TEA awards $500,000 to College of Education for STELLAR work Posted by: Jayme Blaschke Date: 2007-02-19 By Marc Speir Currents Online Staff Writer Monday, February 19, 2007 The College of Education at Texas State University-San Marcos was recently awarded $500,000 for a science education initiative titled, "Science and Technology for English Language Learners Achieving Results (STELLAR)." The goal of the project is to address the serious and impending need to improve learning in the sciences for young students who speak English as a second language. A distinct program of development to enhance the science comprehension, abilities, attitudes and instructional practices of bilingual education teachers in grades kindergarten through fourth grade will be designed and implemented by the College of Education in collaboration with the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District (SMCISD). "We are doing this so the faculty and future teachers from the College of Education can be more effective with the changing demographics in the state, particularly in the sciences," said Larry Price, associate professor of psychometrics and statistics and associate dean of research for the College of Education. STELLAR participants will be approximately 29 K-4 bilingual education teachers from SMCISD's four elementary bilingual education campuses. They will be continuing progress that began in September 2006 and is set to conclude in August 2007. The program is guided in part by the "Principles for Professional Development in Science Education" curriculum from the National Science Teachers Association and the "Guidelines for Using Technology in the Preparation of Science Teachers" from the Center for Technology and Teacher Education at the University of Virginia. Other methods used are the "Synthesis of Principles for Learning by Adults" publications, written by researchers Caffarella and Moran and instructional strategies developed by the Valle Imperial Project in Science (VIPS), a 19 school district consortium in El Centro, Calif. "Little is known about what constitutes effective science instruction in a bilingual elementary classroom," said Julie Jackson, professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. "Our research project will create an innovative science professional development program for K-4 teachers that integrates research-based best practices from bilingual education, science education and elementary pedagogy." The focus will be on earth science because this is the science content area that has the lowest Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) scores. Participating teachers will also have a field geology experience. They will go to McKinney Falls State Park to see how erosion and deposition have shaped the park, how geology and geologic processes influence how people have used this part of Texas and how geologic processes control local ecosystems. The STELLAR team has several members with specialties in the sciences and curriculum retention such as Jackson, Maria De la Colina, Roxanne Cuellar-Allsup, Rich Radcliffe and chair Patrice Werner, all from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Other team members include Debbie Koeck from the College of Science, SMCISD bilingual education coordinator Niki Konecki and Rosalinda Barrera, the dean of the College of Education.