Lunar and Planetary Institute






Menu of Opportunities for Scientist Involvement in Teacher Preparation

Advocate for and Assist Pre-Service Educators

This Site is a work in progress--please send any comments, suggestions, and concerns to
Christine Shupla at the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Support Education Faculty | Support Science Faculty | Support Future Teachers

 

Advocate for and support Education Faculty who are preparing future teachers

Why

Best Practices for Success

  1. Read the "Before You Begin" information.
  2. Ask for input from (or form a partnership with) an Education Faculty member, to have a better understanding of their needs.
  3. Consider whether you would like to find a way to support Education Faculty in general or if there is a particular region or institution that you would prefer to work with.
  4. Consider those faculty at smaller, rural, minority-serving, and community colleges, who are more likely to be underfunded and have access to fewer resources.

Paths of Involvement

    • Encourage and assist science educators to join or become involved with professional pre-service organizations such as The Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE)
    • Help provide access to science lab equipment for science educators and their classes.
    • Support a teachers professional conference
        • Host at your institution
        • Find other scientists to help
        • Help fund the conference
        • Be a sponsor for an existing conference

Program Models

Advocate for and support Science Faculty who are preparing future teachers

Why

Best Practices for Success

  1. Read the "Before You Begin" information.
  2. Ask for input from (or form a partnership with) a Science Faculty member, to have a better understanding of their needs.
  3. Consider whether you would like to find a way to support science faculty in general or if there is a particular region or institution that you would prefer to work with.
  4. Consider those science faculty at smaller, rural, minority-serving, and community colleges, who are more likely to be underfunded and have access to fewer resources.

Paths of Involvement

  • Encourage and assist science faculty to join or become involved with professional pre-service organizations such as The Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE)
  • Invite science faculty and their students to help within your field of interest (i.e. local organizations such as Eagle Days or view the stars night at a local nature center...
Program Models
 
Advocate for and support Future Teachers

Why

Best Practices for Success

  1. Read the "Before You Begin" information.
  2. Ask for input from (or form a partnership with) pre-service teachers and their advisors,, to have a better understanding of their needs.
  3. Consider whether you would like to find a way to support pre-service teachers in general or if there is a particular region or institution that you would prefer to work with.
  4. Consider those students at smaller, rural, minority-serving, and community colleges, who are more likely to be underfunded and have access to fewer resources.

Paths of Involvement

  • Encourage and assist science educators to join or become involved with professional science education organizations such as their state science teacher organization, the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA), and the NASA Pre-Service Institutes with Langley, Johnson Space Center, Jackson State University, Marshall Center, and Kennedy Space Center.
  • Sponsor a NSTA Pre-Service Club
  • Support future teacher involvement in amateur and professional science organizations, such as various citizen science groups, amateur astronomy groups, etc.  Future teachers could do research, write articles, and attend conferences.
  • Consider hiring future teachers when you are hiring undergraduate assistants
  • Mentor a Future Teacher
  • Support campus chapters of science organizations ie. AAS, NSTA...
  • Support student memberships to science organizations...
  • Invite a future teacher into your lab...educator as scientist
  • Offer volunteer experience for pre-service teachers in your lab...enrich their understanding of what a scientist does-they can in turn share that enthusiastically with their future students.
Program Models
 

If you have questions, please get in touch with us.  We’re the Pre-Service Education Working Group.