[227] MTSU's 5-Year, $1.925M MTeach Grant Will Help Train Math, Science Teachers

Release date: Dec. 8, 2009


News & Public Affairs contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or jweiler@mtsu.edu
CBAS contact: Dr. Tom Cheatham, 615-898-2613 or cheatham@mtsu.edu
College of Education contact: Dr. Phil Waldrop, 615-898-2874 or pwaldrip@mtsu.edu

MTSU’s 5-year, $1.925M MTeach Grant
Will Help Train Math, Science Teachers


(MURFREESBORO) — MTSU, home of one of the state’s premier teacher education programs, has received a five-year, $1.925 million grant to help launch MTeach, university officials announced recently.
MTeach, which will launch Jan. 1, is a replicate of the nationally known UTeach program created at the University of Texas at Austin in 1997, said Dr. Tom Cheatham, dean of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences.
“UTeach fundamentally changes the way high-school math and science teachers are trained,” Cheatham said. “UTeach recruits strong math and science majors with a chance to try out teaching for free through two one-credit freshman courses that help the college student prepare and deliver an active-learning lesson for elementary students and middle-school students. UTeach supports deep content knowledge and early and often engagement of future teachers in K-12 classrooms.”
Dr. Amy Phelps, professor in the chemistry department, and Dr. Linda Gilbert, associate professor in educational leadership, will co-direct the MTeach program.
MTeach is a partnership between the colleges of Basic and Applied Sciences and Education.
“We in the College of Education and Behavioral Science have enjoyed the collaboration with our colleagues in math and the sciences in preparation for this grant and look forward to continuing the work to prepare the best possible math and science teachers for Tennessee,” said Dr. Phil Waldrop, associate dean for his college and professor in the Department of Elementary and Special Education.
“Tennessee, like most areas of the country, has a critical shortage in math and science teachers,” Waldrop added. “This grant gives us the opportunity to do exciting work in the preparation of math and science teachers and will allow us to recruit top students into the teaching profession in ways that aren’t possible now.”
U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, a longtime advocate for improving math and science education, once again aided MTSU’s efforts to land this award, Cheatham said.
“In order to keep good-paying jobs in the U.S., our country must compete at a higher level — with better skills and higher productivity,” Gordon said in a statement sent by his Washington, D.C., office. “That means ensuring that workers in Tennessee and across the country have the skills they need for the jobs of the future.
“It starts with the students, though, who will become the future workforce of our country. MTSU’s MTeach program will focus on empowering math and science teachers with the most up-to-date understanding and content knowledge available in their fields. This will help them provide students with strong grounding in math and science, ensuring they are prepared for technical jobs of the future.”
On average, MTSU graduates five high-school math and five science teachers each year. The goal of MT is to graduate 30 per year within five years and 60 per year within 10 years. Cheatham said the experience at other replication sites indicate growth will exceed expectations.
Cheatham said he sees MTeach “increasing the number of quality math and science teachers by a factor of 10, helping reach former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist’s SCORE goal of making Tennessee K-12 educational system tops in the Southeast within five years.”
MTSU is one of two replication sites funded by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and the Tennessee Department of Education. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville also received a $1.925 million grant. Their program is called VolsTeach.
MTSU and UT-Knoxville will work with the UTeach Institute in Austin, Texas, and the state Department of Education to bring the highly successful UTeach program to Tennessee, improving the quality and quantity of high-school math and science teachers across the state, Cheatham added.
The universities of California at Berkeley, Colorado, Florida and Louisiana State also have replicated the UTeach model.


###

With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.

For MTSU news and information, go to mtsunews.com.