This sounds intriguing.  Have any of your participating leaders-in-training begun serving in that capacity in schools or districts?  What opportunities for their leadership exist in Washington schools?

Great job on the outreach for obtaining participation in the survey.  The video highlighted some of the components that were deemed important such as authentic assessment and culturally responsive teaching.  In administering the survey, were there any surprising aspects that showed up for preparing STEM leaders and were there any components that were already part of the undergraduate program that illustrated a sound foundation?

Thanks, so much, for the introduction to this program. In building off the articulated goal of building "community STEM leaders," I'd love to hear one or two specific examples of how concepts of community and leadership are integrated into the program experiences and curriculum. I would also love to know more about how you scaffold the field experiences participants encounter. The video talks about "putting pedagogy and STEM content into the field." What does that look like in the earlier parts of the program and how does that evolve to that year-long field experience?

Thanks for your work!

Cathy

It's exciting to see the strategic ways this project aims to tap teachers' expertise as an asset for improvement though state, university and partnerships.  This leaves me with one question:  Where are school administrators in this?  Are there ways in which the program offers opportunities for principals and other school-level leaders to develop awareness of what their STEM teachers are learning, and possibly even to find ways to leverage that expertise at the school level?  If principals and teacher leaders don't make deliberate efforts to lead in sync, they will often inadvertently work against each other.

School principals, superintendents, and curriculum/stem directors initially were asked to be partner schools and then during the project about a dozen school administrators participated in the survey and two were called on follow-up interviews.  I agree school administrators are very important and what we found that they are usually on-board if STEM curriculum practices support the teachers and students in their school.