Through FOCUS (Faculty Outreach Collaborations Uniting Scientists, Students and Schools), the University of California, Irvine (UCI) unites the efforts of mathematics, science, education and research library faculty and staff with educators from local community colleges, school districts and local educational support agencies. The partnership builds on prior established relationships between UCI and three high-need California school districts: Compton Unified, Santa Ana Unified and the Westside of Newport-Mesa Unified. These schools serve 106,695 students of whom 82% are Hispanic and 11% are African American.
The work of FOCUS will include the construction of a "future teacher highway" to increase the number, quality and diversity of preK-12 teachers of mathematics and science; involvement of math and science professionals in "Discipline Dialogues" that cross segmental boundaries, and the creation of systemic reform in the professional development of preK-12 teachers of mathematics and science.
The Principal Investigator of FOCUS is Ronald Stern.
More information can be
found on a separate web site created by this project: http:// focus.web.uci.edu/ .
This site was created to enhance communication and collaboration
between partners within the FOCUS
project as well as to inform the public of the efforts of the Math
and Science Partnership Program. While selected documents in the
library and resources sections have been made available
to the public, only logged in members of the
FOCUS project can post comments,
participate or read posts in the Working Groups, or see the interactive
Calendar.
