Step 1: Inquiry Approaches to Teaching is a one-credit course that gives students a monetary stipend to explore teaching STEM subjects as a career. The course recruits students from all STEM majors, from freshmen to juniors, to “try out teaching.” Course instructors introduce students to the theory and practice behind excellent inquiry-based science and mathematics instruction, guide them through the process of designing and preparing to teach lessons in elementary classrooms, and assess their progress toward course objectives.

In Step 1, students teach science or mathematics lessons in local, persistently underfunded elementary classrooms and obtain firsthand experience with planning and implementing inquiry-based curricula. Master teachers provide students direct exposure to people who love teaching and view it as a rewarding career choice. Mentor teachers demonstrate effective teaching techniques and classroom management skills and provide thoughtful feedback and coaching to give future teachers a true taste of working in a supportive, diverse educational setting.

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Step 2: Inquiry-Based Lesson Design is the second, one-credit recruitment course in the AAMUTeach professional development sequence. This course provides students with middle school experience using lessons they have written based on district curriculum. As with Step 1, Step 2 gives students a monetary stipend in order to get them to “try out” teaching. The course is taught by master teachers who work closely with students as they develop inquiry-based (5E) lessons using research-based, recognized curricula and materials.

In Step 2, students continue developing the lesson planning skills they learned in Step 1 as they become familiar with middle school mathematics and science standards and curricula. After observing a lesson taught in a local school district classroom, students work alone or in pairs to plan and teach three inquiry-based lessons to sixth-, seventh-, or eighth graders.

Middle school classrooms are selected both for the diversity of the student body and the quality of the classroom teachers, who serve as mentors for the Step 2 students assigned to them. By the end of Step 2, students are usually able to make a decision about whether to pursue teacher certification through the AAMUTeach program.

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Step 1 and 2 Combo Course

The Step 1 and 2 Combo course combines the Step 1 and Step 2 experiences into a single course for select students. This two- credit course can be taken with special permission by college students who come to AAMUTeach later than usual. The course is extremely fast paced and time intensive.

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The goal of this three-credit course is for students to construct the model of knowing and learning that they will take with them into their classroom. This course focuses on issues of what it means to know and learn science and mathematics, and students develop a powerful toolkit of relevant approaches. What are the standards for knowing that we will use? How are knowing and learning structured, and how does what we know change and develop? For the science and mathematics educator, what are the tensions between general, cross- disciplinary characterizations of knowing (e.g., intelligence) and the specifics of coming to understand powerful ideas in mathematics and science?

The Knowing and Learning course was developed as a significant alternative to the educational psychology courses typically included in traditional teacher certification programs. While these traditional courses aim to contribute to teacher education by focusing on concepts and strategies assumed to be generally applicable across disciplines and age groups, this course focuses on knowing and learning in secondary mathematics and science, resting on the premise that formal research in these disciplines now constitutes a robust line of inquiry and design of its own. This line of inquiry has tended to be situated relative to classroom practice and draws on significant insights from many fields, including psychology, anthropology, critical literacy, sociology, biology, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, developmental theory, artificial intelligence, and the domains of mathematics, science, and computer science. Some now call this integration of domains a learning science perspective.

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Classroom Interactions is the fourth course in the AAMUTeach professional development sequence and the second of three courses in the College of Education, following Knowing and Learning and preceding Project-Based Instruction. This three-credit course continues the process of preparing students to teach mathematics and science in secondary settings by providing opportunities to see how theories explored in Knowing and Learning play out in a high school setting. Students design and implement instructional activities informed by their own understandings of what it means to know and learn mathematics and science, and then evaluate the outcomes of those activities on the basis of student artifacts (i.e., what students say, do, or create).

An important focus of Classroom Interactions is on building students’ awareness and understanding of equity issues and their effects on learning. Students receive frameworks for thinking about equity issues in the classroom and larger school settings, and they learn strategies for equitable teaching in a diverse classroom. Additionally, the course introduces ways to use curricula and technologies in classroom settings to build relationships among teachers and students. In essence, Classroom Interactions centers on a close examination of the interplay between teachers, students, and content, and how such interactions enable students to develop deep conceptual understanding. Students learn how content and pedagogy combine for effective teaching.

