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1 Introduction and Themes of the Convocation
Pages 1-12

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From page 1...
... For example, the Center for Teaching Quality, headquartered in North ­ arolina, is C seeking to create schools "where America's most accomplished ­ eachers t routinely spread their expertise, enforce standards of teaching excellence, transform teacher preparation and certification, and redesign and lead their own schools."1 A recently published report from this organization 1  Additional information is available at http://www.teachingquality.org [September 2014]
From page 2...
... held a convocation on June 5–6, 2014, in Washington, DC, entitled "One Year After Science's Grand Challenges in Education: Professional Leadership of STEM Teachers Through Education Policy and Decision Making." The convocation was organized by a committee of experts under the aegis of the National Academies Teacher Advisory Council, which was established in 2002 to help bring master teachers' "wisdom of practice" to Academy staff and other organizations as they work to improve STEM education for grades K-12. 2 It was structured around a special issue of Science magazine that discussed 20 grand challenges in science education (Alberts, 2013)
From page 3...
... 4 During the opening session of the convocation, Mike Town, chair of the organizing committee and a teacher at Tesla/STEM High School in Redmond, Washington, said, "This is the first time we've had an opportunity to have a dialogue about policy and teacher empowerment with all the different stakeholders in the same room at the same time." 5 The overall objective of the convocation, said Richard Duschl, a senior advisor at the National Science Foundation (NSF) , which supported the convocation, was to discuss how teachers could "become leaders, become spokespersons, become individuals who know how to speak about policy and about the impact of the various evidence-based practices that we are now trying to put into place." 4 The Twitter feed is available at #STEMTeachers.
From page 4...
... 4% The convocation also built on a meeting held in February 2014 (National Research Council, 2014) and a workshop held three days prior to this convocation6 on how schools, afterschool programs, and institutions such as museums that provide informal STEM learning can work together to improve STEM education.
From page 5...
... But the term "teacher leader" can be distrusted in the context of schools, where teachers typically work among themselves as equals rather than in a hierarchy, observed Toby Horn, codirector of the Carnegie Academy for Science Education at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC. In addition, she said that teacher leadership can be viewed by administrators as taking time away from what is viewed as teachers' primary (or only)
From page 6...
... Teachers will make different decisions regarding leadership, noted Janet English, a high school science teacher in California who recently received a Fulbright Fellowship to study the Finnish education system.7 Some will decide on being involved at different levels, from the school level to the national or international level while others will not -- perhaps because they do not want to leave the classroom or are worried about job security. For some teachers who are reticent, mentoring may convince 7  Additional information about the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program is available at http://www.iie.org/Programs/Fulbright-Awards-In-Teaching [September 2014]
From page 7...
... professional development to engage teachers in leadership activities (the subject of Chapter 4)
From page 8...
... Different programs have had different degrees of success in keeping people connected after an event or program, English observed, noting "you have to have something to keep people engaged and interested in being part of that group." A mechanism suggested by Alberts during the breakout session was a series of meetings patterned after the Gordon Research Conferences in science,9 where people come together for one week a year and "the most interesting thing at the retreat is the other people who are there." Expanding on Models of Teacher Leadership Rebecca Sansom, an Einstein fellow10 at the National Science Foundation, elaborated on some of the ways in which existing models of STEM teacher leadership could be expanded. One option she suggested would be to provide teacher leaders with more opportunities for authentic research opportunities as a way of developing their leadership knowledge and 8  Additional information is available at https://www.paemst.org/ [September 2014]
From page 9...
... Department of Education. Therefore, another step forward would be to define roles of teacher leadership, such as instructional leader, professional development coach, mentor teacher, curriculum developer, adjunct professor, and teacher trainer.
From page 10...
... Finally, Town directed attention to the changing roles of teachers, which also will require new forms of professional development. Despite increased understanding about effective approaches based on emerging evidence, changes to professional development also are influenced in part in response to the perceptions of policy makers.
From page 11...
... Networks of funders such as the STEM Funders Network -- an affinity group that explores best practices in grant making for STEM activities -- offer one way to reconcile different procedures and focus on promising areas. Interagency initiatives at the federal level and public-private funding partnerships are other ways of supporting activities and programs that could foster STEM teacher leaders, she said.


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