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The following article originally appeared in the 2020 edition of the School of Education magazine, advancing. For a PDF, please click on the magazine to the right. |
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Changing the Formula
Students in the UCI CalTeach program earn a bachelor’s degree in a STEM major and a teaching credential in four years. The students graduate as in-demand, equity-focused change agents, and in June, a record number completed the program.
In response to a growing and persistent need for well-prepared math and science teachers at the K-12 level, the University of California in 2005 established CalTeach.
The system-wide program is designed to prepare STEM majors for future teaching careers while they complete their undergraduate degrees. This past year, the UCI CalTeach Program, unique among its peers, is celebrating its most successful year, graduating 45 students and serving an additional 250 undergraduates, including community college students
The system-wide program is designed to prepare STEM majors for future teaching careers while they complete their undergraduate degrees. This past year, the UCI CalTeach Program, unique among its peers, is celebrating its most successful year, graduating 45 students and serving an additional 250 undergraduates, including community college students
WHAT IS CALTEACH?
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Aspiring teachers in California will typically enroll in a post-baccalaureate institution to obtain their teaching credential, a requirement to teach any grade level in the state. UCI CalTeach, on the other hand, allows undergraduates majoring in a STEM field to earn both their bachelor’s degree and a teaching credential in four years.
While CalTeach exists in some form at every UC campus, UCI’s is the only one that allows students to earn their teaching credential and bachelor’s degree in four years. “Our graduates are in very high demand,” said Doron Zinger, director of the UCI CalTeach program and alumnus of the School of Education’s Ph.D. in Education program. “These are individuals who have graduated with degrees in fields such as chemistry and biology, and also have teaching experience.” |
UCI CalTeach, Class of 2021
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UCI CalTeach graduates also stay in the teaching profession. Zinger estimates that 90 percent of UCI CalTeach alumni are still teaching. Additionally, 70 percent of UCI CalTeach alumni are teaching in low-income communities. Historically, UCI CalTeach students worked at 89 different schools in 54 different districts.
“We persist at a much higher rate than typical teachers, and most of our graduates teach in low-income, underserved communities across Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles counties,” Zinger said.
Over the course of four years, UCI CalTeach students are exposed to more classroom experience than many traditional post-baccalaureate programs. As freshmen, they sit in on and teach a lesson in an elementary school classroom. Then, they sit in on a middle school classroom as sophomores and a high school class as juniors. Their senior year, they student teach at a middle school or high school, with the majority of placements being in low-income, underserved communities.
To obtain a teaching credential in California, students are required to complete 600 hours of classroom experience. Zinger said UCI CalTeach students will do at least 700 hours of classroom experience, with many doing more than 1,000.
“Our students will actually get four years of classroom experience, as opposed to one in a post-baccalaureate program,” Zinger said.
This proved particularly beneficial the past year. While the COVID-19 pandemic provided an incredibly challenging environment for students, all met their required field hours, thanks in large part to the significant amount of hours they completed prior to the outbreak.
“We persist at a much higher rate than typical teachers, and most of our graduates teach in low-income, underserved communities across Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles counties,” Zinger said.
Over the course of four years, UCI CalTeach students are exposed to more classroom experience than many traditional post-baccalaureate programs. As freshmen, they sit in on and teach a lesson in an elementary school classroom. Then, they sit in on a middle school classroom as sophomores and a high school class as juniors. Their senior year, they student teach at a middle school or high school, with the majority of placements being in low-income, underserved communities.
To obtain a teaching credential in California, students are required to complete 600 hours of classroom experience. Zinger said UCI CalTeach students will do at least 700 hours of classroom experience, with many doing more than 1,000.
“Our students will actually get four years of classroom experience, as opposed to one in a post-baccalaureate program,” Zinger said.
This proved particularly beneficial the past year. While the COVID-19 pandemic provided an incredibly challenging environment for students, all met their required field hours, thanks in large part to the significant amount of hours they completed prior to the outbreak.
SUPPORTING DIVERSE COMMUNITIES
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The program does not stop at simply training STEM students to teach. Instead, it inspires historically underrepresented students to develop innovative, relatable curriculum for students at marginalized schools.
“Our mission statement is clear – recruit, support and prepare diverse math and science majors to become equity-focused teachers that are change agents in high-needs schools,” Zinger said. Zinger estimates that over the last two years, half of all UCI CalTeach students have been Latinx, and most have been first generation college students and/or from low-income households. |
Doron Zinger (Ph.D. '18), director of UCI CalTeach
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The UCI CalTeach curriculum challenges students to think of lesson plans that include content that is relatable and applicable to the lives of K-12 students across Orange County. Topics include everything from wildfires and the erosion of the state’s coastline, to an influx of parrots in Santa Ana and why a notorious pond near a particular school is green and odorous.
