PRAIRIE VIEW A&M UNIVERSITY
ACADEMIC ROADMAP PROJECT
AN INNOVATIVE AND SUSTAINABLE PARTNERSHIP
FOR THE PREPARATION OF QUALITY TEACHING
PROFESSIONALS
A. Anil Kumar
Linda L. Garner
AACTE ANNUAL MEETING
CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 8, 2004
WHAT WE PLAN TO PRESENT
• Challenges
education
facing
teachers
and
• The Academic Roadmap Project - a TopDown-Bottom-Up approach
• Share future directions
A LOT IS EXPECTED OF TEACHERS!
• Have thorough knowledge of the subjects they teach
• Demonstrate the ability to assess and increase student
learning
• Manage classrooms effectively
• Care about the academic, social, civic, and personal success
of all students
• Use technology effectively to promote student learning
• Collaborate with colleagues, parents, & community
members to advance positive learning environments
• Demonstrate relevance of material to real world
• Are active and reflective learners
TOMORROW’S STUDENT
Generation Y—Millenials
25%+ of Americans
70 Million People
• Value Diversity/ Change
• Techno-savvy
• Want Work to be Meaningful
Key Word: Realistic
MULTI-GENERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
•
•
•
•
4 Generations working side by side
People at the heart of what teachers do
Generation Gap is widening
Different values, experiences,
styles, and attitudes create
– Misunderstandings
– Frustrations
NATURAL BUT CONFLICTING OUTLOOKS
Traditionalists
Build a Legacy
Baby Boomers
Build a Stellar Career
Generation X
Build a Portable Career
Generation Y
Build Parallel Careers
THE ACADEMIC ROADMAP PROJECT
AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH
The Academic Roadmap Project is a major
component of the Regents’ Initiative established
by the Board of Regents, the Texas A&M
University System.
It seeks to increase access, participation and
success in higher education for all Texans by
forming partnerships between high schools,
community colleges and the system universities.
THE ACADEMIC ROADMAP PROJECT
Making Curriculum Connections between High Schools,
Community Colleges and the Texas A&M System
The Academic Roadmap Project is designed in two phases.
Phase One:
• examine the continuity of curriculum alignment of the exit
requirements of the public schools with the entering expectations of
the universities; and
• examine the admissions and placement policies for each A&M
System university.
Phase Two:
• seek to strengthen the preparedness of teacher education candidates
and align community college and university curricula with content
proficiencies for teacher certification; and
• include the formation of collaborative research teams to conduct
data-driven studies to confirm and enhance the effectiveness of
teacher education programs and the overall effectiveness of
education in Texas.
THE ACADEMIC ROADMAP
The final product from this project will be an "Academic
Roadmap" for students, parents, teachers, counselors and
administrators that will map the routes to access,
participation and success in higher education for all Texans
while increasing the number of teacher education applicants
and graduates.
The roadmap will guide students through each stage of their
education with specific information about requirements and
performance expectations, along with the various metrics.
The roadmap defines a strategy that will ensure that
talented people are attracted to teaching as a career,
especially in the fields of science and technology education.
The strategy should also identify the skills and support
needed by teachers to build a culture of continuous
innovation in Texas’ schools.
THE ACADEMIC ROADMAP
Feedback-Assessment-Continuous Refinement
Student Standards
PVAMU
Curriculum
Alignment
EHS
Aligned Curricula
Admission
Policies
REGENTS’
INITIATIVE
Teacher
Preparation
New Courses/
Programs
HCCS
Collaborative
Research
Parents/
Community
Systematic
Interfaces
Teacher Standards
NCLB
State/TAMUS
Expectations
Drivers
Enablers/Influencers
Implementers
SCIENCE CURRICULUM TEAM
o Shawné S. LeDee, Eisenhower High
School
o Tanya Carter, Eisenhower High School
o Beverly Perry, Houston Community
College System
o Hylton G. McWhinney, Prairie View A&M
University
o A. Anil Kumar, Prairie View A&M
University
WHAT WE FOUND - THE CHASM
School
Poorly aligned curricula
Poorly understood requirements
Inadequate preparation for college
College/
Workplace
THE SCIENCE EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT
EXISTING PERCEPTIONS
National Science Foundation (US) survey, 2001
• 25% thought that scientists were apt to be odd
and peculiar people
• 29% thought that scientists have few other
interests but their work
• 53% of those surveyed agreed with the statement
“scientific work is dangerous”
• Physics is..... old-fashioned, outdated, irrelevant
to modern society
IMPACT OF THE ACADEMIC ROADMAP
EFFORT AT PVAMU
1. Curricular alignments among PVAMU, HCCS, SJCS,
and Eisenhower HS
2. Innovations in the curriculum and degree program
in the Physics Department
3. Installation of new physics laboratories
4. In process: Curricular alignments among PVAMU,
Royal HS, Hempstead HS and Waller HS, Elkins HS,
Elsik HS, Cy-Fair College
5. Participation in teacher education an activity
included in promotion and tenure considerations
CHANGES NEEDED
q The schedules of science courses in most high schools
must be more frequent to reduce the weakness in the
knowledge base.
q State constraints and requirements must focus more
on content and less on form.
q Specialized degree tracks within a science discipline or
an inter-disciplinary degree program in the sciences
must be designed.
q Mentoring of teachers and students aspiring to become
science teachers must be an integral part of the faculty
duties and as such must be part of their job
descriptions.
q Promotion, tenure and other such merit and evaluation
based actions must place these activities at the same
level as research and scholarship.
