Overview
This NSF-sponsored planning conference will explore the
possible use and necessary adaptations of a faculty
development program for faculty who teach preservice teachers.
This program, called the Savvy Cyber Professor, is being
developed by Stevens Institute of Technology's Center for
Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE).
Over the past ten years, CIESE has worked with a large
number of K-12 teachers on the effective integration on
Internet-based resources in the classroom. Documented gains in
student learning have resulted from these efforts, as reported
by independent evaluators such as ETS and Harcourt Educational
Measurement.
More recently, with the support of a $1.5 million grant from
the U.S. Department of Education’s Preparing Tomorrow's
Teachers to Use Technology (PT3), CIESE has extended this work
to the preservice education of teachers. CIESE and its eight
partner organizations have developed materials and workshops
that enable undergraduate students to learn Internet-based
approaches that they can fairly shortly use in K-12 classes
that they will be teaching. The strategy of this initiative
has been to model the effective use of technology in science
and mathematics courses taken by preservice teachers. In
addition, the project is establishing a shareable library of
"Real World Learning Objects" (RWLOS) that can be used by
project participants and others, to employ technology in the
teaching of core subjects.
As you will see from the materials on the CIESE website, we
began this faculty development work with community colleges.
The goal for our planning meeting on Dec. 2-3 is to see
whether a related effort for four year institutions is
desirable, and if so, to suggest revisions in the materials
and strategies available. The outcome of this two-day
conference will be a set of recommendations regarding the
applicability and possible adaptations needed to implement the
faculty development program in four-year colleges of teacher
education.
Therefore, a small group of faculty members and teacher
education administrators from independent colleges and
universities that are members of the Council of Independent
Colleges (CIC) will review the materials and consider the
possibility of designing a national program, with the working
title of Savvy Cyber Teacher Pre-service Initiative, to
make these approaches and materials widely available to CIC
institutions. Members of this pilot group have been chosen to
explore the materials in advance of and during the conference,
and to work together to formulate such recommendations.
CIESE and CIC are pleased to engage you in this program, and
we look forward to our collaboration.
|
|
