S.T.E.P. thru S.T.E.M. Program Secondary Teacher Education Preparation thru Science, Technology, Eng

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S.T.E.P. thru S.T.E.M. Program Secondary
Teacher Education Preparationthru Science,
Technology, Engineering and MathematicsA
COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS AT WORK

• Peter Sheppard, Ph.D.
• Coordinator, STEP thru STEM
• pshepp_at_lsu.edu

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S.T.E.P. thru S.T.E.M.

• In response to the critical shortage of
  qualified STEM teachers, LSU faculty from math,
  the sciences, and education collaborated to
  create a unique 4-year undergraduate program that
  allows participants to obtain both a bachelors
  degree in a STEM discipline as well as complete
  all the necessary secondary teacher certification
  requirements.
• This program, now referred to as S.T.E.P. thru
  S.T.E.M., represents unprecedented collaboration
  among STEM faculty, education faculty and East
  Baton Rouge Parish School System, among others.

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Program Goal

• Goal
• Produce 80 highly qualified graduates with
  teacher certification in a STEM content area.

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Program Objectives

• Objectives
• Recruit and retain students for the new program
• Provide scholarships for students
• Enhance communication among university and school
  personnel involved in designing, teaching and
  operating the program as well as teachers and
  students impacted by the program
• Recruit, train and support mentor teachers.
• Develop and implement a permanent evaluation
  system for the program
• Train an "induction specialist" whose
  responsibilities will be to monitor and solve
  problems for graduates during their first two
  years.

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What Makes STEP thru STEM Unique for Students?

• Students earn degrees in Math or a Science Field
  and earn certification with secondary ed.
  concentration within 128 hours.
• Students visit high school classrooms in 1st SEM.
  of junior year for field experiences.
• Students are under the guidance of accomplished
  mentor teachers.
• Students can be offered teacher certification as
  secondary career option.
• Scholarship Opportunities

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Course Requirements

• The first course, EDCI 2001, can also be used as
  a general education social science elective.
• This three credit hour course is an introduction
  to contemporary educational issues, especially as
  these are situated historically, culturally,
  socially, and politically topics include
  history, theory, and politics of education,
  especially as related to gender, race, class, and
  technology.
• This course is ideally taken in the 2nd semester
  of students sophomore year.

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Course Requirements

• EDCI 3001 BIOL 3001
• EDCI 3002 BIOL 3002
• EDCI 4003 BIOL 4003
• EDCI 4005 (Student Teaching)
• EDCI 4004 BIOL 4004

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STEP thru STEM Scholarship Awards thru 2006
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What Makes STEP thru STEM Unique for Mentor
Teachers ?

• Mentor Teachers are recruited based on their
  ability to embrace reform based teaching.
• Mentor Teachers are compensated for hosting early
  field experiences.
• Mentor Teachers engage in the process of
  designing field experiences.
• Lead Mentor Teachers train and recruit future
  mentor teachers.

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Mentor Teachers

• Mentor teachers are expected to be model
  educators, facilitators, content specialist, and
  critical friends to our pre-service teachers.
• Mentor teacher have an increased responsibility
  in the preparation and training of pre-service
  teachers because of the field-intensive design
  of this program.
• Seven Lead Mentors are currently in the program
  eventually an additional 44 cooperating mentor
  teachers will be hired.

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What Makes S.T.E.P. thru S.T.E.M. Unique for the
University?

• Faculty from Education, Math, Chemistry, Physics,
  and Biological Sciences take responsibility in
  training future teachers.
• Faculty in math and science departments interact
  with high school science and mathematics
  teachers.
• Low faculty to student ratio in 1 hour subject
  matter seminars (a.k.a. STEP Courses).

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On Campus Recruiting

• Target Audience Future Educators and Traditional
  Math, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Majors.
• Identify and Isolate Core Courses in math and
  science fields-specifically sophomore level
  courses.
• Presentations/Brief Survey
• Data Collection through Self Reported Survey
  Responses.

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Recruiting

• Sophomore Level STEM Courses are our target
  courses.
• Faculty of these courses are contacted in order
  to obtain endorsement to present information to
  their students.
• Brief presentations are made to the classes,
  highlighting the major features of the program
• Surveys are distributed in order to obtain
  self-reported demographic information and
  general interest in the program.
• Gathered data leads to follow-up contact with all
  interested students.

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Student Reflections

• I wanted to be a teacher but my parents wanted
  me to get a real degree that I could do
  something with if I decided not to teach later in
  life. This was the perfect solution to the
  problem.
• My first semester in this program, I was
  assigned to an inner-city middle school. My
  first day, I thought Its going to be a long
  semester. Now, after completing the semester, I
  think I would rather a middle school.
• I thought going out to the different high
  schools around the parish was great. It provided
  me with on-the-job training with a safety net.
  I was able to observe different teaching methods
  and the ways in which teachers handled disruptive
  students. Then, I was able to discuss my
  feelings with the teacher which was a big plus

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Reflections from Mentor Teachers

• I think of a teacher-candidate as an apprentice.
  If I were an apprentice I would want to work with
  the best, I would not want to work with someone
  who is below average. People who are interested
  in sports like to observe, learn, and admire the
  best athletes they certainly do not try to
  imitate the mediocre ones. I want to model myself
  as after the best.
• It is also important that they see things from a
  teaching perspective because they are so used to
  seeing from a student perspective. As a student
  you do not really think of all things and ways a
  teacher tries to get all of the students to
  learn. You mostly concentrate on how you learn.
  It allows them to get a bigger picture from the
  teachers perspective.

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Points of Pride

• The Secondary Education Concentration is the
  largest concentration among Mathematics Majors.
• We currently have ninety-seven science and
  mathematics majors enrolled in the secondary
  education concentration. That is more enrollees
  than the UTEACH (UT-Austin) program had at this
  stage in its development.
• The average ACT score for the science and
  mathematics students pursuing the secondary
  education concentration is 25.02 which is higher
  than the university average for enrolled students
  which is 24.0.
• Among our cadre of outstanding students are
• A mathematics major who became a University
  Medalist for maintaining a 4.0 his entire career.
• A biological sciences major who completed the
  program and was accepted into medical school.
• A biological sciences major who scored a perfect
  score of 36 on the ACT.
• At least two students earned the ETS Recognition
  of Excellence award for scoring among the top 15
  of students nationwide taking the Praxis II
  subject matter and Pedagogy segment of the exam.
• A biological sciences majors received the College
  of Basic Sciences Outstanding Sophomore Student
  Award .
• A mathematics major received a summer internship
  with the Chicago Public Schools.