“We need more engineers, but we also need people who are thinking about and honoring communities, and who can communicate lessons in a way that is applicable to students’ lives,” Zinger said. “Demographics in this country are changing, and unless you create access for all students, you’re going to have an uneducated, unprepared populace.”
“We need more engineers, but we also need people who are thinking about and honoring communities, and who can communicate lessons in a way that is applicable to students’ lives,” Zinger said. “Demographics in this country are changing, and unless you create access for all students, you’re going to have an uneducated, unprepared populace.”
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Los Angeles native Nathalie Mejia arrived at UCI with a plan to attend medical school. Once she arrived on campus, she fell in love with the biology education major. She decided to join the UCI CalTeach program and, as a student teacher, led a 40-student eighth-grade class at McFadden Intermediate School in Santa Ana.
Mejia engaged her students by introducing a topic and then having them ask questions and share observations for two minutes. “Before this program, I thought teaching was just giving lessons,” she said. “It’s so much more than that. It’s an equity and equality between myself and my students.” Zinger credits UCI CalTeach’s four-year model, with the required observation of multiple schools, for helping build interest and resilience among UCI undergraduates. |
Nathalie Mejia
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“They build skills and disposition to be successful in classrooms, and then they land jobs in schools that are supportive and high-functioning,” Zinger said. “Even though a majority go to work in underserved communities, they are going to schools where they can have an impact. Additionally, students are going back to their home communities, and they want to make the difference that they did not see in the classroom.”
MODELING THE FUTURE
As the program grows by leaps and bounds, Zinger and the School of Education continue to build partnerships and implement programs to attract and support additional students, including community college students.
In spring 2020, UCI CalTeach began offering the program’s introductory class to Orange Coast College students. UCI CalTeach will slowly expand offerings to OCC students, with the goal being to help the community college develop their own version of the early courses, which are transferable to UCI.
Additionally, UCI CalTeach is working with Santiago Canyon College to write a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) grant to recruit and prepare STEM majors at SCC. This includes establishing a summer STEM institute, in which SCC students teach students in an underserved school in the Orange Unified School District.
In May, the National Science Foundation awarded UCI CalTeach a Robert Noyce Grant to support community college transfer students. The centerpiece of the grant, Transfer to Teaching (T2T), is a scholarship program that will provide at least 24 transfer students with a full, two-year paid tuition scholarship – $30,000.
Additionally, community college students who enroll in UCI CalTeach courses while at the community college will be reimbursed for the course registration, and students will participate in a summer institute when they transfer to UCI, where they will work with faculty in the UCI School of Biological Sciences and UCI School of Physical Sciences.
“We want to focus on improving access to underrepresented students and creating pipelines to recruit community college students is vital in achieving that,” Zinger said.
The summer institute is intended to “demystify” the research endeavors of research institutions for transfer students. The grant’s principal investigator, Professor Jessica Pratt, UCI School of Biological Sciences, will mentor students on scientific research methods, and in small groups, students will join a research lab and work alongside doctoral students.
School of Education Professor Rossella Santagata is serving as co-PI on the grant.
“I am honored to be part of this work and to contribute to broadening access to the teaching profession,” Santagata said. “I strongly believe that given the opportunity, young people from underrepresented groups will transform schools to be more inclusive and welcoming for students of color.”
Zinger also envisions adding computer science curriculum to the UCI CalTeach program and, in the coming years, establishing a master’s degree in STEM Leadership and Teaching.
It is all about seizing upon the critical mass that the program has achieved, Zinger said. He acknowledges the UCI CalTeach instructors, many of whom are local K-12 teachers who sacrifice their weeknights to teach. They do so because they are “invested in the mission,” Zinger explains.
“We can grow our tent by adding majors and subjects, but we remain focused on strengthening our teachers; at the end of the day, they are brand new teachers who need assistance when they get out there,” Zinger said. “When this entire community supports them, they can become school administrators, heads of departments, curriculum developers, and more. That is our long-term goal.”
In spring 2020, UCI CalTeach began offering the program’s introductory class to Orange Coast College students. UCI CalTeach will slowly expand offerings to OCC students, with the goal being to help the community college develop their own version of the early courses, which are transferable to UCI.
Additionally, UCI CalTeach is working with Santiago Canyon College to write a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) grant to recruit and prepare STEM majors at SCC. This includes establishing a summer STEM institute, in which SCC students teach students in an underserved school in the Orange Unified School District.
