A Meeting of the Minds: A Symposium for Community College Teacher Education Colleagues

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A symposium for community college educators is being held to discuss pertinent issues facing teacher preparation programs at two-year colleges. Community college faculty, administrators, and staff from institutions across the country and educators representing professional organizations are meeting to: (1) compile highly effective STEM teacher preparation strategies and practices which can be replicated at other institutions; (2) discuss and report the ways in which NSF-funded projects [such as those supported by Advanced Technological Education (ATE) and Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (CETP)] have led to institutional changes; (3) discuss the ways in which future K-12 teachers impacted by these programs have improved their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content and pedagogical knowledge and how these improvements can be systemically documented and reported; and (4) generate specific recommendations to NSF for teacher preparation initiatives that involve community colleges. Intellectual Merit: A decade after the release of the paramount document, "Investing In Tomorrow's Teachers: The Integral Role of Two-Year Colleges in Science and Mathematics Preparation of Prospective Teachers" (NSF, 1998), it is now appropriate to examine the impact the recommendations of this document have had on STEM teacher education efforts and on community colleges' institutional practices. To this end, the symposium provides a forum for participants to: (a) discuss best practices and challenges in STEM teacher preparation in 2008, allowing the participating institutions to further enhance their knowledge; (b) examine ways in which successful practices can be adapted or adopted at other institutions; (c) examine ways to increase the group of colleagues in community colleges who provide high-quality STEM teacher education at their institutions; (d) develop a document which reports successful practices, and (e) compile information on how NSF-funded projects in STEM teacher preparation have impacted institutions. Broader Impact: The diversity of participants who engage in the symposium is essential for accurately reporting teacher preparation efforts on a larger scale. The document created as a result of the symposium is being distributed to participants, their designees, NSF, and national professional organizations. This document is being used to further discussions at local institutions, state organizations, as well as on the national level.