New master’s degree in STEM education approved for fall

ROBBY MILO/THE ARBITER Liliana Mellor, a post-doc student, grows cell cultures for research with Oxford.

The university received permission to offer a new master’s degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education from the Idaho State Board of Education (SBOE) April 21.

The new degree program, which will be offered through the university’s Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies in the College of Education, is designed to address a growing national emphasis on student improvement in STEM subjects and to meet demand for qualified high school STEM teachers created by new requirements that Idaho high school students take three years of math and science, rather than two.

“Throughout our educational system, more and more emphasis is being placed on the need for mastery of the STEM subjects,” said President Bob Kustra.

The new degree, which will be offered in the fall of 2011, is part of a larger and wide-ranging interdisciplinary initiative at Boise State to conduct research, leverage resources and create opportunities for overcoming a shortage of teachers qualified to teach STEM subjects.

Last summer, Boise State used a $1.25 million National Science Foundation Grant to create STEM Station, an initiative to coordinate STEM-related activities across campus and Idaho in order to find innovative methods for educating the next generation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians and STEM teachers. Research endeavors include trying to understand how students learn STEM subjects and providing faculty researchers and scientists, who often have little formal training in education methods, with support to develop their own research initiatives in teaching STEM subjects.

“Math, science and education faculty at Boise State University are working together to make the changes necessary to reverse a national trend of declining interest and aptitude for science and technology in our educational system,” said Martin Schimpf, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs.

The new degree program broadens the emphasis of an existing master’s degree in earth science education offered by the Department of Geosciences. All of the new degree’s class requirements are already being taught on campus, making the impact on fiscal resources negligible.

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Posted by Andrew Ford on Apr 28 2011. Filed under News, Sub Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.