To be eligible for Pathways, teachers must teach at least one section (and preferably two) of biology to either freshman or sophomore students and have significant numbers of students typically underrepresented in science and mathematics careers.
Participation in Pathways represents a significant time commitment on the part of both teacher and scientist partners. Partnership teams, composed of one teacher and two scientists, will first come together in August at the Pathways 2-dayretreat. At this retreat, all participants will be introduced to the program and the key research into promoting student learning that underlies the program. Participants will experience a model Pathways lesson, and teams will begin planning their lessons together. Teachers will receive five release days over the course of the year (for which SEP will provide substitutes) for Pathways professional development workshops. Each workshop will provide an opportunity to focus on strategies to increase student engagement and success in science with specific attention given to practices demonstrated to reduce the achievement gap. Scientist partners will also be present at these Pathways professional development days.
The partnership team will together develop one curricular unit for each scientists’ research topics, developing each topic into investigative learning experiences for students. SEP staff will provide support to Pathways teams as they develop these lessons and incorporate new teaching strategies into the lessons. Scientist partners will come to the school site 10 times over the course of the year to co-teach portions of the units with their teacher partners.
As a culminating activity, students in Pathways classrooms will work in teams to develop Pathways projects. These projects may include: interviews of their scientist partners, or of family members, news-show type pieces explaining the significance of the scientific concepts they studied in their Pathways lessons, etc. SEP staff will provide access to video equipment and related technology necessary to complete these projects as well as support teachers to enable these projects to be successful.
Finally, students will present their Pathways projects both to other students in the school as well as to their families at a Family Science Night hosted by the partnership team at the school site.
Pathways teachers will participate fully in all aspects of program evaluation. This may include completion of pre-/post-survey instruments, interviews, classroom observations, analysis of course syllabi, and student achievement for the year in which you participate in the program as well as in prior and future years.
In addition to providing substitutes for the release days described above, all Pathways teachers will receive a participation incentive of $1000 for their time dedicated to this project.