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In partnership with schools, communities and other colleges and universities, NC State will continue to expand its teaching capacity, research programs and outreach activities to support excellence in K-12 teaching statewide.  

Creating Educational Innovation

A sufficient number of well-qualified K-12 teachers, particularly in math, science and technology, is critical to North Carolina’s future.  In partnership with schools, communities and other colleges and universities, NC State will continue to expand its teaching capacity, research programs and outreach activities to support excellence in K-12 teaching statewide.

What we’ve done:

•    The William & Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation:  The Friday Institute is a unique public-private partnership that integrates research, technology, and cross-sector collaboration to enhance education.  The institute brings together students, teachers, and education leaders, as well as research scientists, community leaders, and business professionals to identify and create innovative solutions to pressing challenges of 21st century education.

•    Kenan Institute/Kenan Fellows: The Kenan Institute stimulates multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary teams involving government, university, and corporate partners to solve scientific and societal problems, generate technology-based economic development, and leverage the public and private resources necessary to address the emerging issues of our time. Its initiatives are organized around four major areas: high technology basic research, science and math K-12 education partnerships, technology commercialization and entrepreneurship, and science and technology policy.  Projects like the Kenan Fellows Program engage teachers in developing cutting-edge curriculum materials while providing professional development opportunities.  Ninety-three percent of all Kenan Fellows have continued their teaching careers in North Carolina classrooms.

•    Science House annually reaches more than 3,500 teachers and 28,000 students in all 100 counties of North Carolina through teacher training, content courses, school-based assistance, curriculum materials, and student science activities. Hands-on learning and up-to-date laboratory teaching technology often model processes and technology found in the workplace. Strategically located in Lenoir, Edenton, Fayetteville, Jacksonville and Asheville, satellite offices serve many of the most resource-poor school systems in the state.  These teaching strategies fire students’ natural curiosity and inspire their interest in science. For example, 92 percent of high school students who have participated in the Bennett’s Millpond project in northeastern North Carolina are attending a four-year college, compared to the area’s average of 54 percent.

What we’ll do:

•    Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM):  While NC state produces the most science and math teachers in North Carolina, there is an ongoing need to “feed the pipeline” for STEM teachers and to support existing teachers.  NC State will support STEM in several ways, including promoting discipline-based teaching and learning, increasing the number of graduates who go into teaching, and driving content and discipline reform that makes STEM topics more accessible – like robotics and gaming.

•    VCI/1 for 1/NC Connectivity: With partners that include IBM, SAS, the state Department of Public Instruction, Golden LEAF and several state school systems, these projects speak to delivery of technology to underserved areas.  By taking the cost out of the operation and maintenance of computing and by building curricula around computers, these partnerships hold the potential to place all the state’s schools on a more equal footing.

•    Building Programs in proven and emerging areas: By expanding our own disciplinary strengths and working toward imaginative and effective interdisciplinary collaborations across campus, we will contribute to the future of teaching and learning.  We will invest in faculty and support interdisciplinary collaborations, particularly in leading-edge activities such as in biotechnologies, nanoscience, genomics and bioinformatics, computing and information technologies, analytics and environmental sustainability.