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My name is Felicia Moore Mensah.
I am a faculty member in Science Education
in the department of Mathematics, Science and Technology.
I’m also Program Coordinator so I am able to work
in the interactions of the students within the program,
assist them as they first come in as new students,
and just lead them through the entire program until they graduate.
The Science Education Program at Teachers College
supports students who come in, a lot of them as science majors
but they have an interest in teaching science either
at the elementary level, middle school level, or secondary level.
We also train students to become potential faculty members
in colleges of education, with a focus in Science Education.
We also have a number of our graduates who come through the program
who may work within industry or maybe work in informal science settings, such as museums.
A lot of the students that come into the Science Education Program,
most of them are former high school science teachers
or some of them have taught middle school science
and we do have a small number of students that come in
who have an elementary science background.
But many of our students come through the program.
We have an international group of students in the program,
so we have students from Brazil, from Korea, from Japan,
we actually have some students that are just all over the country,
in terms of the U.S. and their experiences here,
but we also have a large number of students who are just homebound,
in terms of being here from New York City.
One of the unique things about being in the Science Education Program at Teachers College
is the variety of experiences that students can have here at TC.
So, not only in the Science Education Program,
but students can take courses that are in mathematics,
they’re in technology, they’re in curriculum and teaching, policy,
so just a wide variety of course offerings that are here
as students are able to matriculate through the college.
The Science Education Program here is very challenging but is also very rewarding.
Students learn a lot, they read a lot, they learn a lot, they read a lot. [chuckles]
Some of the support that we have for our masters students
and also for our doctoral students in the Science Education Program
involve them having close interactions with the faculty.
Masters level students, we’re able to work with them very extensively
in terms of getting them ready for certification so they can become classroom teachers.
For our doctoral students, we have, because they are with us for such a long amount of time,
we are able to work with them over time to develop their skills and their research,
so that they might be able to do research in schools,
they may be able to further their learning and their experiences within school settings,
and, as I said a little bit earlier, around informal settings
and so the opportunity to do research, do their own research,
with their own questions in mind, and being able to present,
so, we also support students in going to conferences to present their work.
They work very closely with their advisors,
there are opportunities to be able to even publish some of their work.
So, there are so many resources here at Teachers College
for students to get involved, to grow themselves professionally,
to have opportunities to network, not only with students that are here but just abroad.
So, there are many resources at Teachers College for students to get involved in.