A Final Case Study of SCALE Activities at UW-Madison: The Influence of Institutional Context on a K–20 STEM Education Change Initiative

Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for noncommercial purposes by any means, provided that the above copyright notice appears on all copies. (2008). A final case study of SCALE activities at UW-Madison: The influence of institutional context on a K–20 STEM education change initiative The research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation to the University of Wisconsin–Madison (EHR 0227016) for a Mathematics and Science Partnership project called System-wide Change for All Learners and Educators of Wisconsin–Madison. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies, WCER, or cooperating institutions. Executive Summary The enduring lesson from SCALE activities at UW-Madison is that efforts to change the culture of teaching and learning in STEM departments should focus on illuminating and then shifting the pervasive cultural schemas that faculty hold for teaching and learning. One strategy for doing so is to create officially sanctioned venues where individuals from different disciplinary backgrounds are led by a skilled facilitator or " culture broker " to focus on commonly shared pedagogy-related challenges. Leaders would benefit from being aware of and sensitive to the deeply entrenched nature of cultural schemas and their embeddedness in the local institution. Institutions of higher education (IHEs) play an important role in math and science education by offering undergraduate instruction, operating teacher training programs, and providing in-service training for K–12 teachers. The National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded System-wide Change for All Learners and Education (SCALE) project sought to effect change in its partner IHEs by creating a transformative culture through cross-cultural working teams that operated at the intersections among K–12 districts, colleges of education, and colleges of mathematics, science, and engineering (SCALE, 2005). The SCALE goals for IHEs are as follows: 1. To improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate education; 2. To improve collaboration between STEM and education faculty on preservice programs; 3. To improve collaboration between IHE faculty and K–12 districts on in-service training; and 4. To improve institutional policies and practices that support these activities. As part of the SCALE IHE case studies line of work, this paper provides findings on the effects of the SCALE project at the cross-case analysis of the three IHE case studies will develop a diagnostic approach to evaluating STEM education interventions in complex organizations, with a particular …