THE RITES WAY

The Math and Science Partnership program at NSF (NSF-MSP) funded the Rhode Island Technology Enhanced Science (RITES) Project; with the goal of attaining systemic increase in STEM literacy in RI and application of that successful intervention strategy elsewhere in the US. The initial partnership included one school district as a core partner, and later expanded to include six core partner districts and twenty-seven (i.e., 75%) of the districts overall. In our effort to develop RITES to this level as a statewide project, we designed a multi-­tiered partnership model, where hundreds of teachers participate in sharing and networking at one level, while smaller groups of faculty members and administrators make deeper connections through leadership committees. The higher education partners included two institutions as core partners, and through the years the project had representation from five institutions – tens of faculty members were engaged.

In this presentation we will chronicle the path RITES has taken in creating an authentic and sustainable partnership between K-12 and Higher Education (HE) faculty. One focus will be on the formation of Resource Teams, pairs of K-12 gifted teachers and HE science faculty committed to both research and science education--for working together as equals, they grew to respect and learn from each other. Another focus will be on the strategy of RITES to meet with each school and listen to what they will need in order to achieve STEM literacy, and try to provide it,for this is the opposite of many well-meaning interventions, in which it is presumed that HE knows what is best for K-12 pathways to STEM gains.