With NSF Grant, Math and Science Teachers Trained to Bridge ‘Achievement Gap’

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By Florida State University
September 23, 2009

With help from the National Science Foundation (NSF), The Florida State University is helping to meet a pressing need that exists in Florida and throughout the United States.

The NSF awarded Florida State’s innovative FSU-Teach program a five-year grant in the amount of $726,260 to develop new math and science teachers at the middle and high school levels. With the money -- made available through the NSF’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program -- FSU-Teach will support students participating in the program as they gain experience teaching in “high-needs” schools.

“Our country is facing an educational crisis,” said Joseph Travis, the dean of Florida State’s College of Arts and Sciences and leader of the team that received the Noyce grant. “We’re simply not doing a good enough job of providing young people -- particularly students from low-income communities -- with the skills they need to be successful in life and to keep our country economically competitive.

 “Producing new teachers with strong backgrounds in science and mathematics is important in addressing this,” Travis said, “but it is also critical that they also have strong skills teaching those subjects to students in ways that they can use -- in the workplace and in their lives. The NSF funding will help us to develop those skills.”

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