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Curricular development was one of the primary
strategies adopted by the Los Angeles Collaborative for Teacher Excellence to strengthen the training of pre-service
teachers. This report
articulates LACTE's rationale for taking this approach.
All LACTE's efforts were set against the backdrop
of the teacher training structure in California, which requires
prospective teachers to obtain a subject matter Bachelors degree, and
then complete a 5th year of
schooling to meet the education requirements for being a teacher.
Complicating this picture is
the fact that many new teachers do not complete this 5th year of
training before beginning to teach,
but instead enter teaching directly from their undergraduate
schooling on an emergency teaching permit.
The absence of an undergraduate education major and
the enormous increase in teachers entering
teaching without their 5th year education program (and thus, in
many cases with very little or no teacher
training), means that effective efforts to reach and impact pre-service
teachers must take place in
their undergraduate disciplinary courses and programs. Thus improving the undergraduate science and math curricula
was one of the cornerstones of the LACTE program.
LACTE changed a select portion of the math and
science curricula, and helped to reform the
methods of the faculty who teach these classes by funding
curriculum development grants in courses that were traditionally taken
by students who eventually teach. This
indirect approach was the only viable approach to curricular reform in
California that could reach future teachers, because there are very few
courses that serve only pre-service teachers.
Furthermore, students planning on a career in secondary education
cannot declare a major in secondary education.
Generally they major in math or science, since these are the
subject matter programs that lead to the “single subject
credential." In
California's community colleges where future teachers are often not
identified, the general education mathematics and science courses are the only way to
reach this population. Hence,
LACTE felt that it made good sense to fund curricular reform in
general education math and sciences courses such as "Intermediate Algebra" and
"Introductory Astronomy" that contain a high
proportion of future teachers.
Even those students planning to teach at the
elementary level are rarely in classes designed
specifically for that aim. The
exceptions are courses such as "Mathematics for Elementary School
Teachers," which LACTE helped improve through curricular
reform grants at several of its institutions. Also
driving this approach is the overwhelming research documentation
supporting the idea that students will teach the way they were taught.
By providing pre-service teachers in these classes with good
models for teaching in their disciplines, LACTE could have a strong
influence on their future teaching approaches. Further, it was hoped that the excitement and satisfaction of
experiencing active learning would sway some students to choose a career
in math or science education.
Achieving change in disciplinary teaching is not
simple, because it must be done within the existing culture, and no
single effort can dramatically change an entrenched system.
Therefore LACTE adopted a diffuse, bottom up approach.
LACTE tried to transform individual faculty by helping them learn
how to reform their teaching through faculty development workshops.
This strategy provided faculty with a community of like-minded
and supportive colleagues. LACTE
then expanded the impact by providing release time or monetary stipends
in a competitive grants process, for faculty to reform and incorporate
new approaches and technologies into their courses.
Once a faculty member reformed one of his or her courses, the new
approaches almost always
spread to the rest of his or her teaching.
In parallel with the efforts to change the teaching
of individual faculty and the approach in specific courses, was a
broader effort to influence the single subject teacher credential
programs at the LACTE Bachelor
degree granting institutions. The
State of California changed its requirements for single subject matter
programs in the mid-1990s, causing schools that credential teachers to
revise their certification paths. LACTE
participated in this revision process, by getting LACTE courses
incorporated into the new
paths for both elementary and secondary teachers and providing guidance
on better ways to meet the
State requirements. Thus
LACTE has had both immediate and a longer-term structural impact on
teacher training at its institutions.
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