Year: 1996
Type: article
Abstract: 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 consortiumthe University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) and Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith Collegeswith 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
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2605457911