A-STEP Project

Aligning the Science Teacher Education Pathway (A-STEP)

The A-STEP project fosters collaboration between university faculty and local pathway partners in implementing a common set of tools, the Next Gen ASET Toolkit, across the science teacher training and development pathway. Use of these tools provides common language and modes of discourse when designing and enacting curriculum that aligns with the NGSS. Partnerships across steps function under shared understanding of goals and paradigm shifts required to promote pedagogical reform in local contexts and along the teacher preparation pathway.

A-STEP aims to strengthen the capacity of local systems of science teacher education to engage teachers of science who move beyond knowledge of and toward enacting the NGSS, although prepared in varied organizational contexts. A-STEP promotes change across our Networked Improvement Community (NIC) and the local pathway partners working with each university, ultimately impacting the enactment of the NGSS in respective K-12 classrooms.

The A-STEP project focuses on alignment across four key steps of the science teacher education pathway.

  • STEP 1: University science teaching methods courses

    The ASET Toolkit is used to foster discussions in the science methods courses of how to design and enact NGSS aligned lessons

  • STEP 2: Credential candidate fieldwork experiences

    Collaborate with university supervisors and cooperating teachers to implement use of the ASET Toolkit to better align classroom instruction with the goals of NGSS and to facilitate post observation discussions around this alignment

  • STEP 3: Induction Programs

    Collaborate with district level induction programs and training within the first 3 years of entry into the profession to include use of the ASET Toolkit to bridge the lessons from these credential programs into these district level trainings

  • STEP 4: District Professional Development

    Collaborate with local school districts to implement use of the ASET Toolkit as part of the existing professional development (PD) efforts for inservice science teachers

To download our A-STEP information sheet click here