Re: What to "cover"

[Herbert H Gottlieb <herbgottlieb@JUNO.COM>]

Doesn't ANYBODY have a "practical solution" containing the outlines of a
long-term plan that might ensure the staffing of  science teachers in the

3 - 12 grade schools?

Herb Gottlieb from New York City
( (Where an abundance of short-term "solutions" is
giving scienced education the short end of the stick)

On Thu, 07 Dec 2000 10:16:23 -0500 Michael Edmiston
<edmiston@BLUFFTON.EDU> writes:
> The teacher training programs described by Jane Jackson (both the
> program
> offered at Arizona State and the use of veteran HS teachers to train
> existing K-8 teachers) are sound ideas and certainly worth pursuing.
> However, we also need the goal of sending science-prepared K-8
> teachers into
> the schools straight from college rather than hoping they will
> "upgrade
> themselves" on the job.
>
> In this respect I have to applaud what Ohio has recently done.  New
> teachers
> must decide between a K-3, 4-9, or 9-12 license while they are in
> college.
> These are called early-childhood, middle-childhood, and young-adult
> licenses.
>
> To teach science at the 9-12 level you must essentially have a
> genuine major
> in the field you're going to teach.  This is not always literally
> true
> because the requirements for a major vary from college to college,
> but you
> need roughly 32 semester hours of "real" science courses in the
> specific
> area you intend to teach (this does not include co-requirements such
> as
> math).  So a person satisfying the licensure standards would either
> have or
> be very close to a physics (or chemistry or biology) major at most
> colleges.
>
> The most significant improvement is for middle-school (grades 4-9).
> The 4-9
> license requires a concentration in two fields.  The most common
> choices for
> science types are math/science.  If we ever get to the point that we
> have
> sufficient teachers, this means grades 4 through 9 will be
> "departmentalized" and science courses must be taught by people with
> science
> licensure, math taught by those with math licensure, etc. with each
> teacher
> licensed in two areas.
>
> At Bluffton College the 4-9 science license requires 10 semester
> hours of
> physics, 5 SH of chemistry, 8 SH of biology, 4 SH of astronomy, 4 SH
> of
> earth science, for a total of 31 SH of science.  This automatically
> covers
> the 7 SH general-education science requirement, so the 4-9 teachers
> take 24
> SH of science beyond what they would have to take for gen-ed anyway.
>
> For comparison, the math requirement for 4-9 teachers is 22 total SH
> consisting of algebra, geometry, elementary statistics, calculus,
> and two
> courses specifically for teaching math.  The other teaching
> concentrations
> for 4-9 are "language arts" and "social studies."
>
> There has been some criticism of this program because some do not
> like the
> idea of departmentalization and teacher specialization clear down to
> grade
> 4.  But if we want to assure that math and science in grades 4-9 are
> being
> taught by qualified people, this seems the proper way to go.  Since
> the
> teachers choose/complete two out of four areas for specialization,
> the
> specialization is both reasonably broad yet reasonably focused.
>
>
> Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.              Phone/voice-mail:
> 419-358-3270
> Professor of Chemistry & Physics        FAX:
> 419-358-3323
> Chairman, Science Department            E-Mail
> edmiston@bluffton.edu
> Bluffton College
> 280 West College Avenue
> Bluffton, OH 45817