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Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin
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This Week's Topics:
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| Tom Luce, CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), testified before Congress on Tuesday, July 22, about the urgent need to provide more funding for math and science education in the United States. "Congress needs to act now to fund rigorous math and science classes in American schools as well as programs to train math and science teachers. Other countries are making math and science a priority -- shouldn't we?" Luce asked. NMSI, a non-profit organization, was created in 2007 as a result of the "Rising above the Gathering Storm" report by the National Academies, which warned that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science achievement. NMSI's mission is expanding programs with proven success in math and science education across the nation. The initial focus is on replicating two programs that each has 10 years of data proving they work: a training and incentive program for Advanced Placement courses and UTeach, a program to recruit, prepare, and retain qualified math, science, and computer science teachers. In the last year, NMSI has launched AP Training and Incentive programs in six states and UTeach programs at 13 universities. Forty states have applied for the programs. More details are at www.nationalmathandscience.org. Mr. Luce testified before the Education and Labor Committee along with professional golf champion and education advocate Phil Mickelson and Dr. Ramona Chang, one of the teachers participating this summer in the Mickelson teacher training academy. Phil Mickelson and his wife Amy launched the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy to provide third-through-fifth grade teachers the training to help students succeed in math and science careers. The Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy has also recently announced additional opportunities for teachers to be considered to attend the 2009 Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy, a week-long, all-expense paid, math and science professional development program for third- through fifth-grade teachers. To date, close to 1000 teachers have already attended the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy. To nominate a teacher or to learn more about the program, log on to www.sendmyteacher.com. . |
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| The Education Commission of the States, (ECS) recently launched two key resources for policymakers. The first focuses on increasing the workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The second responds to a projected, growing national demand for students with advanced skills in career and technical fields. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, America "continues to suffer from a shortage of qualified IT workers with flexible and portable skills who can readily adapt and respond to ever-changing IT demands and processes." "STEM and career and technical education (CTE) both address burning issues for policymakers today," said ECS Senior Policy Analyst Jennifer Dounay, manager of the organization's High School Policy Center. "STEM and CTE programs respond to the outcry for more highly-qualified workers to meet growing state and national technical workforce needs. At the same time, CTE and STEM courses answer many high school students' calls to bring relevance and real-world applications into the classroom." Technical careers require considerable knowledge in math and science -- often on par with courses required for traditional four-year degrees. The new ECS resources put the right pieces in place for policymakers to ensure broad access and maintain high-quality instruction and curriculum for STEM and CTE programs. One of the resources is a STEM database, providing 50-state information on 10 indicators related to quality of and access to high school-level STEM programs. The database also offers information on state programs targeted at STEM achievement among female, low-income, and minority students. Another tool for policymakers is the CTE database which provides 50-state data on 13 state policy indicators linked to program access and quality, including: the use of employability skill assessment tools, the inclusion of CTE courses in graduation requirements, and funding mechanisms, among others. The mission of the Education Commission of the States is to help states develop effective policy and practice for public education by providing data, research, analysis, and leadership; and by facilitating collaboration, the exchange of ideas among the states and long-range strategic thinking. More details are at www.ecs.org. . |
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When the Texas Legislature passed HB 1 in 2006 and approved related appropriations in 2007, it agreed to completely overhaul the Texas Education Agency's (TEA's) largest data collection system, the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS). The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation -- which already is a major funder of Texas education initiatives having made more than $80 million in education-related grants in Texas to date -- recently announced a planning grant to help the TEA develop PEIMS upgrades that will make the system's student data more transparent and actionable, more flexible to accommodate new metrics, and easier to collect and disseminate to districts and education stakeholders statewide. The PEIMS collection and database system collects data the Legislature and the TEA use to oversee public education, including student demographic data and academic performance, personnel, financial, and organizational data for all the districts in Texas. . |
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| Hand-held electronic devices called "clickers" are helping college students learn physics, according to a series of research studies. Around the country, clickers are regularly used to maintain student attention in large lecture halls. Ohio State University students who used the devices to answer multiple-choice questions during physics lectures earned final examination scores that were around 10 percent higher -- the equivalent of a full-letter grade -- than students who didn't. The clickers also appear to level the playing field between male and female students. In clicker classes, male and female students performed equally well. In the traditional, non-clicker classes, male students outperformed female students. To Bill Reay, professor of physics at Ohio State, these results suggest that clickers could potentially encourage more women to pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. "The U.S. industrial sector has expressed an urgent need for more scientists and engineers to enter the workforce, to maintain our technological edge in the future," Reay said. "We need to recruit more students -- male and female -- who otherwise might not study science. And it turns out that for women especially, clickers can be a valuable learning tool." At large universities such as Ohio State, even relatively advanced science classes may contain hundreds of students. Reay said that clickers are a good way to help students pay attention and learn in today's classroom. In clicker classes, multiple choice questions appear on a large computer screen at the front of the lecture hall. Students hold the wireless devices, which resemble small calculators. They cast their votes for the correct answer based on their understanding of the part of the lecture that was just given. A bar graph shows the percentage of students voting for each answer. Physics educators have expanded the use of clickers at Ohio State by developing sequences of questions to determine if students really understand the underlying concepts of a lecture. The idea with clickers, Reay explained, is that both lecturers and students can gauge whether students understand the material in real time. If students don't understand something, the lecturer might try to get them to think about the topic in a different way, perhaps by discussing it amongst themselves to encourage understanding before moving on to a new topic. Ultimately, the Ohio State approach could change the way classrooms use clickers -- and even change the design of clickers themselves. The physics educators are working with an Ohio clicker manufacturer, Turning Technologies, in developing a new generation of devices that will measure the student's ability to solve word and number problems rather than just multiple choice. . |
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U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings recently announced 25 teachers have been selected for Teaching Ambassador Fellowships (TAF) with the U.S. Department of Education for 2008-2009. Five Washington Fellows will become full-time U.S. Department of Education employees in Washington, D.C., for one year, and 20 Classroom Fellows will remain in their classrooms and participate in the program through part-time projects. Throughout the year, Fellows will engage in education policy discussions, work with department officials in various program offices and participate in a variety of education projects. More than one thousand teachers across the U.S. applied for the Fellowships, which offer highly motivated, innovative public school teachers the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and experience to the national dialogue on public education. After an evaluation and interview process, Teaching Ambassador Fellows were selected based upon their record of leadership, impact on student achievement and potential for contribution to the field. The 25 Fellows represent 22 states across the country. Eight of the Fellows are high school teachers, 10 are middle school teachers and seven are elementary school teachers. The Fellows represent teaching expertise in a range of subject areas - three are general elementary school teachers, six have math expertise, five specialize in reading and language arts, five are science teachers, three teach social studies, one provides art instruction, one brings knowledge of critical language instruction and one is a physical education teacher. Many of the Fellows have experience teaching special education students, as well as non-native English speakers. For more information about the Teaching Ambassador Fellowship program, click here. . |
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TCEB Sponsors
To find out how your organization can sponsor the TCEB or support the Triangle Coalition in other ways, visit www.trianglecoalition.org/support.htm __________________________________________________________________________ |
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