TEACHERS AS INVALUABLE CONTRIBUTORS TO THE DESIGN OF TEACHER-TRAINING PROGRAMS

Geoscience faculty are aware of skills and content essential for career success as a professional geoscientist, and accordingly, routinely integrate them into our geology programs. In contrast, teachers are experts in science curricula mandated by local government agencies, as well as transference of knowledge and skills to non-adult learners. Bringing together these two complementary experience sets to design teacher-training programs is essential to address the multiple and varied needs of earth science teachers. Brooklyn College is currently developing an innovative MAT program for earth science teachers with the direct involvement of key stakeholders (faculty of geology and education, community-based non-formal science educators, experienced earth science teachers, teachers seeking certification in earth science). Teachers participate in the initial design of each course, and course-graduates are invited to participate in focus groups to guide the redesign of each course to better serve teacher needs. Through this design/redesign process, teachers have informed faculty of key principles for successful teacher-training programs. Official scope and sequence should inform course content, be integrated into syllabi, and also act as a scaffold for entire programs; the prevalent elementary school content of earth materials should be presented in the initial courses in a teacher program, whereas process-focused content associated with middle-school curricula (weather, climate change, tectonics) should be presented in mid-program courses. Where possible, presentation of material should mirror developmental stages of students; regardless of the grade-level at which teachers work, each teacher can find a transferable aspect of the lesson. Transferability is the priority for teachers. Accordingly, options for assignments should be evaluated with respect to their teacher-friendliness; can products be used in their classrooms? Can aspects of the assignment be adapted to classroom activities (materials are available, safe and affordable; skills and content are connected to standards)? Furthermore, assignments should provide opportunities for students to engage a variety of learning styles in order to provide direct experience with varied approaches for differentiated instruction.