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In
California, because there is no education major, there generally are not specific science or math courses for
prospective teachers.
Pre-service teachers are in the discipline majors, so LACTE
focused most of its curricular reform in the standard discipline
courses. Thus all students
in those courses, pre-service teachers and others,
receive the benefits of LACTE’s curricular innovation.
LACTE has supported new or revised classes at every one of its
campuses, and across the spectrum of science and math.
A significant number of LACTE courses are at community colleges,
because such a large portion of California State University students
(over 60%) begin their educational careers at community colleges. LACTE classes reach students from the level of basic
mathematics preparation, to the mainstream in introductory biology or
calculus courses, to the culminating experience of their undergraduate
education in capstone courses. LACTE
courses are also incorporated into some of the new accelerated 4-year
credential programs. And some of the newest LACTE courses are targeted
at in-service emergency permit teachers.
In
the early years, LACTE provided mini-grants (from $1000-$6000) to support
revising or designing new courses.
Later in the project, LACTE shifted its support to production of
products. These products
include both course manuals, and accompanying Instructor’s manuals, to
provide the direction needed to teach the course the way the designer
intended. This means the
Instructor’s manuals discuss not just the hows, but the whys of the
different educational and assessment approaches of the course.
There are now course manuals for eight LACTE courses or modules,
instructors manuals for three of these, and “How-to” Manuals for
various LACTE projects and activities, such as the annual Future
Teachers Conference and the Meet
the Teachers Roundtable. Having such
manuals enables others to adopt this work.
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