In May, the National Science Foundation awarded UCI CalTeach a Robert Noyce Grant to support community college transfer students. The centerpiece of the grant, Transfer to Teaching (T2T), is a scholarship program that will provide at least 24 transfer students with a full, two-year paid tuition scholarship – $30,000.
Additionally, community college students who enroll in UCI CalTeach courses while at the community college will be reimbursed for the course registration, and students will participate in a summer institute when they transfer to UCI, where they will work with faculty in the UCI School of Biological Sciences and UCI School of Physical Sciences.
“We want to focus on improving access to underrepresented students and creating pipelines to recruit community college students is vital in achieving that,” Zinger said.
The summer institute is intended to “demystify” the research endeavors of research institutions for transfer students. The grant’s principal investigator, Professor Jessica Pratt, UCI School of Biological Sciences, will mentor students on scientific research methods, and in small groups, students will join a research lab and work alongside doctoral students.
School of Education Professor Rossella Santagata is serving as co-PI on the grant.
“I am honored to be part of this work and to contribute to broadening access to the teaching profession,” Santagata said. “I strongly believe that given the opportunity, young people from underrepresented groups will transform schools to be more inclusive and welcoming for students of color.”
Zinger also envisions adding computer science curriculum to the UCI CalTeach program and, in the coming years, establishing a master’s degree in STEM Leadership and Teaching.
It is all about seizing upon the critical mass that the program has achieved, Zinger said. He acknowledges the UCI CalTeach instructors, many of whom are local K-12 teachers who sacrifice their weeknights to teach. They do so because they are “invested in the mission,” Zinger explains.
“We can grow our tent by adding majors and subjects, but we remain focused on strengthening our teachers; at the end of the day, they are brand new teachers who need assistance when they get out there,” Zinger said. “When this entire community supports them, they can become school administrators, heads of departments, curriculum developers, and more. That is our long-term goal.”
OCSEF-UCI CALTEACH MENTOR MATCH
In 2018, UCI CalTeach partnered with the Orange County Science and Engineering Fair (OCSEF) to establish the OCSEF-UCI CalTeach Mentor Match. With a mission to increase participation in the fair among underserved communities, Mentor Match has grown from four schools and 39 K-12 students in its first year to six schools and more than 170 K-12 students. UCI CalTeach students have served as mentors and supporters of the fair, helping create teams at K-12 schools in Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Westminster, and Newport Beach, and worked with students at the Shipley Nature Center in Huntington Beach, the Discovery Cube OC, and the Santa Ana Zoo.
In 2019, a team from Santa Ana High School, supported by UCI CalTeach students and teacher mentors, advanced to the state finals. There, they presented the project they designed and created: Set It & Forget It, a low-cost, self-watering planter. The team engineered their device to monitor and digitally display all conditions pertinent to plant growth, including temperature, humidity, light, and water level. The planter waters plants based on the soil moisture level entered by the user. Their final product was 3-D modeled, printed, tested, wired, and coded by the group of three students: Patricia Limon, Lizbeth Romero, and Elissa Monterroso.
In 2019, a team from Santa Ana High School, supported by UCI CalTeach students and teacher mentors, advanced to the state finals. There, they presented the project they designed and created: Set It & Forget It, a low-cost, self-watering planter. The team engineered their device to monitor and digitally display all conditions pertinent to plant growth, including temperature, humidity, light, and water level. The planter waters plants based on the soil moisture level entered by the user. Their final product was 3-D modeled, printed, tested, wired, and coded by the group of three students: Patricia Limon, Lizbeth Romero, and Elissa Monterroso.
The Santa Ana High School team and their self-watering planter. From left: Santa Ana high school students Elissa Montero, Patricia Limon, and Lizbeth Romero, along with Taychyi Mao (UCI CalTeach ’19).
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“It is an honor for the UCI CalTeach Program to partner with the OCSEF Mentor Match Program to support their goals of increasing diversity at the engineering fair and science competition not only in Orange County, but at the state level,” said Kris Houston, UCI CalTeach Academic Coordinator. “It is a pleasure to hear from both mentor teachers and UCI CalTeach students alike about the challenges and ultimately the successes of assisting their students in designing projects that are focused on finding solutions to scientific problems. It is our hope that the Mentor Match Program continues to grow and flourish at a steady rate amongst Orange County middle and high schools and that these students, who may have not originally seen themselves as scientists or engineers, are inspired to pursue a STEM degree and spark change in these fields.”
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