Recruiting and Preparing Outstanding Math & Science Teachers: IBM’s Pacesetter Transition-to-Teaching Program

Today, middle and high school mathematics and science teachers are more likely than not to teach outside their own fields of study. Laying a foundation for a scientifically literate workforce begins with developing outstanding K–12 teachers in science and mathematics.

- Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a  Brighter Economic Future, The National Academies Press, 2007

If we don’t step up to the challenge of finding and supporting the best teachers, we’ll undermine everything else we are trying to do to improve our schools.                        —Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., Former Chairman, IBM

The United States must move quickly to recruit, prepare and reward talented teachers in fields critical to our global competitiveness. Our schools have an immediate need for educators who possess both the deep content knowledge and the many teaching skills necessary to reach increasingly diverse learners. The demand will increase dramatically by 2015, when public schools must hire a projected 280,000 new teachers to fill math and science positions alone. The quality of this workforce will depend on actions taken now by universities, school districts, businesses and community groups. In the corporate world, IBM is exerting leadership to meet this urgent need through its groundbreaking Transition to Teaching (T2T) program.

IBM has a rich history of encouraging its employees to contribute their time and talents to support K-12 education. Three years ago, IBM took a bold step toward an even greater level of commitment by launching T2T — an innovative effort to encourage transitioning employees to pursue and prepare for new careers as secondary mathematics or science teachers. Drawing on the strengths of both traditional teacher preparation and alternative certification programs, T2T addresses “the critical shortage of math and science teachers by leveraging the brains and backgrounds of some of [IBM’s] most experienced employees, enabling them to become fully accredited teachers in their local communities upon electing to leave the company.”

Launched as a pilot in 2006, T2T has convinced over 100 IBM employees to seek new careers in education. The program offers carefully selected employees the resources needed to custom-tailor their own teacher preparation through online classes and more traditional education courses. IBM funds up to $15,000 for tuition reimbursement or stipends for up to four months of field experience.

Over the last year, the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ), in partnership with IBM, has begun documenting the effects of this pioneering initiative and its potential to serve as a model for corporations willing to invest in future workforce development by encouraging today’s career switchers with engineering, health, computing and science backgrounds to enter teaching. As part of our work, we have identified both the T2T program’s strengths and several steps that can help IBM and others bring this urgently needed model to scale.

What T2T Participants Are Saying

• While many T2T candidates found it challenging to continue their work at IBM while learning to teach, they received much-needed support from IBM program administrators who helped them navigate through the labyrinth of higher education. One candidate remembered:

  
  When I decided to go to [a specific university], they put me in touch with a person in the math secondary education department, and she worked very hard with me analyzing my transcripts…. [When] I had approached this [prior to T2T], you were sending your transcripts to some nebulous person…and you never got to talk to someone….

• A majority of T2T candidates found their university-based teacher education coursework helpful – especially when the university (often after interactions with the T2T program) adapted it to both pedagogical and lifestyle needs. One IBM program administrator noted:
  
  Education programs are finding out that if they have a strong enough cohort, they are creating more online courses. Some are having the vision to make things more flexible.

• Like so many new teachers, most T2T candidates saw a need for more support in learning how to manage challenging behaviors, how to teach special needs students, or how to work with students who had different childhood experiences than the candidates did. T2T candidates who entered teaching through fast-track programs with less preparation and practice generally felt these needs most acutely. One successful candidate commented:
  
  People who are coming into the classroom through short-cut routes not only need to know their content, but they have to get the respect of the students and [get] their classroom management down. You think it should be a no-brainer, kids should be able to come in and sit down and be quiet. That is not the culture you have today. Kids are exposed to so much through the media and home life…even in high SES families.

  T2T candidates who took well-designed courses that included field experiences in real schools saw the benefits. One told this story:

  [In] Adolescent Psychology…you had to do about 50 hours of classroom observation over the first year. You did an action research project, coming up with a hypothesis and then testing it in class, watching the teacher and getting ideas about adolescent behavior. There is no substitute for actually doing the teaching or spending time in the classroom [while in training].

Capitalizing on the T2T Innovations

As the IBM Transition to Teaching program moves forward, it will want to:

• Continue to raise awareness among universities about the training needs of employees who are non-traditional students transitioning from a demanding workplace with different cultural norms;
• Further champion second-career preparation in universities and organizations that is both streamlined (subject matter) and substantive (solid pedagogical skills, motivational skills); and
• Consider partnering with school systems to design virtual and job-site based mentoring programs tailored specifically to the needs of second-career teachers who have transitioned from the corporate world.