A huge number of students nationwide take Introductory Astronomy to fulfill their science requirements every year. Many of these classes are huge lecture courses which sap students of their interest in astronomy rather than sparking it. At the same time, there is a critical shortage of K-12 science teachers. The STEMTP project at the University of Colorado is an NSF and Pew Charitable Trust funded course reform effort. The course has been designed to draw on different teaching methods to improve the learning experience. Collaborative learning, which has been shown to be a useful tool in student development, has become a focal point of the class. The students meet in a fairly traditional lecture setting (although one in which Peer Instruction and other interactive techniques are used) for the first class each week, but meet in small ``learning teams," of ~12 students for the second meeting of the week. Each learning team is assisted by a ``learning assistant." These learning assistants have done well in introductory astronomy, have good leadership and communications skills, and have an interest in science teaching. The learning assistant experience then becomes a means of recruiting K-12 science teachers. In the spring of 2003 I taught Introductory Astronomy as part of this program. It was exciting to teach this class with undergraduate learning assistants, to try out interactive engagement pedagogies, and to make use of a lot of group work. My experiences applying the education research in the classroom are what got me interested in working with Eric Mazur and his science education group at Harvard (see above).

Science Explorers is a unique program of curriculum development and teaching that seeks to increase science interest and literacy throughout Colorado. It is a professional development program for teachers who come for day long activity based science workshops with five of their students (grades 5-8). The progam provides activities, curricula, and assessments that support the Colorado Content Standards to bring back to their schools. By including students, as well as teachers, it allows the teachers to observe how students respond to the materials and allows the students to take a leadership role when the activities are brought back to their classroom. As part of my NSF fellowship, I wrote a piece of the 2003 curriculum for this program and ran several of the workshops.