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$12.5 Million NSF Grant to ASU Helps High Schools and 50,000 Students Tackle Math and Science

The future of the Valley and America may lie in biotech, nanotech, and other emerging sciences but is the next generation ready to take part? Not according to a raft of studies, including the recent AIMS test in which some 60 percent of Arizona’s high school sophomores failed the mathematics section. U.S. education and industry leaders overwhelmingly agree that the promising high tech future may prove to be a mirage for millions of Americans unless the nation improves the quality of high school math and science education and recruits more students-especially minorities and young women-into science-based careers.

But because scientific knowledge is now expanding at warp speed and mathematical ability and knowledge is acquired patiently and incrementally over many years, few subjects are harder to teach.

“Investing in high quality teacher development is critically important,” said Marilyn Carlson, Arizona State University Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics and Director of the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (CRESMET). “Foundational math and science concepts should be learnable for everyone, but when students lack confidence and aren’t well prepared, they get frustrated. Teachers can remove those roadblocks if they are prepared to provide supportive learning environments for developing students’ knowledge and ability.”

Now, with the support of a $12.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Carlson and a team of researchers and master teachers are developing a program that they predict will help hundreds of Valley teachers to achieve lasting improvements in math and science instruction.

“Project Pathways: Opening Routes to Math and Science Success for All Students,” is a pilot education research program that is aimed at enhancing the quality of math and science teaching of hundreds of high school teachers from school districts around the Valley.

The project involves a partnership with the Chandler Unified School District, the Mesa Unified School District, the Tempe Union High School District and the Tolleson Union High School District. Other partners include Scottsdale Community College, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Mesa Community College, Intel, and a host of academic programs at ASU.

“In Pathways, university faculty and teachers will work together intensively for four to five years,” said Carlson, “and at the end of the project the schools will have new tools, new knowledge, and the skills to make what they’ve learned a permanent part of their programs. This project brings real change that schools can sustain.”

Over five years, Project Pathway leaders expect the teachers’ new knowledge and enhanced instructional abilities will lead 50,000 Arizona students to higher achievement in math and science.

Project Pathways will offer four tuition-free graduate courses for the teachers in integrated math, science and engineering. The courses will count toward a new master’s degree in natural sciences that ASU has developed to help math and science teachers become “highly qualified,” as required in federal No Child Left Behind legislation. University faculty will travel from ASU to deliver the courses at the teachers’ own high schools.

The researchers will also support the teachers in creating teacher “learning communities” in the schools. Administrators have agreed to provide the teachers with 60 to 90 minutes per week in which to work collaboratively on developing effective lessons, honing their teaching skills and implementing new methods and curriculum. Initially, the researchers will guide the learning communities, but teachers will then take over and, Carlson hopes, make the communities a permanent part of their school programs.

“This is one of the problems that education research highlights again and again,” she said. “Compared to teachers in countries like Japan and China, American teachers don’t have time to reflect on whether what they are doing is working. Once administrators see how our Pathways learning communities enable teachers to improve their students’ progress, we hope every school in Arizona will give teachers this time to grow together as professionals.”

The four new graduate courses the researchers will develop are Functions and Modeling; Math-Integrated Chemistry and Physics; Math-Integrated Biology and Geology; and Engineering Design. Central to all the classes is a project-based, integrated learning approach to math and science study that promotes curiosity and encourages critical thinking, according to Carlson. The researchers are designing experiences that they expect will lead teachers and students to a deeper understanding of fundamental concepts.

“It’s a research-based model,” Carlson said. “Every element of the approach we’re recommending to teachers is built on careful clinical research, and this NSF grant will allow us to do more focused research to refine our methods.”

Carlson, a nationally recognized authority on math and science education who once taught high school mathematics herself , explained that we should not expect that teachers have finished learning how to teach once they complete their undergraduate programs. “That initial teacher certification is just the beginning of a lifetime professional journey,” she said, “and teachers, just like physicians or any other professionals, need the opportunity to upgrade their skills and keep on top of research developments,” she said.

