Considering Barriers to District-University Partnerships in Developing STEM Infrastructure

• In Event: STEM as an Urban Equity Strategy: Memphis as a Microcosm

Abstract

In 2015, we designed and implemented a 4-course graduate certificate program for urban STEM teacher leaders. The program’s goal was to prepare effective inservice STEM teacher leaders who would support district-wide STEM education implementation. We partnered with the local urban district’s instructional coaches in mathematics, science, and career technology who had both instructional and administrative influence. The program’s structure allowed the participants to earn a graduate certificate in a professional development setting rather than a university classroom. Unfortunately, this program did not proceed beyond one semester. In this paper, we discuss the program, the structural and conceptual barriers encountered throughout the process, and how this experience informed our future collaborative attempts.
This study is informed by a “theory of action” proposed by Cobb and colleagues (Cobb & Jackson, 2011; Cobb & Smith, 2008). They assert the need to approach improving urban mathematics teaching and learning at scale using a theory of action involving several components: a coherent instructional system; teacher networks; mathematics coaching; school and district instructional leadership.

The structural barriers we encountered related to both university and district structure. We navigated these structures to determine how we could offer a graduate-level certificate program that is tailored to the participants’ scope of work at little or no cost to them. For example, the university did not support alternative tuition or scheduling structures to incentivize district participation. The district made a financial commitment for one semester and a verbal commitment to continue through the four courses. Leadership and priority changes at the district level prompted a withdrawal of support, which jeopardized the program’s sustainability.
Another structural barrier was the conflict between the program’s goals and the district’s immediate needs. While the program was designed to fit the participants’ scope of work, we intended for the participants to use the courses as a space to imagine what STEM education throughout the district could look like. The district’s and participants’ immediate goals were not necessarily the program’s articulated goals. The participants needed immediate strategies that could support STEM teachers while the program aimed at thinking about possibilities for STEM education beyond immediate challenges.
The major conceptual barrier was the lack of a unified understanding of what integrated STEM education is and can look like. Our intent was to communicate a notion of STEM education that directs strong mathematics and science pedagogy toward an integrated STEM approach. However, the lack of conceptual clarity about STEM integration caused us to take on a mutually exploratory posture with the participants that may have shifted our focus on the immediate challenges rather than on the strategic vision.
Although research offers a direction on effective professional development for STEM teachers, we lack both the “knowledge in how to scale and support the use of these ideas” (Krajcik, 2014, p. 37) and the models to maintain longer-term suitability of these efforts. In this paper, we will discuss what we learned from this effort toward building district-wide STEM capacity and how we plan to proceed in our next attempt.

Authors

• Angiline Powell, The University of Memphis

• Erika C. Bullock, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Wesam M. Salem, The University of Memphis