UNL Summer Institute offers graduate courses to teachers

The Nebraska Math and Science Summer Institutes, a program through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will offer Nebraska teachers of K-12 math and science an expanded menu of graduate coursework this summer that will enhance their ability to offer their students challenging courses and curricula.

Courses will be offered in nine locations throughout the state, including Columbus, Hastings, Holdrege, Kearney, La Vista, Norfolk, North Platte and Scottsbluff, in addition to Lincoln. Detailed descriptions of the mathematics and pedagogy courses can be found online at http://scimath.unl.edu/NMSSI. Descriptions for science courses are coming soon.

The institute's courses provide a unique professional development opportunity for Nebraska teachers because of tuition discounts and convenient scheduling. Registration is available now, and courses begin as early as June 6.

All current Nebraska teachers automatically qualify for a 20 percent tuition discount. Additional funds are available to help pay for the balance of tuition. An application for this support can be found at http://scimath.unl.edu/NMSSI. The institute also supplies lunch to all participants at all of the sites and discounted hotel rates at sites outside the Lincoln/Omaha metro area are available.

A typical course is 40 hours of instruction concentrated into a one-week period. Teachers may take two courses, each having 40 contact hours, over a two-week period. Most courses conclude with an end-of-course assignment that aids in retention of the material studied. This format allows for collaboration with colleagues while protecting most of the summer for other pursuits.

The goal of the institute is to provide professional development opportunities and strengthen both the content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge of Nebraska's math and science teachers while emphasizing partnerships among mathematicians, scientists and educators. The institute began as an effort to continue offering Nebraska teachers the courses created as part of the Math in the Middle program, funded by the National Science Foundation.

WRITER: Lindsay Augustyn