IMPORTANCE OF STATE AND NATIONAL STANDARDS IN BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Few geoscientists in academia have found the need to learn about the State and National Earth Science Standards. Some of you may be aware of the new Science Framework that was just published this past July by the National Research Council. If your plans for “Broader Impacts” address K-12 education, then it is time to fully grasp the important role that standards play. Many geoscientists are not aware of the extreme range of Earth Science content that teachers are expected to teach and students are expected to learn. In the current high stakes test environment of public school education, teachers find they have no time to introduce new cutting-edge science into their curriculum unless it is directly tied to the standards. In many school districts, a teacher’s pay and job security are directly connected to what their students demonstrate they know and are able to do on tests that are based on the standards.

As part of the Michigan Teacher Excellence Program (MiTEP), we have developed an instrument based on the Michigan State Department of Education’s High School Content Expectations. These Content Expectations are the standards that the Michigan Earth Science teachers are accountable for teaching. This instrument has been tested with two cohorts of MiTEP teachers and validated by geoscientists. On the instrument, the standards were listed and teachers were asked to rank themselves in their level of content knowledge, skills to teach the content, and how well they believed their students learned the content when they taught it. Once the teacher responses were compiled, the geoscientists planning to work with the teachers knew which Earth Science concepts they needed to address with the teachers.