A presidential advisory panel is calling for the federal government to recruit and train 100,000 “great STEM teachers” over the next decade, recognize a master corps of the best educators, and create 1,000 schools devoted to science, technology, engineering and math.

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Tags: Education Policy, Math teachers, Public Policy, Science Teachers, Teacher Awards, Teacher Training, Teachers

Young students are fascinated by science and very open to learning. But as they age, that interest and curiosity tends to wane — a fact too often reflected in test scores. In Texas, only 67 percent of students pass the science portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam, while 90 percent pass the English component.

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Tags: Research, Research on Learning, Science Education, Science Teachers, Teacher Training

NASA’s Learning Environments and Research Network and the Georgia Institute of Technology have teamed up to create the ePDN, a new initiative dedicated to preparing K-12 teachers to engage their students in STEM subjects through the use of NASA-developed learning materials and resources. Teachers wanting to enhance their instructional skills, meet professional development goals, or find new and exciting resources to use in learning environments can apply to one of the free courses.

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Tags: Courses, NASA, Outreach, Teacher Training, Workshops

NASA and Georgia Tech have set up a series of distance learning courses for K-12 science teachers called the Electronic Professional Development Network, which is a free online set of courses designed to hep educators do a better job at teaching STEM subjects.

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The National Science Foundation is providing $11.5 million over five years to a partnership that aims to enhance teaching and learning of grade 3-8 science in 12 New Jersey districts.

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Tags: National Science Foundation, STEM education, Teacher Training

A series of Workshops was organized by the Center for the Study of Mathematics Curriculum to focus on STEM learning design for young students and adolescents. This report provides a summary of the ideas generated by workshop participants and offered to the STEM instructional design community and to agencies that fund this work.

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The American Chemical Society provides a number of great resources and outreach programs for students and teachers. The organization and website features teaching guides, workshops, hands-on activities, puzzles, games, activity books, magazines, student programs, events, teacher training, online seminars, teacher certifications, reports on learning, grants, scholarships, courses, awards, community outreach, and more.

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Tags: American Chemical Society, Internet Resources, Teacher Resources, Teacher Training, Teaching Aids, Web Resources

IT giant Hewlett-Packard is spending $1 million to support STEM learning through an international, interdisciplinary effort to join together schools, colleges and universities and nonprofit educational groups to work on specific issues. Five of these consortiums, or “sandboxes of innovation,” will tackle STEM-related challenges, from teacher training to online and collaborative learning.

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Tags: Corporations, STEM education, Teacher Training

Too many science teachers in the U.S. — especially at the elementary and middle school levels — aren’t fully qualified to teach the subject. For instance, more than 70 percent of middle school science teachers in Chicago schools do not have a degree or endorsement in science. To address that problem, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) have teamed up to offer what they say is a first of its kind program to bolster the skills of middle school science teachers.

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Tags: Museums, Research on Learning, Science Teachers, Teacher Training