By Maria Salciccioli and Jessica Mislevy, SRI Education
Recently, expert practitioners in the field of STEM education — including Dr. Elaine Franklin, director, of the Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership — collaborated with researchers from SRI Education and Policy Studies Associates (PSA) on the development of an exciting resource for the U.S. Department of Education — a website that addresses promising practices and challenges for preparing teachers to become STEM teacher leaders.
STEM teacher leaders can play a crucial role in developing and delivering high-quality education to all students. They take on additional roles and responsibilities for improving STEM programming and supporting peers outside of their own classrooms. The Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership is the largest STEM-fellowship program for K–12 educators in North Carolina, and recognizes the critical need to develop and empower high-quality teacher leaders.
Building a Culminating Web Resource on STEM Teacher Leadership
The website is designed to spread awareness of the roles STEM teacher leaders can play, highlight ways districts and schools have approached teacher leadership, and help stakeholders think through challenges they may be facing in developing and supporting STEM teacher leaders. The site is an online resource authored by expert practitioners in the field of STEM teacher leadership for use by other practitioners.
Readers can access the FAQs and solutions by topic, such as evaluating teacher leader programs or how administrators can effectively support STEM teacher leadership. The information is also presented by stakeholder type, so readers can find a curated list of questions that are of particular relevance to audiences like state education agencies, secondary educators, or policymakers.
We encourage you to take a look at stemteacherleadership.org, and we think you’ll find information of interest, regardless of your role and your familiarity with STEM teacher leadership.