Moreover, the researchers themselves have much to learn in this project. “I don’t think parents and the public in general realize that rigorous, scientific research in math and science education is itself a young field,” said Carlson. “To date, no one has found a widely reproducible model for how to prepare and support teachers. And there has certainly been no general model for which the research showed enough solid evidence to adopt it for math and science programs in schools nationwide.”

“However,” she said, “the research does support that we can improve student learning by providing teachers with two things: time to work together as teaching professionals in their learning communities, and first-rate graduate courses that emphasize conceptual, problem-based learning rather than rote mechanics.”

In the Pathways learning communities, the researchers will support the teachers as they discuss and apply the knowledge they are gaining in the graduate courses. Teachers will build on that knowledge to develop motivating new lessons for their students. They will try those lessons out in the classroom while researchers video them, then view the videos with their colleagues and reflect together on what is and is not working for students.

The researchers believe that the Pathways program will permanently improve ASU’s ability to assist math and science teachers, while having a host of other local benefits. “We are also launching a new recruitment program to attract some of our brightest math and science students into teaching careers,” said Carlson, “and two of our most innovative young researchers are developing a new technology platform to support our state’s English language learning students in learning math and science concepts.”

And while the program may have a large effect on the quality of education in Arizona, the project leaders hope to produce a scientifically tested model that other states can adopt as well. “We believe that Pathways will make a lasting change on the culture of these Arizona schools, and it will give us new knowledge on how we can bring this change to other schools around the country,” Carlson said.

Carlson stressed that to succeed, Pathways needs plenty of input from the teachers themselves.

“We’re listening to the teachers at every step along the way,” she noted. “It’s not like the researchers have all the answers. With the first graduate course we’ll be having a camera on ourselves as instructors, and we’ll be looking at the data on a weekly basis. We’ll be re-thinking what we’re doing based on what we’re seeing. The research will guide our actions in our graduate courses as well as the development of our support products and curriculum for teachers and students.”

While the project is aimed at bringing about broad systemic changes in the teaching of math and science, Carlson and her team also have more targeted objectives that they expect to achieve, including higher standardized test scores, an increase in the number of students who take challenging math and science courses, and an improvement in students’ later performance in college courses.

The four school districts initially involved in on-site coursework and learning communities are the Chandler Unified School District, the Mesa Unified School District, the Tempe Union High School District and the Tolleson Union High School District, with the faculty from two high schools participating from each. Other districts will be added as the project progresses and funds allow.

Faculty from Scottsdale Community College, Chandler-Gilbert Community College and Mesa Community College will be part of the instructional team delivering graduate courses, along with 60 participating faculty members from ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, the School of Life Sciences, the departments of Mathematics and Statistics, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Geological Sciences, and the College of Education.

Local industry is also partnering in the project, with Intel providing tutors and mentors and working with guidance counselors to encourage students to stay engaged in science and mathematics.

CRESMET is among a handful of research centers in the nation that can rapidly assemble teams of educators and science, mathematics and engineering faculty to work together on improving K-12 schools. The center is a formal collaboration of ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Education, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, and Office of the Provost.

“It really is because of CRESMET that we are able to field such a talented interdisciplinary team,” said Carlson, “from physicists and chemical engineers to education researchers, teachers, and graduate students. This is exactly the kind of collective wisdom and skill this important challenge requires.”

Carlson is the grant’s principal investigator. Co-principal investigators are Veronica Burrows from ASU’s Department of Chemical Engineering; Melinda Romero, executive director for Staff Development & Instructional Services in the Chandler Unified School District; Eugenia Echols, Education Manager at Intel; and Michael Oehrtman from ASU’s Department of Mathematics & Statistics.

Media Contact:
James Hathaway, (480) 965-6375
Hathaway@asu.edu

Source: Marilyn Carlson, (480) 965-6168