The College of Menominee (CMN) is a current NSF TCUP recipient that recently completed year five of its Curriculum Enhancement Project. That project has allowed CMN to aggressively advance its STEM curriculum and program offerings as well as increase the capacity of the college to act as a positive catalyst for STEM educational changes within the communities it serves. One current strategic initiative resulting from the STEM intensive planning and development of the College of Menominee Nation is the development of a STEM-intensive, standards-based Elementary Education baccalaureate degree program that will strengthen STEM learning by bringing STEM education full circle from the start of a child?s education.
CMN will build its capacity in the implementation phase by achieving the following objectives:
? Objective one Build CMN?s capacity and infrastructure to sustain a math, science and technology infused Elementary Education Baccalaureate degree program.
? Objective two: Implement an Elementary Education program.
? Objective three: Infuse the use of technology into all facets of the Elementary Education Baccalaureate degree program.
? Objective four: Establish critical student support services to ensure student success in the elementary education program.
There has been much discussion about the underpreparedness of students in the United States for careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and/or STEM-related fields. This phenomenon is particularly true for students graduating from minority-serving and rural K12 school districts. The College of Menominee Nation (CMN), a tribally-controlled college, hypothisized that better teacher preparation in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics at the Early Childhood/Elementary Education level would be the point at which the US would begin to improve the general STEM preparedness of its students. CMN was specifically concerned with educating teachers for American Indian Reservation schools and/or schools that had significantly high American Indian enrollments. To that end, CMN developed the STEEP Fellows program as a complement to its Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction approved Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood/Elementary Education degree program. In addition to the Early Childhood/Elementary Education baccalaureate curriculua, STEEP Fellows were strongly encouraged to take additional Science, Technology, and Mathematics courses. And many of the STEEP Fellows completed an Associated degree in Mathematics or Biology with their baccalaureate program. Furthermore, the Early Childhood/Elementary Education curricula itself was technologically enriched to give students the opportunity to use in their own course work what they were learning in the classroom to enhance the Early Childhood/Elementary classroom. Along with their baccalaureate course work, each summer, the STEEP Fellows participated with working Early Childhood/Elementary Education teaching professionals in a Summer Institute. During the Institute, teacher candidates and working teachers collaboratively develop lessons plans on a variety of activities from visiting the Children's Museum Science Exhibit in Chicago to field studies in river ecology along the Wolf River. Fourteen teachers from CMN's BS in Early Childhood/Elementary Education program have been licensed by the State of Wisconsin and are working in Early Childhood Head Start Centers or Elemenatry Schools that are either on American Indian Reservations or surrounding communities schools that have high enrollments of American Indian children. An additional 19 students are in the process of completing the STEM-enhanced Bachelor of Science in Early Chldhood/Elementary degree.
