Western Washington University

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Active Minds, Changing Lives. Western Washington University prepares and inspires individuals to explore widely, think critically, communicate clearly, and connect ideas creatively to address our most challenging needs, problems, and questions. Western Washington University is a public comprehensive institution dedicated to serving the people of the state of Washington. Together our students, staff, and faculty are committed to making a positive impact in the state and the world with a shared focus on academic excellence and inclusive achievement. Our values include: commitment to student success, critical thought, creativity and sustainability; commitment to equity and justice; and respect for the rights and dignity of others; pursuit of excellence, in an environment characterized by principles of shared governance, academic freedom and effective engagement; integrity, responsibility and accountability in all our work.

NextGen STEM implementation at Western Washington University works most closely with Diversity Working Group (creating a recruitment and retention plan); Clinical Practice (using tools created by the Working Group to improve the clinical practice components of our teacher preparation programs); PCK (using working group members' expertise to improve our programs); Engineering (using the modules created by this working group to improve the integration of Engineering into our program); Computer Science (working to advocate for a streamlined process for CS endorsement); M in STEM (leveraging expertise of working group members to improve the integration of Math in teacher preparation); Organizational Change and Policy (advocating for statewide improvements and streamlining, work with community colleges to streamline advising)

KEY PARTNERS: Bellingham Public Schools and Whatcom Community College are integral partners to our efforts.

Program Change Priorities and Metrics of successful implementation of NextGen STEM Teacher Preparation include:

By 2020:

• Explore how to create reasonable Computer Science education policy for elementary and secondary students, work with state on Computer Science Education policy.
• Engage with Whatcom Community College around Guided Pathways.
• Make advising more clear and coherent for STEM teaching.
• Leverage existing programs on campus (e.g. Compass to Campus and Center for Service Learning) to improve recruitment and retention.
• Figure out what data are useful and what data are missing relating to students getting endorsements, recruiting and retaining students seeking STEM endorsements
• Establish continuous communication with satellite campuses
• More broadly, we will decide on changes and be ready to implement them to enhance CS, engineering, diversity, sustainability, coherence, transparency, clarity to degree pathways, in our secondary science and math (includes CS) programs.
• Secondary focused goals:
• Research UTeach models for secondary education STEM endorsements
• Elementary focused goals:
• Clarify the vision for a STEM-focused BAE for students pursuing elementary education; share vision with constituents and stakeholders
• Develop courses for Elementary STEM BAE and plan of study

By 2025:

• Make progress towards pre-service teachers' mirroring the population of WA state.
• Prioritize thoughtful clinical practice from the get-go.
• We have multiple transparent pathways for people to access endorsements.
• Examine/Incorporate a thread of sustainability throughout elementary education and secondary ed program
• We work with rural schools to understand their needs and recruit students interested in teaching in rural areas.
• Explore SMATE becoming a degree-granting program for BAE in science and math endorsements.
• More men and under-represented minorities in elementary education who have the ability and comfort in teaching science, engineering, computational thinking, and math.
• Have culturally relevant pedagogy be pervasive and explicit in our curriculum; social justice and equity are integrated holistically into program, in content and in pedagogy.
• Increase the number of undergraduate STEM pre-service teachers in secondary with a shorter time to degree (less than 5 years)
• Use materials to teach students in 3-D NGSS teaching, so our secondary graduates are ready to teach NGSS content, standards, concepts and practices, including Engineering and Computer Science
• Connect with our graduates to get feedback for programmatic improvements (perhaps in the context of professional development in STEM that awards clock-hours)
• Have a reasonable pathway for a Secondary Computer Science Endorsement

Barriers and Strengths:

The pathways to endorsements are complex and not easy to navigate and inertia is difficult to overcome. WWU has a strong community of STEM educators and SMATE is a proven model for education and STEM disciplinary collaboration.