MO-STEP Mission, Goals and Objectives
Mission
MO-STEP will develop a diverse, mutually supportive, collegial team of graduate fellows, undergraduate students, high school faculty and higher education faculty and provide long-term opportunities for the exchange of ideas and the analysis of innovative teaching methods.
Goals
- To promote teamwork between graduate fellows, undergraduate students, high school faculty and higher education faculty that will enrich the educational experience of all participants.
- To educate graduate students who will begin their careers as better and more effective teachers.
- To involve undergraduate students in high school teaching.
- To update and enrich the biological sciences curriculum taught in neighborhood schools.
- To provide an innovative, graduate-level curriculum and mentored classroom experience for graduate fellows.
- To provide professional development opportunities for participating high school faculty.
- To encourage high school students, especially minorities, to consider science careers and facilitate their transition from high school to college.
Objectives
The specific objectives of the MO-STEP program are:
Objective 1: Improve communication and teaching skills for graduate
fellows
Traditionally graduate students within scientific disciplines receive
little formal training in pedagogy and often are expected to learn effective
communication and teaching skills simply by in-service practice as they
are assigned teaching roles as part of their graduate student financial
package. MO-STEP will address this serious gap in the teaching preparation
of biology graduate students through specialized formal and informal training,
individual mentoring, and hands-on practice.
Objective 2: Provide content and professional development opportunities
for high school faculty
The past few decades have seen astronomical changes in science and technology,
and the pace of change is not slowing. These rapid advances represent
overwhelming challenges to educators trying to keep pace. MO-STEP is designed
to increase high school faculty content knowledge through working with
graduate fellows and university faculty, class work, internships with
university researchers and affiliates, increased access to web-based resources,
and through increased connections with other professional development
initiatives in the St. Louis educational community.
Objective 3: Enrich learning experiences for Grade 9-12 students
There is a need to increase in the workforce research scientists and science
educators. Improved scientific literacy is required within the general
public in order to guide public policy decisions and agendas that underpin
scientific innovations. MO-STEP will increase scientific knowledge and
literacy of high school students using inquiry-based learning to explore
subjects that are highly relevant and to which students have natural interests.
Enriched learning will be documented by pre-post tests and performance
on standardized tests.
Objective 4: Strengthen partnerships between higher education
and secondary schools
Perpetuation of MO-STEP will require strong partnerships between higher
education and secondary schools. MO-STEP is designed to build an effective,
diverse and integrated team that will strengthen partnerships by capitalizing
on existing collaborations augmented by new resources, partners and administrative
commitments. Strong collaborations between high school and university
faculty will provide the foundation and framework to accomplish the MO-STEP
mission.
Objective 5: Strengthen links between research scientists and
science education professionals
MO-STEP will significantly enhance links between research scientists and
science education professionals at the University of Missouri-St. Louis,
as well as establish collaborations with nearby school districts. Long-term
support of the project will require special recruitment strategies, modifications
of the Ecology, Evolution and Systematics program at University of Missouri-St.
Louis to improve teaching skills of graduate students within Biology,
and the establishment of new research and professional development opportunities
for students and faculty from secondary schools.
Objective 6: Documentation of project outcomes
MO-STEP will provide a dynamic learning environment that will be modified
as necessary to keep abreast of scientific and technological developments,
as well as teaching methods and tools to maximize the effectiveness of
achieving the project's overall goals. To stay dynamic, MO-STEP will have
a rigorous, independent and timely formative evaluation process that will
guide the project as well as a reflective summative evaluation. Developing,
evaluating and modifying the MO-STEP strategy will impact a broad audience
and have the potential to serve as a model for other school-university
partnerships.