The National Association of State Universities & Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) is developing an Analytic Framework that can assess STEM teacher preparation programs throughout the 218 member institutions of the association. The development process includes: (1) a review of the research literature on the key attributes and elements teacher preparation programs employ that are generally recognized in the literature and within the professional community to be effective; (2) eliciting the professional judgments of multiple review panels representing deans of education and natural sciences, professors of science and mathematics who engage in research on teacher preparation, professional organizations, and other key stakeholder groups to help validate the goals, objectives and strategies that will make up the key elements and structure of the Analytic Framework; (3) field testing of the Analytic Framework on four to five teacher preparation programs to assess feasibility and utility, and (4) application of the Analytic Framework by ten additional higher education institutions to further NASULGC's effort to seek greater understanding of the usefulness of specific elements in each model and perhaps an understanding of which attributes the models hold in common and where they differ.
Ultimately, the Analytic Framework will be useful for institutions of higher education by serving as a tool for describing existing teacher preparation programs notable for their early success in improving the quantity and quality of science and mathematics teachers; by providing a structure to systematically identify and compare leading practices and specific program attributes employed by universities and their partnering school systems; and by being used as a structure for documenting the systemic nature of teacher preparation which includes recruitment into the profession, pedagogical and content-knowledge instruction, clinical/field experiences, induction, and professional development.
