2000/2001 Leadership Program

Summary

The National Computational Science Leadership Program (NCSLP) is a challenging professional development program for 200 secondary level science and math teachers. Unique in many aspects, the NCSLP is funded by a $1.13 million National Science Foundation grant and an equivalent amount of support from program sponsors. Through participation in this two-year program, teachers from across the nation learn how to develop and integrate exciting computational science and math modules for use in their classrooms. In teams of four, participants undergo intensive training that incorporates interactive web-based tools and modeling programs. To begin their professional development, teachers attend SC, an international high performance computing and networking conference that takes place each November. During the following summer, teams travel to the University of Alabama in Huntsville for a two-week Summer Institute packed full of hands-on training, collaborative work sessions, and area activities during which teachers become better acquainted with one another, program staff, and instructors. Participants also partner with leading computational scientists in monthly chat sessions that focus on a variety of science, math, and leadership topics. The National Computational Science Leadership Program equips participants with the knowledge and motivation needed to develop an awareness plan within their districts and regions. All lesson plans, software tools, resource contacts, and a variety of other instructional materials developed during the program will be accessible to teachers worldwide through a web-based national educational computational science clearinghouse.

Program Goals

This program will create two cadres of high school teachers with a knowledge of computational science and visualization, who will become leaders in their school for promoting and using computational science in the classroom. It will also prepare teachers to develop and use models for physics, chemistry, and environmental science, as well as provide access to external computational resources from the participating organizations through the Internet. The computer models utilized in this program are too computationally intensive for desktop personal computers now commonly found in high schools. For this reason, we are making more powerful computers at remote sites available to the teachers. Teacher laptops will be used for sending and receiving data to/from these sites, for sharing information among the teachers, and for analyzing computational model output. With the current rate of technology advancement, we expect to run these same models on high-end desktop personal computers by the end of the project.

The goals of the program are to:

- Explore the impact of computational science instructional modules on the depth of student understanding of the material and interest in computer applications, research and science;
- Create science and mathematics teaching modules based on the National Science Education Standards and the NCTM Standards 2000 utilizing modeling, simulation, and visualization;
- Institutionalize computational science as a part of the high school curriculum in the participating schools;
- Make developed classroom curriculum modules readily available to teachers through a national online repository;
- Assess the impact of forming these national efforts to effect change in local school systems including determining the type of national support structure needed for success in a program of this scope;
- Investigate the importance of face-to-face interactions with teachers during the school year as compared to interactions over the Internet; and
- Determine the factors required to keep teachers interested and motivated when not all program elements are delivered in-person.

Expected Outcomes

The following three outcomes will be examined to determine how well each was accomplished:

- Create two cadres of computational science teacher leaders who will lead the way for others in their schools and districts in integrating computational science into the high school mathematics and science curriculum;
- Explore the impact of computational science instructional modules on the depth of student understanding of the material and interest in computer applications, research, and science; and
- Assess the support requirements of these national efforts to effect change in local school systems.

Teacher Benefits

For participating in this program, the teachers will receive extensive professional development in mathematics and science over an 18-month period. Specific benefits will include the following items for each teacher.

- Teachers will participate in the 5-day Education Kickoff Workshop at SC2000 (first cadre) or SC2001 (second cadre). Participating teachers will be reimbursed for their travel expenses and participating schools will receive $65/teacher/day to provide substitutes in the classroom.
- Teachers will participate in monthly seminars and receive day/evening remote support during the project.
- Teachers will participate in a two-week Summer Institute the next summer. Participating teachers will be reimbursed for their travel expenses and each teacher will receive a $60/day stipend.
- Teachers will earn up to 18 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) through 180 contact hours of instruction.
- Teachers will receive certification upon the successful completion of all program requirements.

Teacher Selection Criteria

Teacher teams selected to participate in this program are chosen from a national pool. Teams may be from one school district or from several cooperating school districts as needed. Each team is to include two science teachers, one mathematics teacher and one administrator. The selection criteria include:

- A letter signed by the school principal or school administrator stating that the support required in the "School District Requirements" section will be provided to the teachers;
- Evaluation of a submitted portfolio of science and/or mathematics modules developed by members of the teacher team; and
- Teaching awards/honors received by team members.

The schools selected to participate in this program will represent a diverse student population from rural, urban, underserved, low-wealth, and less advantaged school systems.

Teacher Leader Requirements

Each teacher leader will be required to:

- Generate a minimum of one two-week course module or replacement unit utilizing computational science methods for use in their classroom and use a substantial portion of a module developed by another teacher (not necessarily on their own team);
- Develop an awareness plan within his/her home school system;
- Provide coordination for professional development activities involving the local leadership group within the school system;
- Participate in web cast seminars on computational science and leadership topics and online intra-classroom experiences in a "live national hands-on laboratory exercise;"
- Provide 60 hours of professional development/mentoring to at least three others in his/her school district over the life of this program to improve leadership and computational science skills; and
- Add developed modules to the national repository managed by this project.

School District Requirements

Each school district is required to provide the following support for the teacher participants.

- Each teacher is to be provided or have access to an individual Internet Service Provider (ISP) account, which includes access to the Internet, and an email account. These accounts are commonly available from national ISPs such as AOL, Prodigy, and AT&T. If the school district provides Internet access and email accounts for each teacher both at home and at school, then a separate Internet account is not necessary for the teachers. This is expected to cost $250/teacher.
- The school is to provide the teachers opportunities during the school year to present what they have learned during this program to their peers on teacher workdays.
- The participating school districts agree to provide each participating teacher leader in their district with one CEU for every 10 contact hours.