Welcome to ecept, a portal to reforms in science and mathematics teaching. The Electronic Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers (ecept) is a gateway to information and forums on current issues in science and math education reforms, and specifically to those issues related to the science and mathematics preparation of K-12 teachers. A preponderance of the science and math education research demonstrates that lecturing is not the most effective method of teaching at any grade level, kindergarten through college. Yet most educators still teach solely by lecturing, and are inadvertently serving as inappropriate role models for the next generation of K-12 teachers and college/university faculty. Click the discussion below link for the complete article

A veritable teaching reform wave generated by NSF-funded projects called the Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (CETP) has now reached 16 states and Puerto Rico. The CETP programs are currently impacting over 150 colleges and universities, and are producing roughly 15,000 teachers better prepared in science and mathematics each year. Ecept, hosted in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Arizona State University, is a new website intended to link science and math educators through a forum and an information cooperative at this website.

We invite you to contribute comments on issues in science and math education reforms ongoing in K-16 educational institutions. We particularly invite faculty from two and four year institutions who teach science or mathematics, and K-12 teachers who teach science and mathematics to register with ecept today, and to share your expertise and experiences.

Initially ecept is featuring discussion forums which will host occasional guest editorials intended to seed discussions on topics such as effective methods of teaching science and math, support for new teachers, effective standards-based science/math curriculum development and science/math education research and evaluation. The Forum will also highlight successful CETP reforms, and CETP leaders will share their successes and challenges. The ecept Forum is a vital exchange for sharing information among members of the science/math education community. We invite you to join ecept now by registering at this site.

The ecept information cooperative will link to the forums, and point users to cutting-edge, web-based science and math education reform information. Also an ecept Job Center for K-12 teachers is coming soon to this site. The ecept Job Center is intended for K-12 schools seeking new teachers trained in standards-based, inquiry-oriented, problem solving science and /or math teaching, such as those who have graduated from the CETP-reformed teacher education programs. We also plan to bring to ecept additional electronic resources, links and comments by leaders in science and math education reforms, and would welcome your suggestions and comments.

What are you doing to improve your science or math teaching? Share your successes on this ecept forum.