WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – A support program at Wake Forest University School of Medicine for K-12 teachers has expanded to serve teachers nationally through a newly created professional development network.
The network has already begun enrolling teachers nationally into a program called Pathways to High Performance Education, according to M. Ann Lambros, Ph.D., assistant dean for medical education and director of the Center of Excellence for Research, Teaching and Learning (CERTL) at the medical school.
“The CERTL Professional Development Network was established to provide school districts around the country with the opportunity for quality professional development on a regular basis and at an affordable price,” Lambros said. “We have attracted national partners and the program is up and running.”
Lambros said that Stanford Hill, Ph.D., research assistant professor of family and community medicine and assistant CERTL director, is directing Pathways to High Performance Education.
“This increased capacity to deliver professional development programming to educators is enhancing CERTL’s national reputation,” said William B. Applegate, M.D., M.P.H., dean and senior vice president of Wake Forest University Health Sciences.
Initially, Pathways is offering workshops in three broad areas – curriculum planning, measurement and student achievement, and leadership development.
One of the curriculum planning courses is a CERTL specialty: the Problem-Based Learning Institute, which was developed in partnership with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, and is based in part on experience in teaching medical students using an approach that emphasizes figuring out patient cases.
Another course, called Leadership for Mathematics Improvement, is aimed at helping schools develop and implement a comprehensive mathematics improvement program.
One of the measurement workshops, called Dynamic Classroom Assessment, helps K-12 teachers assess what students know and can do in mathematics.
But the network moves beyond CERTL’s longtime focus on math and science to include workshops on school leadership and other new arenas.
The seven national partners are Holt Professional Development, an arm of Holt Rinehart and Winston publishers; Lab-Aids, Inc., which packages complete lab activities that are ready to go for science classes; Carnegie Learning, which produces “Cognitive Tutor” programs that accelerate student learning; Conversant, a training and consulting company; School Leadership Services; Eta/Cuisenaire, which makes manipulative materials for math and science classes; and Technical Education Research Center (TERC), a non-profit research and development organization aimed at improving math, science and technology teaching. All of them provide programming sponsored through CERTL.
The Pathways “hub” is at the CERTL offices in Reynolda Business Park on Reynolda Road in Winston-Salem. But Pathways workshops also will be held in Cambridge, Mass., at TERC’s Center for Education Partnerships and in Portland, Ore., at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s Center of Excellence for Classroom Teaching and Learning.
With support from the National Science Foundation, CERTL began in 1996 as an area program for both professional development of K-12 teachers and enrichment opportunities for K-12 students.
One goal is to increase the number of students who achieve success in K-12 science and math courses, and who pursue mathematics, the sciences, engineering and technology at the college level. Some of these students will go on to medical school or to graduate programs in the biomedical sciences, including at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
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Media Contacts: Robert Conn, rconn@wfubmc.edu , Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu, or Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu, at (336) 716-4587.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine. U.S. News & World Report ranks Wake Forest University School of Medicine 18th in family medicine, 20th in geriatrics, 25th in primary care and 41st in research among the nation's medical schools. It ranks 32nd in research funding by the National Institutes of Health. Almost 150 members of the medical school faculty are listed in Best Doctors in America.