CCAE promotes community
CCAE helps faculty and staff at UW-Madison build community across disciplines and creates supportive professional relationships that nurture the quest to improve teaching and learning and to develop community. Faculty collaboration improves undergrad teaching
CCLE challenges faculty at UW-Madison to think about the way students learn, and how teaching could be better directed toward student learning. IAS Institute benefits high school math teachers
Summer institutes create extended learning communities whose members participate in a wide spectrum of math and education activities. Inservice teacher ed: form vs. substance
Inservice professional development would better influence student achievement by focusing more on teachers' subject matter knowledge and on how students learn, rather than on discussing the format of the programs or on teachers' pedagogical strategies. Math and Science Teachers Deserve Better Professional Development
Case studies of four professional development programs underscore the importance of assessing their progress at many points along the way. scaling up innovative practices in math and science, part 1
Fundamental reforms in math and science learning and teaching are most likely to be achieved through professional development grounded in teacher inquiry and student conceptual understanding. scaling up innovative practices in math and science, Pt 2
Teachers can help students learn math with understanding, and professional development can foster this kind of teaching. school organization that supports teaching for understanding (scaling up, Pt. 3)
Reforming math and science education must address three organizational challenges: providing resources, aligning commitments, and sustaining and generating reform. Supporting teaching for understanding
Teaching for understanding will require schools to align purposes and commitments, provide better resources to classroom teachers, and to sustain change. school organization that supports teaching for understanding (scaling up, Pt. 3)
Reforming math and science education must address three organizational challenges: providing resources, aligning commitments, and sustaining and generating reform. Research is Important, but so is Teaching
Federal funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation, have begun demanding visible, practical results of funded research. Calls for research proposals now require that scientists describe how their proposed research will have “broader impacts” by contributing to the growing fund of knowledge and to the near-term public good. Broader impact activities can include teaching the public, translating research results into instructional materials for classroom use, and increasing the participation of groups that are under-represented in science because of gender, ethnicity, disability, and/or geography.
The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) works to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teaching and learning by preparing graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to be future faculty who are both excellent researchers and excellent teachers. What Matters in Mentoring
College students from racial and ethnic groups, and White women, are especially at risk for inadequate mentoring relationships. But relatively little is known about specific factors in a research mentoring relationship that create positive experiences. Unfortunately, research mentors seldom receive training on the mentoring process and are sometimes ill-equipped to assume mentoring roles. Often, the techniques designed to improve mentoring lack a sound base in theory: They don’t employ the extensive research literature on teaching and learning, or the psychology of career development. Mentoring programs are often based on anecdotal evidence and unsubstantiated strategies.
That’s about to be remedied, thanks to this new collaboration. The team uses social cognitive career theory to explore students’ research-related self-efficacy beliefs and their career expectations. Long-term research outcomes should include an increased and diversified number of students who pursue science careers. | 
