Teachers should develop strong communication skills that enable them to explain to others the concepts of their discipline. Teachers should understand science and mathematics not as facts to be learned but as ways of thinking and investigating which involve making conjectures and testing hypotheses. Teachers should know how to learn, how others learn, and how to adapt teaching methods to fit individual differences. Teachers should be familiar with recent research in mathematics and science curricula and pedagogy. Teacher preparation and enhancement undertaken with these principles will create a system of science and mathematics education that pumps rather than filters, that cultivates rather than weeds.
Insufficient commitment is generally a greater barrier to success than inadequate resources.
The independent predominantly undergraduate colleges are already major players in undergraduate science and mathematics education. Because theirs is a teaching rather than research mission, they are constituted in ways that enhance the approach to science and mathematics teaching and learning advocated in this report. What works in these colleges is transferable, both to other types of undergraduate institutions and to pre-college education. While this kind of teaching and learning is in some ways more expensive than other less effective modes of instruction, insufficient commitment is generally a greater barrier to success than inadequate resources.