The 3M Foundation has awarded $75,000 in education grants to Rider University and Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) to be used for innovative math and science teacher education programs.

“3M is proud to continue to support the efforts of Rider University and Raritan Valley Community College to bring excitement and new challenges to teachers and students of science and math in New Jersey and beyond,” said Debbie Katz, senior training administrator at 3M. “We believe this is a natural collaboration – one we hope will light the fire of innovation in young minds who may one day be the future ‘imagineers’ of 3M.”

The first $25,000 of the 3M Foundation grant will be used to fund the second phase of Rider’s Consortium for the New Explorations in Coherent Teacher Education (CONNECT-ED) program. The CONNECT-ED Consortium, created in 2004, provides a sustained program of professional development built around the Big Ideas, or key concepts, in science and math for K-12 teachers. In the program, a team of three teachers, one each from elementary, middle school, and high school, plus a district administrator and a subject matter expert, collaborate to create a Big Idea Module around one key concept. The team develops a plan of instruction for each grade level where connections can be made hierarchally as concepts become more complex. In this way, instruction throughout secondary education is about the Big Idea concept, built upon at each grade level. The Consortium includes 13 public school districts, two independent schools, Rider and Princeton Universities, RVCC and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

By 2008, CONNECT-ED will have generated 50 design teams and 50 Big Idea Modules (BIMs). In doing so, the consortium will have generated 150 “first-tier” lead teachers, 20 district curriculum supervisors, and approximately 45 university or industry scientists, mathematicians and engineers who comprise the design teams. These teams are well versed in Big Ideas thinking and are trained to develop and present BIMs. These first-tier leaders will have reached a second tier of an estimated 1,000 K-12 teachers (200 each year) through two-week CONNECT-ED summer institutes and shorter school-year mini-institutes.

“We thank 3M for its continuing generosity and support of our CONNECT-ED program,” said Rider President Mordechai Rozanski. “This grant will enable K-12 teachers and curriculum administrators to collaborate with national experts in science and math education to explore how districts can use the Big Ideas as the framework for designing their K-12 science and math programs.”

Dr. Kathleen Browne, director of Rider’s Teaching and Learning Center and CONNECT-ED project director, will create a task force to identify potential new strategic partners and a Phase II model for piloting in 2007-08.

Raritan Valley’s $50,000 grant award will help expand existing science education programs supported by two NASA IDEAS (Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy and Space Science) Grants, administered by the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute.

As part of these initiatives, staff members at the New Jersey Astronomy Center for Education (NJACE) Teaching Institute at RVCC will work with teams of educators to examine their astronomy curricula, develop methods for improving astronomy education, and to provide training on this updated astronomy curriculum to other teachers in their schools.

“Raritan Valley Community College is extremely grateful to the 3M Foundation for its generous support. The 3M grant will enable NJACE staff members to reach a greater number of school districts and provide additional hours of teacher training in astronomy education,” said RVCC President Dr. Casey Crabill.

3M is a global diversified technology company, headquartered in St. Paul, MN, with several sites in New Jersey. Through 3M Community Giving, 3M and the 3M Foundation donates products and awards cash grants. This program is bolstered by employee and retiree volunteerism. Education is a major focus of 3M’s giving program, emphasizing math, science and economics education from elementary through graduate school.

Representatives from Rider University and Raritan Valley Community College receive a grant award from 3M. Standing, from left, Jerry Vinski, RVCC Planetarium director; Theresa Roelofsen Moody, RVCC's NJACE Teaching Institute astronomy educator; and Jean Kutcher, administrative director, Rider’s Teaching and Learning Center. Seated, from left, are, Debbie Katz, senior training administrator, 3M; Dr. Wil van der Veen, RVCC's NJACE Teaching Institute director; and Kathleen Brown, academic director of Rider's Teaching and Learning Center and director of its CONNECT-ED program.

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