Center for Science and Technology in Education (CSTE)

• Transdisciplinary STEM Education: This program promotes a perspective of transdisciplinary STEM, integrating the core ideas and practices of different disciplines in a harmonious and holistic manner that builds on rather than erases the epistemic differences between the disciplines. Learning is contextualized and situated in real-world problems and issues.

• Teacher Leadership: Teachers develop the knowledge and skills not only to provide high-quality STEM instruction for their students but also to lead professional development and otherwise influence STEM education beyond their own classrooms. Our most enthusiastic teacher leaders mobilize and energize stakeholders within and across their school communities to improve learning opportunities for all students. 

• Equity, Access, and Anti-bias Education: Committed to ensuring that all students receive equitable, productive opportunities to learn within and across the STEM disciplines—most recently, with an increased focus on EL students, we foreground anti-bias education and integrate social justice standards and critical practices from the organization, Learning for Justice, into our programs.

• Research & Inquiry: Good teaching requires life-long learning skills and dispositions. Teachers work with UMD faculty to explore relevant scholarship to inform their work and engage in their own action research to improve their practice and communicate with broader audiences. In the next cohort, teachers and faculty will explore ways teachers leverage ideas and practices related to sustainability toward academic achievement for all students within STEM disciplines.

Year One

 Learning and Teaching in the Physical Sciences

This is a hands-on, interactive, and inquiry-focused course that takes an interdisciplinary approach to making sense of physics-related phenomena. It has been designed specifically for an audience of teachers with varying levels of experience in physics. Teachers have described it as challenging without being intimidating and being able to immediately apply the learning from this course to lessons for their students! 

 Learning to Teach and Learn Biology

This integrated and project-based course focuses on developing conceptual knowledge of core ideas in evolution, ecology, and heredity. Students develop the ability and propensity to approach the learning of new topics in biological science through tangible sense-making and coherence-building of explanations for phenomena. They will engage in scientific argumentation, which includes engaging with other people’s ideas, defending claims with evidence, and seeking coherence between different ideas and will consider issues of design in biology that are related to human needs and socioscientific issues. 

Special Topics in Curriculum and Instruction: Engineering

After successfully completing this course you will be able to engage in engineering design to solve real-world problems. They will be able to apply programming, electronics, computer-aided design, and mechanics knowledge to engineering problems. They will also reflect on how engineering can be brought into their classrooms, and on what the purposes, strategies,challenges and benefits are for doing so. This course emphasizes computer science, using the Maryland State Department of Education’s Computer Science Standards. It also engages with community-based local STEM education organizations to engage in design-based and maker-focused learning experiences.  

Developing a Professional Teaching Portfolio for STEM 

In this course, teachers will develop dynamic electronic portfolios that showcase their evolving professional philosophies for sustainability in STEM education, sample lessons, student work samples, and more. The following are electronic portfolios created by teacher participants:

• Ms. Sella’s Teaching Portfolio 

• Ms. Wu: Elementary STEM

• Mr. Rivera: STEM

• Ms. Chervenak: STEAM 

Year Two

Problem-Solving and Innovative Thinking in the Mathematics Classroom

Curriculum and instruction for developing thinking skills through the discipline of mathematics. 

Teaching & Learning with Technology

This course provides a dynamic and interactive introduction to teaching and learning with technology. We will explore digital technology and its impact on learning and institutions as we consider “big ideas” of the field of integrated educational technology including computational thinking.  We will discuss interdisciplinary K-12 practices that integrate technology in the service of understanding core ideas and concepts. We will review concrete examples of technology-infused lessons and technology-based assessments. The course will draw on class discussions, inquiry, instructional technology, and collaborative activities to support teachers to enhance their own teaching practice through technology.

 Embracing Diversity in Classroom Communities

An exploration of the richness and complexity of student diversity that teacher candidates will encounter in K-12 classrooms with a focus on diversity in STEM. Students will engage in critical reflection around diversity and equity issues.

Conducting Research on Teaching

Teachers will learn tools and processes of action research to engage in reflective practice that examines beliefs about teaching and learning, professional learning to take responsibility for creating inclusive environments for learning and collaborating with other stakeholders, and generating evidence to continually evaluate the effects of teacher’s actions on learners, families, other professionals, and the community.

Year Three

Data-driven Decision Making in Schools and Classrooms

Equips educators to use the data that surrounds them productively. This includes data students generate that can be used to improve student learning outcomes as well as data generated by the classroom and school that can be used to improve pedagogy and classroom culture. After completing this course, students will be better able to collect, analyze, and make decisions based on the data generated by their students and peers.

Reframing Teacher Professionalism: Achieving Teacher Leadership

Teachers will identify “trends” in STEM education programming and analyze factors associated with sustained, exemplary implementation. Teachers will analyze relevant school performance data – including data we collect ourselves as well as local, national, and international data. Teachers will meet, learn from, and network with a variety of professionals working in a variety of STEM contexts. For the culminating project of this teacher leadership degree program, teachers will submit a formal, evidence-based plan for advancing STEM education in their school communities.