ABSTRACT
With increasing urgency, there is a need for children in the US to be well prepared in STEM: science, technology, engineering and mathematics (National Research Council, 2011). To best support competent teaching in all of the STEM domains, it is essential that educators are well prepared in not only the content and the pedagogical content knowledge of the subject matter (Eidietis & Jewkes, 2011), but also that they develop positive dispositions toward using technology in their teaching and fostering scientific and mathematical inquiry in their classrooms. Set in an initial teacher licensure program at a large (~30,000), urban, public university in a western state, this study focuses on 40 bilingual teacher candidates, predominantly [email protected] already working in schools in paraprofessional roles, as they participated in a two-year project to prepare them to teach STEM concepts at the exemplary level (as evaluated on the local state-level teacher evaluation instrument). In particular, this US Department of Education-funded project, delivered as part of a bilingual initial teacher licensure program, invited teacher candidates to:
1. Reflect critically on their own educational and biographical history with STEM.
