Sci Teacher Prep Library

Featured Paper Session: Faculty Rewards and Structures for STEM Teacher Preparation

Abstract

The Promoting Institutional Change to Strengthen Science Teacher Preparation project is a collaboration among 26 public research universities (The Leadership Collaborative (TLC)) that seeks to understand the conditions that promote institutional change that sustains their efforts to strengthen their science teacher preparation programs. This project is a partnership between the Association for Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) - whose members are represented by their Presidents and Provosts, and several science disciplinary societies especially the American Physical Society (APS). TLC universities are submitting action plans for strengthening science teacher preparation within an institutional context of change and sustainability, and will identify common challenges and share successful strategies.
For the MSP research conference, we are focusing on a small but important component of the environment/structure - how disciplinary faculty are appointed and rewarded for their engagement in science education and teacher preparation. Drawing upon participants own experiences and research, the questions that we would like to have a dialogue on at the Learning Network Conference include:
1) Are there preferable organizational (departmental) structures that are more conducive to effective recognition of disciplinary faculty's involvement in STEM education?
2) How do institutions evaluate and give weight to this type of faculty work? 3) Are there successful models of recognition and reward and what is the environmental context in which these successful models occur