMTEC will sponsor larger campus-wide
and multicampus programs to publicize the course changes,
the student responses, and the underlying pedagogical principles
and will work with existing campus staff development programs
to offer training workshops.
The STEMTEC participants have a long history of collaboration.
Over 30 years ago Five Colleges Incorporated, was formed to
promote joint activities among the colleges' faculty and students.
For example, students may take courses on other campuses as
readily as on their own, and free buses make commuting easy.
Community college students can automatically continue their
education at UMass upon satisfactory completion of their two
year programs, and many community college courses mirror the
UMass equivalents. Also, since 1984 the Five College/Public
School Partnership (Appendix I) has fostered working relationships
among K12 schools and the five colleges. With the aid of several
NSF, Eisenhower, and other grants, the Partnership and the
campuses have made major strides in improving K12 science
and mathematics teaching in the region, emphasizing constructivism,
active learning, and alternative assessment methods.
STEMTEC's efforts to improve preservice teacher preparation
depend critically on its collaboration with the school districts
of the region. This region includes the cities of Springfield
and Holyoke, where the school population is 70% minority and
over 70% below the poverty level. Franklin County, located
in the northern part of the region, is the poorest rural county
in the state, with 22% of the students below the poverty line.
Amherst, the home of UMass and of Amherst and Hampshire Colleges,
has 50% minority students and 25% below the poverty level
(Appendix II). Thus the undergraduates who avail themselves
of the teaching opportunities will be able to experience many
of the difficult issues facing schools across the
country.
The program will be facilitated by the existence of a pool
of K12 teachers trained in earlier projects who will be a
part of STEMTEC, and by the UMassK12 Internet service (Appendix
III) which links 2000 classrooms. UMassK12 will continue to
be reached initially via modems, with local telephone access
available in all the districts. However, over the next few
years, Continental Cablevision will phase in free high speed
Internet access for all the schools in its service areas,
providing a major increase in convenience and bandwidth as
the schools install networks.
STEMTEC will be managed by the UMass Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Institute (Appendix
IV) and by the Partnership, and directed by a Board which
includes representatives of the school districts and higher
education partners. The program will be coordinated with the
systemic curriculum reform efforts being undertaken in the
state under its educational reform legislation and by PALMS;
STEM is a PALMS higher education partner, and the Partnership
is a PALMS Regional Provider.
Return to Table
of Contents
Since the early 1980's there has been broad agreement that
the U.S. must improve the science and mathematics education its
school children receive (NCCE, 1983). Reports emphasize giving
students the opportunity to think like scientists (NCTM, 1991;
NRC, 1996; AAAS, 1989, 1993). They stress the importance of
creating an environment in which students are engaged in long-term
investigations and cognitive problem solving. Ultimately this
improvement can happen only if teachers have a better knowledge
of the content and pedagogy of these fields. Much effort has
been focused on strengthening the qualifications of teachers
now in the schools, and in helping them to adopt new and more
effective teaching approaches. In Massachusetts, the Education
Reform Act of 1993 legislated a comprehensive program that significantly
increased financial support to the schools, required the development
of curriculum frameworks consistent with the national recommendations,
and mandated periodic recertification of teachers (Massachusetts
Department of Education, 1995). It is the responsibility of
the higher education community to reinvent their teacher preparation
programs so that teachers entering the profession have the requisite
science and mathematics preparation (Glass, Aiuto, and Anderson,
1993).
Four specific areas of need will be addressed by
STEMTEC:
- Future elementary teachers-expected to be renaissance
scholars capable of teaching every subject-need to experience
science and mathematics courses that model the best teaching
practices. They need inquiry-based courses which incorporate
cooperative learning and employ modern technology to enhance
understanding (NCTM, 1991; NRC, 1996). They also need to
experience science by engaging in original research (NRC,
1996).
- At the middle school and high school level, we are seeing
shortages of qualified science and mathematics teachers
and elementary science specialists both locally and nationally
(Weiss et al., 1994). Thus we need more as well as better
prepared secondary teachers. Qualified teachers can be recruited
from those who are currently majoring in science, mathematics,
engineering, and related fields, or who have completed programs
in these areas.
- Many minority groups continue to be under-represented
in science and mathematics education (Oakes, 1990). Nationally,
30% of the students belong to under-represented minority
groups, but less than 10% of the science and math teachers
are from these groups. (Weiss et al., 1994; NCES, 1994).
Over the past 20 years the number of women teaching secondary
mathematics has increased to approximately half the total,
but only a third of the high school science teachers are
women. The Massachusetts statistics are similar to the national
data (MA Dept. of Ed., 1996). We need to recruit and retain
women and minority students in the appropriate college majors
and into teaching.
- Too many newly certified teachers find themselves very
much alone in their early teaching years as they learn how
to cope with practical classroom issues while honing their
teaching skills. We need to develop mechanisms to provide
them with the support they need.
Return to Table
of Contents
STEMTEC's fundamental objective is to improve science and mathematics
teaching in the schools by educating a generation of teachers
who are better prepared in the content and pedagogy of these
fields. STEMTEC will also contribute to the important task of
elevating the status of teaching as a profession on the campus
and in the community. The programs we discuss below are designed
to meet the specific goals, but they will also contribute to
a broader agenda of changing the campus culture and reshaping
how we teach science and mathematics to all students. The following
specific project goals address the needs of the future teachers
who will teach science and mathematics at all grade
levels:
- Assist college science, mathematics, and engineering faculty
in learning and adopting new pedagogic approaches, especially
in courses for future teachers.
- Improve the preparation of elementary teachers to teach
science and mathematics.
- Improve the preparation of middle school science and mathematics
teachers and of elementary school science and mathematics
specialists.
- Increase the exposure of majors in science, mathematics,
engineering, and related fields to teaching experiences
and the possibility of teaching as a career and to increase
the number entering the teaching profession.
- Increase the number of women and minorities-high school
students, college students, and returning students-preparing
to be science and mathematics teachers, especially those
living in inner cities and in poor rural
areas.
- Develop a program to support new science and mathematics
teachers in their first years in the
classroom.
- Document and disseminate the program nationally.
Achieving the project's goals requires a variety of related
efforts which will be covered in turn in the following
sections.
Return to Table
of Contents
Next Page
|
 |
