The University of Alabama at Birmingham UABTeach program is wrapping up a highly successful first year, surpassing enrollment expectations and garnering philanthropic funding.
The UABTeach program is designed to quickly produce a new teaching force of highly qualified instructors in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects. The only program of its kind in Alabama, UABTeach enables undergraduate STEM majors to receive a subject-matter degree and accreditation to teach at the secondary level in a traditional four-year plan, representing significant tuition savings from the standard state certification model.
The program, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, and the School of Engineering, enrolled 70 freshman and sophomore students in four sections of the Step 1 course this past fall, far exceeding expectations. More than half (36) continued into the program’s Step 2 spring courses, and an additional 36 students enrolled in Step 1 in the spring semester.
UABTeach moved into its new home in Heritage Hall in October. The UABTeach Workspace is a multipurpose space, which provides a classroom for the UABTeach courses, laboratory for students to plan lessons and collaborate, and office space for the master teachers and administrative program staff.
Co-directors John Mayer, Ph.D., professor and associate chair of the Department of Mathematics, and Lee Meadows, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, spent the summer talking to incoming freshmen at orientation. Their hook was simple: “What will you do if you don’t get into medical school?”
The pitch worked on freshman biology major Erianna Parnell.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” the Montgomery native said. “If you’re a freshman and you’re a STEM major, you should really consider this program.”
Early teaching experience
Master teachers Amy Morgan, Ph.D., and Paulette Evans, Ed.S., prepare UABTeach students for their first classroom experience quickly after the semester begins. In partnership with local schools, teams of students observe two lessons and teach three of their own.
The Step 1 class dives into the 5E instructional model, which emphasizes interactive lessons that build new knowledge on top of experiences to reinforce concepts.
| “Teachers are asking, ‘Why wasn’t this around when I was becoming a teacher?' Our mentor teachers get to be on the front lines of teacher preparation.” |
“We start our students teaching at the elementary school level so they get a chance to learn about childhood development,” Morgan said. “In the next semester, they go into middle schools and beyond that into high schools, where they’ll be certified to teach.”
Entering the classroom early offers students immediate insight into the profession and into being a professional, Morgan says. Freshmen have packed schedules and little experience communicating as peers with professional educators, but they learn fast, she adds.
“This is the greatest thing about the program: to let students who think they might want to become teachers see what teaching is like right away,” Meadows said. “They get to make an informed decision. Some students will say, ‘No!’ But we also know that some undecided students will go out and teach and say, ‘I love this.’”
Teaching also challenges students to explore their chosen discipline in new ways.
“I graduated with a degree in biology and learned a lot, but I didn’t acquire a deep understanding of biology until I had to teach it,” said Evans, a UAB biology alumna. “They’re picking up critical thinking skills they may not even be conscious of yet. We help them to think about teaching in a completely different way than traditional models. They are there to facilitate student learning.”
New way of teaching, learning
Parnell worked with students at Clay Elementary School in Pinson.
“I am teaching students differently from the way I learned,” she said. “We are helping students discover and learn the scientific method through experimentation instead of memorizing it.”
She and her teaching partners helped students apply the scientific method by building model helicopters. Though they simplified science and math lessons for younger students, Parnell was impressed as she watched her students discover that simple modifications of the helicopter’s wings changed its speed.
“Seeing them take something small and make almost a whole new lesson — it was great,” she said. “I see why teachers love it. It made me want to seriously consider teaching.”
As an incentive to students, Steps 1 counts as a first-year experience (FYE) course in the College of Arts and Sciences — students in the School of Engineering complete a separate FYE course. Upon successful completion of the course, all students are reimbursed tuition costs for the course.
“For a first-year experience course, who wouldn’t want to go out into a school and teach local kids? It is an experience that can change how you look at your own life and academic studies,” Evans said.
Freshman biomedical engineering major Emma Rose Latham, of Sumiton, Alabama, jumped at the chance to explore both teaching and a subject that interests her.
“Teaching’s always been in the plan for me, but I really wanted to do engineering as well,” she said. “When I heard about this program, I got really excited. It’s been a great experience so far. I love working with kids and being able to go out and teach.”
Morgan and Evans are building a local network of teachers who are on-site mentors and advocates for UABTeach.
“Teachers are asking, ‘Why wasn’t this around when I was becoming a teacher?’” Meadows said. “Our mentor teachers get to be on the front lines of teacher preparation.”
Multiple funding partners
Initial funding for the program came from the National Math and Science Initiative through a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. UAB will match the $1.45 million grant to support of the implementation costs of the program during a five-year grant period. Philanthropic support from the Mike and Gillian Goodrich Charitable Foundation and The Belk Foundation is helping fund scholarships for UABTeach students and stipends for mentor teachers. Additional support from community partners is helping provide teaching-oriented, paid internship opportunities with organizations such as the Birmingham Zoo, McWane Science Center and Jones Valley Teaching Farm for students to enhance in-classroom experiences.
UABTeach is based on UTeach, a program that began in 1997 at the University of Texas at Austin to better prepare and increase the number of certified STEM teachers. The program proved so successful that the UTeach Institute was established in 2006 to support program replication. Currently, 44 universities throughout the United States are implementing UTeach programs; as of spring 2014, more than 2,000 students will have graduated from these programs collectively. UABTeach will graduate its first class in 2017.
UTeach students at UT-Austin consistently have high grade-point averages and tend to graduate in five or fewer years. Mayer attributes the on-time graduation rate to the cohort feel of the program. UAB students have begun organizing a UABTeach student group as a resource to their fellow students and a hub of education-related volunteer opportunities.
“This is one of the secrets to the dramatically higher on-time graduation rate of UTeach students,” he said. “Partly it comes from financial support, and partly it comes from the sense of fellowship among the students.”
Across the program, 90 percent of graduates of UTeach become teachers, and of those, 80 percent are still teaching five years later. More than half of those who continue teaching work in economically disadvantaged schools. The institute predicts that, by 2020, more than 8,000 UTeach graduates will be instructing 4.8 million secondary school students.
“We’ll capture more potential teachers than going the traditional route,” Evans said. “Our numbers are going to be far better.”