Programs Aim to Turn Science Undergrads into K-12 Teachers
At a higher education and science policy roundtable in New York City, University of Colorado at Boulder chancellor Philip DiStefano talked about his institution's efforts to attract science majors to teaching K-12. Steve Mirsky reports
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“Thirty percent of the teachers around the country teaching physics either don’t have a degree in physics or don’t have a minor in physics.”
Philip DiStefano, chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder. DiStefano joined other higher education leaders for a roundtable April 3 in New York City.
“And so one of my goals is to make sure that we’re getting more qualified science and math teachers from our science and mathematics department to go into education and teach in our K through 12 schools.
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“And we have a number of grants…to ensure that not only do we have more science and math teachers going into the public schools, but we’re also reconceptualizing our undergraduate math and science courses so that they’re interesting…and so we’re taking kind of a two pronged approach by trying to recruit more of our majors in math and science, chemistry, physics, biology, to go into K through 12 education. But also to revamp the courses that we teach so that they’re…getting students interested.”
—Steve Mirsky
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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