Executive Summary

 

FSU-Teach is a collaborative effort of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Education at Florida State University. The FSU Program is modeled after the highly successful UTeach program at the University of Texas, Austin ( http://www.uteach.utexas.edu/ ) – a program that has dramatically increased the number of secondary science and math teaching graduates primarily by attracting science and math majors into the teaching profession.

FSU-Teach works to meet the need for qualified and skilled teaching professionals in the secondary classroom by recruiting and preparing excellent students to become reform-minded science and mathematics teachers, then supporting these teachers after graduation to facilitate retention. FSU-Teach seeks to contribute to the research base on preparing and retaining math and science teachers.

FSU-Teach includes the aggressive recruitment of science and math majors largely via an array of student benefits, including paid tuition for the first two courses; paid work opportunities that provide experience in education, research, and/or community outreach; and a community structure for their university experience.

FSU-Teach students will complete courses that build the content and pedagogical preparation necessary to begin the life-long learning process that defines a successful teacher through a double major, one in the content areas and one mathematics and science teaching. FSU-Teach is in the process of applying for program approval.

FSU-Teach coursework begins with intensive early field experiences via Step 1 and Step 2 courses. In these courses students use research based math and science curricula to teach elementary and middle school students. The emphasis of these courses is for FSU-Teach students to experience teaching using high quality curricula and for the elementary and middle school students to have an opportunity to further develop their math and science content knowledge.

FSU-Teach will streamline academic requirements, working with each of the content and pedagogy disciplines to design an FSU-Teach track within that major to enable students to graduate within four years.

FSU-Teach mentor relationships will extend beyond graduation through an induction program with the goal of supporting the FSU-Teach graduates during their first year of teaching.

FSU-Teach will seek to build an endowment to provide financial support to students and graduates of the program.

FSU-Teach will institute a rigorous, continuing program evaluation component that will focus on data collection on all of its aspects including, but not limited to, student recruitment and retention, teaching success and retention of its graduates, program quality and success, student demographic data, and graduation rates.

FSU-Teach goals are for its graduates to be well-prepared:

• In their teaching content area and in pedagogy.
• To practice research-based pedagogical techniques for science or mathematics teaching and to achieve the goals of the NSES or NCTM as appropriate in their classrooms.
• To meet the challenges of the modern secondary-school environment.
• To become reflective science or mathematics teaching practitioners who engage in extensive, life-long professional development and who will understand ongoing content and pedagogical development as an integral part of their profession.
• To understand and involve their students in inquiry in their content discipline.