- Year 2019
- NSF Noyce Award # 1557328
- First Name Thomas
- Last Name Dick
- Discipline Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Math, Physics
- Co-PI(s)
Rebekah Elliott, Oregon State University, Rebekah.Elliott@oregonstate.edu; Nick Cabot, Oregon State University, Nick.Cabot@oregonstate.edu
- Presenters
Wendy Aaron, Oregon State University, Wendy.Aaron@oregonstate.edu
Need
Ambitious teaching deliberately aims to get all kinds of students—across ethnic, racial, class, and gender categories—not only to acquire, but also to understand and use knowledge, and to use it to solve authentic problems” (Lampert & Graziani, 2009). We find this approach is particularly important to enact in high needs school settings.
Goals
Research Questions: In what ways, if any, do fellows take up ambitious science and mathematics instructional work within their initial preparation and the the first four years of teaching in high needs LEAs? What challenges do fellows or teacher educators identify in developing fellows’ ambitious teaching?
Approach
Faculty employ pedagogies of investigation and enactment (Grossman & MacDonald, 2008; Grossman Compton, Igra, Ronfeldt, Shahan & Williamson, 2009; Lampert, 2010) that scaffold teacher candidates’ capacity to notice, act, and reflect on equitable instruction in ways that build candidates’ knowledge of instruction, and equally important, their skill with teaching. Instructional activities, structured and bounded disciplinary specific routines, are built around the work of teaching mathematics and science and used to advance goals for teacher and student learning. Teacher candidates develop instructional skill through supported cycles of investigation and enactment. Teacher candidates, teacher educators, math and science secondary teachers are partners in developing candidates’ instructional knowledge and skill through cycles of working in schools teaching NGSS and CCSSM aligned lessons across the year.
Outcomes
Becoming members of an existing network of experience teachers with the same goals of ambitious teaching is viewed as critically important to the professional development of our teaching fellows. To this end, the project has partnered with the Oregon Department of Education and Oregon State University to host annual Ambitious Math and Science Teaching summer institutes for Oregon math and science teachers.
Broader Impacts
The summer institutes are benefiting not only our Noyce Teaching Fellows, but are also providing support for a much wider network of math and science teachers in Oregon, especially around diversity, inclusiveness, and equity.
