Video 2 Bob Goodman discusses how to improve student success for all kids by eliminating aptitude-based tracks that previously separated students based on their middle school experiences.
"Because kids didn't walk into 9th grade with all these [math and science] skills doesn't mean they don't have the ability to go forward and develop these skills...
Our program is all about putting all the same kids into all the same courses, and we don't differentiate instruction in the sense of teaching it differently to different kids.
What we do is we create a social-constructivist environment where different roles are played by different kids naturally, sitting around their tables.
Kids who know it better because they had a really great experience in middle school are helping kids who had a worse experience in middle school. One may not inherently be better than the other at math or science, they just had different experiences coming into the class.
And what they do is they very quickly catch up."
Building Onramps to STEM Careers
Bob Goodman, 2006 New Jersey Teacher of the Year, Executive Director of the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning (NJCTL), and a graduate of MIT, has developed groundbreaking strategies for teaching math and science to high needs students.
He has also pioneered new approaches to providing professional development for veteran teachers preparing them to teach physics and chemistry. NJCTL is now the number 1 producer of physics teachers in the United States. NJCTL programs are used in six of the top 12 NJ schools for AP physics participation. NJCTL schools are more than 60% Black/Hispanic and free/reduced lunch; non-NJCTL schools are less than 8%.
The New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is an independent not-for-profit foundation, created by the New Jersey Education Association. Its mission is to empower teachers to lead school improvement so that all children have access to a high quality education.
For more information about the NJCTL, visit njctl.org.
Paper: Building Onramps to STEM Careers by Robert Goodman, Ed.D.
