UC Joins National Effort to Increase Highly Qualified, High-Demand Math and Science Teachers

The University of Cincinnati is among 107 of the nation’s higher education institutions joining the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative (SMTI), an effort to place highly qualified math and science teachers in middle and high school classrooms across the nation. The SMTI was developed by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC), a Public University Association, of which UC is a member.

SMTI institutions commit to increase substantially the diverse pool of highly qualified science and mathematics teachers in their states. UC will work with appropriate state agencies to identify immediate and longer term needs for high school teachers. UC will help bolster partnerships among universities, school systems, state governments and other entities to address statewide needs and share best practices for the preparation of teachers. 

“One example of how UC is actively engaged in building the science and mathematics teacher pipeline is through our work with the emerging Hughes STEMM High School,” says Carla Johnson, director of the Furthering Urban STEMM Innovation, Outreach and New Research (FUSION) Center in the UC College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services (CECH). “Through programs like Hughes, our FUSION Center and our partnership in the Cincinnati STEMM Hub, we hope to ensure that the pipeline of science and mathematics teachers of the future are highly qualified and prepared in an innovative fashion.”

UC’s College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH) is also one of 27 institutions joining The Leadership Collaborative (TLC) formed by NASULGC. The collaborative will examine ways to strengthen science and math teacher preparation at their institutions and work more intensively to develop a far deeper understanding of how to enhance the priority of teacher preparation and share lessons learned throughout the community.

"UC has not only worked extensively to strengthen our preparation of future science teachers, but as an urban research institution, we have dedicated ourselves to diversifying the pool of these high-demand educators," says Lawrence J. Johnson, CECH dean. "As a member of The Leadership Collaborative, UC gains even more national presence in emphasizing the importance of teacher preparation. We need high standards, strong content knowledge at all levels, good practical experience that enables teachers to translate knowledge to their students, and incentives that encourage our best to go into and remain teaching."

TLC activities have been funded by a $1.5 million, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Math and Science Partnership: Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance (MSP-RETA). TLC will enable universities to identify and address institutional constraints that often impede the formation of effective and sustained secondary science and mathematics teacher preparation programs. The outcome of the research will be widely disseminated through the Internet, collaborative meetings and sharing of technical assistance. Sixty-one institutions applied to join TLC.

“This NSF grant provides a unique opportunity to involve a group of leading public research universities in collaboratively examining how they can best prepare 21st century science teachers to meet the present national shortage,” said Jennifer B. Presley, director of science and mathematics education policy at NASULGC and director of TLC.  “An exciting aspect of the collaborative is the partnership with several disciplinary societies which will help to build a strong faculty role in the development of new approaches to strengthening the preparation of science teachers.” 

While members of the collaborative will receive no direct money from this grant, they will have the opportunity to work with disciplinary societies such as the American Physical Society’s Physics Teacher Education Coalition, as they partner with their state and local departments of education to determine teacher needs for their region. 

NASULGC-member institutions, which are the leading public and land-grant universities in each state, educate the largest cohort of undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students on research-intensive campuses with influential colleges of education. By committing to this effort, NASULGC-member institutions are responding to the call for 10,000 new science and mathematics teachers in the National Academies report, Rising Above The Gathering Storm. 

The teacher imperative has been supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASULGC and in-kind contributions of faculty from several universities.

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