Mississippi Academy for Science Teaching-- Project MAST

这个项目是州立学校系统、杰克逊州立大学（JSU）、杰克逊公立学校和密西西比其他公立学校之间的一个新联盟。该项目还与夏威夷的铁木天文台和教育中心、澳大利亚的詹姆斯库克大学天文中心和密西西比的美国宇航局斯坦尼斯航天中心合作。伙伴关系的重点是高中物理，化学和地球科学。该项目预计将使45名兼职教师获得高中科学教学许可证。课程将由教育和人类发展学院以及科学、工程和技术学院设计和教授。该项目将为200名在职教师提供160个小时的专业发展。目标是使教师能够实施国家科学教育标准和密西西比高中（9-12）教育科学课程框架。长期目标是提高学生在科学方面的成绩，并显着减少不同学生群体中科学表现的成绩差距。在职组成部分包括两个压缩3学分的研究生课程。每门课程将在10天内授课（共20天），夏季两周，学年期间10个星期六。重点将放在每个主要主题的概念发展上，并将包括课程作业，基于探究的实验室工作，演示，动手活动和解决问题，特别强调使用技术作为教学工具。项目小组成员将对参与者的教室进行至少三次后续访问。

This project is a novel alliance among the state school system, Jackson State University (JSU), Jackson Public Schools and other public schools in Mississippi. The project also partners with the Ironwood Observatory and Education Center in Hawaii, the James Cook Universtiy Center for Astronomy in Australia and the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The focus of the partnership is on high school physics, chemistry and earth science. The project anticipates enabling 45 preservice teachers to obtain teaching licenses in high school science. Courses will be designed and taught by the College of Education and Human Development and the College of Science, Engineering and Technology. The project will provide 200 inservice teachers with 160 hours of professional development. The goal is to enable teachers to implement National Science Education Standards and the Mississippi Science Curriculum Frameworks for high school (9-12) education. The long term goal is to improve student achievement in science and to significantly reduce achievement gaps in the science performance within the diverse student population. The inservice component consists of two compressed 3 credit hours graduate courses. Each course will be taught in 10 days (20 days total), two weeks in summer and 10 Saturdays during the academic year. The emphasis will be on conceptual development for each major topic and will include coursework, inquiry-based laboratory work, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and problem solving with special emphasis on using technology as tools of instruction. Project team members will complete at least three follow-up visits to the classrooms of the participants.