Experts: Overhaul Teacher Prep
Posted on November 21st, 2010 by ASEE
An panel convened by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education is calling for an overhaul of teacher preparation in the United States, with training programs operating more like medical schools and setting tougher admission and graduation standards.
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Tags: Education Policy, Higher Education, Research on Learning, Teacher Training, Teachers
A survey commissioned by Intel finds that, “contrary to perceptions that American teenagers are apathetic about math and science, students highly value the importance of these subjects and understand the role of math and science to their futures.”
A new U.S. Department of Education plan calls for “revolutionary transformation” in how educators use technology to improve and measure student learning. The department plans to fund studies of online professional-collaboration communities for educators.
Why would a science museum screen “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which is all about wizardry? Because Hogwarts’ spells have intriguing parallels with ongoing research such as genetic engineering and anti-gravity experiments, science educators say. Plus, the magical appeal of the J.K. Rowlings series helps gets students excited about STEM subjects.
NASA’s “Kids in Micro-g” challenge calls for students in grades five through eight to design a classroom experiment that can also be performed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The “Kids in Micro-g” challenge calls for the experiments to examine the effect of weightlessness on various subjects.
The Maryland Business Roundtable plans to start an online networking site where STEM teachers can share lesson plans and connect with university, government, and corporate experts. The STEMnet site will debut in one large district this spring then expand to other districts next fall.
The long-documented achievement gap between black and white students turns out to be wider than is generally known. According to a new study focusing on young African American males, 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.
An Arlington, Va. physics teacher is heading to the South Pole as part of a University of Wisconsin experiment called IceCube, hailed as the biggest research project ever conducted on Antarctica. Among the subjects studied are cosmic rays and tiny, elusive particles known as neutrinos.
Former Vice President Al Gore will host an interactive, online town hall focused on STEM Education. The live event, which will connect young people from the United States with students from around the world, takes place November 17, 2010, at 12 p.m. ET. Also participating are inventor Dean Kamen and astronaut Sally Ride.