CHANGES NEEDED
q Typically, undergraduate education is very rich in content, with
full of information on biology, chemistry, and physics.
q However, it will not prepare one how to teach - does not have
"pedagogical content knowledge."
q Need to teach how to actually get the knowledge across to the
students. [Educare (Latin) - to draw out]
q Need to teach strategies to figure out if students are academically
ready for materials being taught.
q Courses for pre-service teachers need to be redefined, rewritten,
and re-aligned, keeping in sight the content and the concepts.
q Methods of teaching must be presented in the context of the
science content and in support of it.
WHAT’S MISSING?
• Appreciation of arenas of influence
• Coherence in the curriculum - courses/
sequences too fragmented
• Awareness/lack of interest on part of faculty
to update teaching techniques, incorporate
assessment
• Emphasis on transferable skills
• Feedback followed by continual quality
improvement
NOVEL FEATURES OF THE ACADEMIC
ROADMAP PROJECT
Systemic Approach to Teacher Preparation
Top-Down
- Training in management & assessment
- Adherence to standards
- Performance measures
Bottom-Up
-Curriculum alignment
- Bridging the gaps
- Collaborative interactions
- Clinical/Field-Based teaching
CURRENT EFFORT - CORE CURRICULUM
An updated Core Curriculum should be the
cornerstone of education for tomorrow.
The goal should be to provide all students,
regardless of their major or concentration,
with
wide-ranging
perspectives
on
significant ideas and achievements in
literature, philosophy, history, music, art, and
science.
In the Core Curriculum the pursuit of better
questions is every bit as important as the
pursuit of better answers. The Core
Curriculum classes should provide students
with the opportunity to develop intellectual
relationships with faculty early on in their
college career and to participate with them in
a shared process of intellectual inquiry.
REDESIGN THE CORE CURRICULUM
While the goals of the core curriculum at
various colleges and universities have a good
deal in common, there is enormous variance
in the structure of the programs designed to
meet them, beginning with the actual size of
the core requirement (i.e. the percentage of
the degree program it represents).
Institutions which have expanded their core
requirements have generally done so at the
expense of the elective component of the
program.
CORE CURRICULUM-EXAMPLES
Harvard: Core is fairly small, amounting to roughly one-quarter of
the degree program.
Princeton and Dartmouth: Core represents the standard one-third.
University of Chicago: Core is about 50%.
Cornell: Core is only one-quarter of the total program – half of the
courses taken in the last two years of study, no more. Developing
a core necessarily entails rethinking the major.
Evergreen State College: Core is a tightly-focused thematic
approach with the goal of a coherent and integrative educational
experience.
Fairleigh Dickinson University: Core is a sequence of four courses:
"Perspectives on the Individual," "The American Experience,"
"Cross-Cultural Perspectives," "Global Issues."
CORE PROGRAMS AND COURSES GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
• Integration of skills development with course
content
• Integration of new approaches to scholarship
• Emphasis on continual assessment
• Emphasis on small-group teaching
• Emphasis on peer review and assessment
• Team building, diversity and participation
• Thematically-Focused Inter-/multi-disciplinary
Courses
• Course Clusters (or Learning Communities)
• Capstone Courses
• Emphasis on creative problem-solving processes
• Global perspective on diversity and dilemmas of
human experiences
• Relevance to the real world
EMPHASIZE RELEVANCE
Prepare the students for the world
they will be graduating in, not the
world we are in now.
3
4
CURRICULUM
EMPLOYABILITY/
CAREER SKILLS
2
1
We need to work “backwards” where we need to be in five years
and what we need to do now to
get there - rather than imposing
our current mindsets on our
students.
PARTING THOUGHT
“Children are young,
but they are not
naïve. And they are
honest.
They are not going
to keep wide awake
if the
story is boring.
When they get
excited you can
see it in their eyes.”
- Chinua Achebe
This presentation and other
details of the Science Team’s
efforts are available through the
following link:
http://www.i2i.pvamu.edu/physics/index.htm
A. Anil Kumar, Ph.D.
Departments of Physics &
Electrical Engineering
(936) 857-2591
anil_kumar@pvamu.edu
Linda L. Garner, Ed.D.
Departments Educational
Leadership & Counseling
(936) 857-3024
linda_garner@pvamu.edu