UIC-CC CETP

UIC—Community College Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation

1999–2000
Institute for Developing Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Science and Mathematics

1999-2000 Institute for Developing Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Science and Mathematics

The Institute began with two faculty development workshops:  Teaching Science Workshop on May 24-28, 1999, UIC; and Teaching Mathematics Workshop on June 1-5, 1999, UIC. Each met for five days from 9 am to 4 pm.  Participants had the option to register for the workshops for graduate credit for a fee; 2 science participants and 6 math participants registered for graduate credit.  Participants received a stipend paid in two installments;  the first payment of $1000 was for attending the full workshop and the second payment of $250 was for submitting an acceptable teaching plan for change.

The target size of each workshop was 18, with 6 faculty from UIC and 2 faculty from each of the community colleges.  Due to the short timeline in planning the workshops the enrollment was below the targeted numbers.  Twelve faculty participated in the science workshop and 17 in the math workshop.  The combined distributions by institution were: UIC (8), Oakton (5), Washington (4), Truman (2), Harper (3), Triton (3), and Olive-Harvey (4).

Teaching Science Workshop:
The workshop was organized and run by a team of five UIC faculty-- Donald Wink, Dept of Chemistry, Maria Varelas, Science Education, College of Education, Joe Becker, Educational Psychology, College of Education, Carole Mitchener Science Education, College of Education-- and a faculty member from Truman College, Yvonne Harris, Dept of Biology.  The 12 participating faculty came from 6 of the 7 Collaborative institutions, UIC (3), 2 Chicago community colleges (5), and 3 suburban community colleges (4), representing biology (4), nutrition (1), and chemistry (7).

The workshop program was organized by daily themes:  Meaning Making, Supporting Student Learning, Assessment, Change, and Evaluation.  The themes were illustrated by classroom case studies.  Relevant instructional practices such as use of concept maps and cooperative learning were discussed, and small group activities were used to enable the participants to explore ways to use these practices.  Small group configurations were varied throughout the workshop so that at times participants worked with faculty in the same discipline and at other times with faculty from other disciplines. 

Teaching Mathematics Workshop:
The theme of the Teaching Mathematics Workshop was teaching the mathematics content course for elementary education majors.  Phyllis Chinn, Humboldt State University, was invited to design the workshop program based on the NSF funded PROMPT workshops that she and her colleague, Dale Oliver, ran in California for mathematics faculty teaching mathematics courses for elementary education students.  Philip Wagreich, Dept of Math, Stat, and Computer Science, UIC, and Mercedes McGowen, Dept of Mathematics, Harper College, organized and led the parts of the workshop directed at helping the participants plan their AY teaching projects and coordinating activities for the AY year.  The 17 participating faculty came from all 7 Collaborative institutions, UIC (5), Chicago community colleges (5), and suburban community colleges (6).

The workshop program had several daily activities for participants to explore topics from the elementary school curriculum which were introduced through problems using manipulatives.  Participants worked in small groups to solve the problems and presented their solutions to the full group.  Extensions of the mathematics were also discussed.  The small groups mixed faculty from different institutions.

AY Activities
There were four meetings of the science faculty during the AY, and four meetings of the math faculty.  The third meeting was a joint meeting.  Meetings were held at UIC and 5 of the community colleges.  The meetings gave participants the opportunity to discuss their teaching with one another and discuss how their teaching plans were working out.  The participants indicated that they very much valued talking abut teaching with their colleagues at the meetings in their written evaluations.

The meetings held on community college campuses, included lunch by the hosting institution, were open to all interested math or science faculty from the campus, and CETP faculty from other campuses were encouraged to bring interested colleagues, as well.  The hosting institution helped plan or took full responsibility for the meeting program.  The joint meeting on February 4, 2000 featured concurrent small group presentations and discussions about teaching practices led by CETP faculty.

A series of classroom observations by Research Assistants took place in the spring semester.  The purpose of the observations is to help faculty gather information about the classroom dynamics by having the RAs focus on particular student performance such as their interactions in cooperative groups, and to give faculty the opportunity to discuss particular aspects of their teaching.  Observations of classes of 15 faculty were completed. 
 

Institute Participants:

• John Baldwin, Math Dept, UIC 
• Janet Beissinger, IMSE, UIC 
• Michael Carr, Biology Dept, Oakton Community College 
• Constance Churchill, Div of Science and Health, Oakton CC 
• Karyn Collymore-Chalmers, Phys Sci Dept, Washington College 
• Karen Duellman, TMPS Dept, William Rainey Harper College 
• Austin Ferguson, Jr., Physical Science Dept, Olive-Harvey College 
• Alice Robin Gallagher, Biology Dept, Harold Washington College 
• Joseph Hardy, Math Dept, Harold Washington College 
• Cindy Harwood, Chemistry Dept, UIC 
• Brian Hayes, Math Dept, Triton College 
• Ahmad Kamal, Biology Dept, Olive-Harvey College 
• Steve Kelso, Biology Dept, UIC 
• Julie Ellefson Kuehn, Chemistry Dept, Harper College 
• Dennis Lehman, Physical Science Dept, Harold Washington College 
• Gloria Liu, Instructional Support Dept, Oakton Community College 
• Sheila McNicholas, Math Dept, Truman College 
• Judith Merlau, Math Dept, UIC 
• Carol Murphy, Math Dept, Oakton Community College 
• Patrick Onaghama, Pre-Credit Math Dept, Olive-Harvey College 
• Nancy Ressler, Math Dept, Oakton Community College 
• Bonnie Saunders, Math Dept, UIC 
• Rainer Schochat, Math Dept, Triton College 
• Michelle Smith, Pre-Credit Math Dept, Olive-Harvey College 
• Helen Valdez, Math Dept, Truman College 
• Nancy Vrooman, Math Dept, William Rainey Harper College 
• Alan Wade, Biology Dept, Triton College 
• Robert Widing, Chemistry Dept, UIC 
• John Wood, Math Dept, UIC 

Leaders:

• Joe Becker, College of Education, UIC 
• Yvonne Harris, Department of Biology, Harry S. Truman College 
• Carole Mitchener, College of Education, UIC 
• Maria Varelas, College of Education, UIC 
• Donald Wink, Department of Chemistry, UIC 

Leaders:

• Phyllis Zweig Chinn, Math Dept, Humboldt State University, CA 
• Mercedes McGowen, Math Dept, William Rainey Harper College 
• Philip Wagreich, Dept of MSCS, UIC