STEM Education Institute Tuesday Seminar
"The Development of Leadership Among Science Teachers for the Implementation of New Content and Pedagogical Standards"
Avi Hofstein
Dept. of Science Teaching, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
New standards in science education are being advocated, standards which reflect the current vision of the content, classroom environment, teaching methods, and support necessary to provide a high quality education in the sciences for all students. In order to meet the challenges of reform in science education we need to help schools and other educational institutions, that are involved this reform, to meet the challenges of the times. One of the ways to attain these goals is to treat teachers as equal partners in the attempt to attain these goals. In other words, teachers have to play a greater role in providing key leadership at all levels of the educational system. For this seminar, I will describe a model that was used to develop leadership among chemistry teachers. I will discuss the model’s structure, implementation and methods used to assess educational effectiveness. The model components include 1) developing the teachers’ understanding about the current trends of chemistry teaching and learning to include both content and pedagogy, 2) providing the teachers with opportunities to develop personally, professionally, and socially, and 3) developing leadership and the ability to work with other chemistry teachers.