This project is a three-year partnership between the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) and two discipline-based organizations, the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC/PTEC, an effort of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers) and the American Chemical Society. The project vision is the creation of a large and enduring national network of colleges and universities that have successfully negotiated difficult institutional constraints to establish strong, effective, and well-sustained high school teacher preparation programs in science and mathematics - programs that respond successfully to the need for accomplished science and mathematics teachers in their states and throughout the country. Core objectives of the work are to:
a. Create and support a national leadership network from up to 50 institutions of presidents, chancellors, provosts and their designees who are active at their institutions in improving mathematics and science education - and especially teacher education;
b. Increase the number of disciplinary faculty who are contributing toward teacher preparation and who, through inter-departmental, inter-college and school-university partnerships, assume increased responsibility for the mentoring and induction of beginning teachers and the professional development of career teachers;
c. Address and make demonstrable progress toward overcoming the challenges that impede the ability of universities to strengthen their science teacher preparation programs;
d. Widely disseminate the results and lessons learned from this and other related projects, especially the lessons learned about: (1) changes in institutional policies and practices that enhance science teacher preparation programs and increase the participation of disciplinary faculty; (2) the programmatic features of exemplary science teacher preparation programs, (3) the features of successful Noyce Scholarship Programs; (4) securing the ongoing and active commitment of top institutional leadership to making teacher preparation - particularly in science and mathematics - a central university enterprise; (5) the role of the disciplinary societies in strengthening science teacher preparation and in the support of practicing teachers; and (6) state policy efforts that can facilitate improvement of science teacher preparation and that remove the disincentive for pursuing a career in teaching; and
e. Provide support to the national networks of MSP and Noyce Scholarship programs, facilitating communication across these and other networks of science and mathematics education programs.
Context for the Grant In 2007, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) developed the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative (SMTI), a commitment to increase the quantity, diversity and quality of the science and mathematics teachers member universities produce. This commitment assumed an important role for the leaders of major public universities to embrace science and mathematics teacher preparation as a core component of their institutions’ missions. The size and breadth of these institutions provide a unique opportunity to place a large number of students into classrooms having the highest quality preparation in their disciplines. This RETA grant entitled "Promoting Institutional Change to Strengthen Science Teacher Preparation," tested a theory of action that institutional change could be enhanced both by top leadership commitment and faculty ownership of the actions. We posited that APLU could affect the first, since it is a membership organization of presidents and provosts. Collaboration with the American Physical Society and the American Chemical Society was intended to promote faculty participation. Design of the Project Twenty seven institutions committed to SMTI were selected to participate in ‘The Leadership Collaborative’ (TLC). Each institution designated a Team Leader with a team consisting of faculty from science and mathematics as well as education, university administrators and K-12 representatives. APLU implemented a set of activities designed to galvanize institution leaders, encourage cross-college and cross-institution collaboration, and promote strategic thinking with regard to institutions’ science and mathematics teacher preparation programs. Additional activities included: convening three learning communities; identifying promising/exemplary practices in teacher preparation; and seeking consensus on the characteristics of quality teacher preparation programs that included interviews with national experts and focus groups with disciplinary faculty in the sciences and mathematics. A grant supplement was awarded to support the completion of the Analytic Framework – a taxonomy of design and innovation for STEM teacher preparation and development. This tool was used throughout the project to frame participants’ plans, to guide the promising/exemplary practices pilot, and to provide implementation strategies for Ten Key Questions that emanated from the program-quality initiative. Outcomes TLC participants reported that their most successful outcomes were strengthened cross-college collaborations (20/23) and engaged university leadership (16/23). Half the participating institutions increased science & mathematics teacher production or enrollment. The average production growth for TLC participants outpaced other APLU/SMTI institutions that were not part of the TLC project. Nine (9) institutions accomplished campus-wide change, five of which were the only institutions to identify APLU’s efforts to galvanize institutional leadership as the most important thing the association did. All but two institutions with campus-wide change and program-restructuring (6) indicated that their university leadership was involved or supportive of their change efforts. For those institutions that implemented program improvements only, the majority did not make reference to their university leadership being involved. Institutions that were less advanced in their reform efforts at the beginning of the project found the participation of disciplinary societies to be more helpful. Two other aspects of the project were highly valued by The Leadership Collaborative. Almost all participating institutions (22/23) referenced creating opportunities for institutions to learn from one another as being valuable. Raising the status of teacher preparation locally and/or nationally was also important to many (18/23). Seven research reports provide practical approaches to program quality and institutional change. Conclusion We have demonstrated that a national association in concert with member universities and disciplinary societies can raise the status of science and math teacher preparation on campuses. APLU analysis supported by WestEd evaluation point to two key project components as major contributors to overall success: 1. Institutional Leaders will engage when The work is part of a national effort of similar institutions; Provided opportunities to gather together along with their own team leaders, and at other meetings to learn and share; and Involved in the process on their campuses. About two-thirds of the institutions had active, unprecedented involvement from provosts, which led to more and/or different than usual efforts. A prevalent change was the ability of provosts to leverage broader participation across colleges and departments, particularly crossing the sometimes challenging boundaries between education colleges/departments and those housing the STEM disciplines. The impact of senior leaders was most clearly felt by those institutions that achieved campus-wide change. 2. APLU’s project design created opportunities for collaboration and institutional change by including The APLU project imprimatur of this national issue enhanced campus efforts; Institutional Implementation and Assessment Plans for work as part of this project; Annual national project gatherings; Cross-college teams within institutions fostered collaboration with opportunities for team leaders to generate their own communities of study and action; and The Analytic Framework, prompting new ideas about changing STEM teacher preparation, particularly for recruitment.