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Project-Based Instruction (PBI) is a three-credit course taught by faculty in the College of Education. It is the fifth course in a sequence of professional development courses that includes Step 1, Step 2, Knowing and Learning, Classroom Interactions, and Apprentice Teaching. When UTeach students complete PBI, they are fully prepared for Apprentice Teaching, in which they serve as instructors of record in a middle or high school classroom.

PBI is offered as a key component on the premise that project-based instruction engages learners in exploring authentic, important, and meaningful questions of real concern to high school students. Project-based instruction promotes equitable and diverse participation and engages high school students in learning.

Whereas in the previous course in the sequence, Classroom Interactions, AAMUTeach students gained experience designing a sequence of several lessons that they taught to a high school class, in PBI, students design full units of connected lessons. A number of the major principles and themes of the UTeach program—integration of mathematics and science content; infusion of technology in representation, analysis, modeling, assessment, and contextualization of content; immersion in intensive field-based experiences; and a focus on designing equitable learning environments—are synthesized as students develop an intellectually challenging project-based instructional unit. PBI also provides AAMUTeach students with the experience of managing lessons and high school students outside a classroom, in a field setting.

Despite its name, PBI incorporates a variety of instructional approaches, focusing on differentiating between project-based instruction and other inquiry-based methods.

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Perspectives on Science and Mathematics is a three-credit, upper-division humanities course designed to meet the unique needs of future teachers. It is one of three specially designed content courses in the AAMUTeach sequence that fulfills multiple degree requirements. 

Many mathematics and science students are surprised to learn that math and science have a history at all. So far as they know, math and science have simply been handed down in textbooks. To discover instead that science and mathematics have advanced by the struggles of diverse people, on the basis of often conflicting criteria and interests, can be mind-boggling to students. Students have studied extensively the methods of science and mathematics, but by studying the history of these fields, they learn how such approaches were originally developed, contested, and accepted. They also get a sense of how such approaches will continue to evolve. In this way, the Perspectives course aims to foster an understanding that science and mathematics are not finished or set in stone.

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Functions and Modeling is one of three, three-credit courses designed to meet the unique needs of future mathematics teachers. It is required only of students intending to certify in mathematics. In this course, students engage in explorations and lab activities designed to strengthen and expand their knowledge of secondary mathematics topics. Students collect data and explore a variety of situations that can be modeled using linear, exponential, polynomial, and trigonometric functions. Activities are designed to engage students in a second, deeper look at topics they have been exposed to previously; illuminate the connections between secondary and college mathematics; illustrate good uses of technology in teaching; illuminate the connections between various areas of mathematics; and engage them in serious, non-routine problem solving, problem-based learning, and applications of mathematics.

While there is some discussion of how the content relates to secondary mathematics instruction, with the instructor endeavoring to model high-quality instructional techniques, Functions and Modeling primarily emphasizes mathematics content knowledge and content connections, as well as applications of the mathematics topics covered.

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The purpose of the Apprentice Teaching course is to offer AAMUTeach students a culminating experience that provides them with the tools needed for their first teaching position. In Apprentice Teaching, students are immersed in the expectations, processes, and rewards of teaching.

Apprentice Teaching, the course AAMUTeach students take in their final semester, includes (1) field experiences in local public secondary schools and (2) a weekly seminar that brings apprentice teachers together with university master teachers to share experiences and work on solutions to problems they encounter in the field. Apprentice teachers are required to teach two sections of a science, math, or computer science class in a public middle or high school. They remain on the school campus a minimum of six hours per day.

An underlying philosophy of the AAMUTeach program is that extensive, individualized, and ongoing coaching will improve apprentice teachers’ skills at an accelerated rate. The Apprentice Teaching course exemplifies this philosophy. Master teachers teach the weekly seminar and coach apprentice teachers throughout their field experiences; cooperating teachers at local public secondary schools mentor apprentice teachers assigned to their classrooms; and university facilitators, highly trained observers with considerable teaching experience, provide extensive and regular feedback to apprentice teachers.

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