1. Blow Minds. Teach Science or Math.
As you are hopefully aware, Mines has a teacher preparation program where students can pursue a teaching license alongside their Mines degree. Data from Mines, shows that nearly 50% of Mines students are interested in teaching profession. So, I want to take just a few minutes today and to share with you about the teaching profession and the TEAM-UP program.
Suggested modifications: Replace with your logo and context, or get rid of
FYI: Ideal length of presentation is 60 minutes, although we have done modified versions in as little as 30 minutes.
Mines students can get certified to teach middle or high school math or science along with their degree!

2. TEAM-UP’s Philosophy
Passion for Math and Science + Drive to Teach = Impact
Before we get into the workshop, here is the mission of our work in a nutshell: We want to take Mines students who have a passion for STEM subjects along with the drive to teach and provide a pathway that poises them to make an impact on STEM education and eventually STEM itself. We understand that this won’t be of interest to all Mines students, nor should it be because our society needs other STEM professionals in addition to STEM educators. But any Mines students who do decide to pursue a career in teaching our bound to have a significant impact. We find the following mantra explains this well: Those who can, do. And those who can also inspire, teach.
While many of you may also agree with this and know that we have considerable shortages in physics, chemistry, and math teachers (three of the five highest needs areas in the nation, in fact), you may not yet agree that it is a worthwhile profession for top Mines students to pursue. So today I’m going to present you with some of the facts of the teaching profession …
Suggested modifications: Replace with your mission and pictures, or get rid of
Those who can, do.
Those who can also inspire, teach.

3. Get the Facts Out Campaign
Benefits Compared to Industry and University Teaching
Introduce speakers, contexts, and funding sources that helped support the development of this presentation (NSF, 100Kin10, and PhysTEC)
Today we are going to take you through a MythBusters workshop about the secondary teaching profession as compared to industry and university teaching. Secondary teaching in the state of Colorado is defined to be 7-12 grade. Very shortly we will show the goals of our presentation. But first, let’s look at the format of the workshop.
Suggested modifications: Replace teacher preparation logo with your own and update the definition of secondary if necessary
FYI: Ideal length of presentation is 60 minutes, although we have done modified versions in as little as 30 minutes.
Funding provided in part by:

4. Workshop Plan 5:00 – 5:05 Introduction 5:05 – 5:25 Data Mining
5:25 – 5:35 Report Out
5:35 – 5:50 Origin Story
5:50 – 6:00 Messaging Testing
Explain overview of workshop
Suggested modifications: Replace timing as necessary

5. Workshop Goals Participants will be able to:
Provide realistic information about STEM and college faculty salaries;
Generally explain retirement options for teachers compared to private sector STEM jobs;
Provide accurate teacher retention data.
Presenters will be able to:
Translate the participants perspective into effective messaging for recruiting math and science teachers.
Explain learning goals of workshop

6. Teaching Myths & Realities
Nationwide data shows that 45% of college STEM students are interested in middle or high school teaching. Additional research showed that the reason many individuals who are interested in teaching do not pursue a teaching degree is based on misperceptions about the profession.
So, let’s explore the facts of teaching – particularly in those areas where we find that individuals have strongly held beliefs based on anecdotal information about:
-salary
-retirement
-job satisfaction

7. Data Mining
Each group (4 individuals) will receive 4 documents; each person should review 1 document.
After reviewing the documents, share your findings with the rest of the group.
The Wall Street Journal: Salary by Major
Teacher Salaries
Teacher Opportunities and Benefits
American Institute for Physics - Job Satisfaction Statistics
Introduce data mining activity and tell them how long they have to discuss.
Make sure they are talking to each other at their tables and discussing findings. This is all to put them in the right frame of mind to hear what happened with the Teacher Advisory Group that helped develop this. As you walk around, redirect any conversations that are about things they have heard and make sure they focus only on the handouts provided.

8. Report Out
What did your group find interesting?

9. Teacher Retention
What fraction of grade 7-12 teachers remain in the profession at year 5?
28%
41%
59%
78%
90%
Now let’s move into teacher retention. The answer to this question isn’t in the data we provided you, so you will have to make your best guess.
FYI: It is best to do this with clickers, although you can do show of hands if you don’t have clickers available; Answer is D, which you will show them on the next slide

10. Teacher Retention
What fraction of grade 7-12 teachers remain in the profession at year 5?
28%
41%
59%
78%
90%
Data from study cited. Comment on whether the group had an accurate perception of this or not.
†2015 U.S. Dept. of Ed
Public School Teacher Attrition and Mobility in the First Five Years:
Results From the First Through Fifth Waves of the 2007–08 Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study

11. MythBusters: Origin Story
Teacher Advisory Group (TAG) Meeting at Colorado School of Mines – Fall 2017.
Table 1
Lockheed Martin
Colorado Department of Education (CDE)
Four experienced teachers
Table 2
Anadarko Petroleum
Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE)
Three experienced and two newer teachers
TAGs are strongly encouraged with PhysTEC grants to provide advice on developing teacher preparation programs. The TAG at Mines had representation from industry stakeholders, state administrators, as well as local teachers. They were split up into two groups to discuss data very similar to the data you all just explored.

12. The Mines TAG Discussion
Conversations started with
Teachers in Colorado start at $24,500
186 day contract is a misnomer, teachers work all summer for free.
Industry provides a match on 401K contributions and schools do not.
Not a single person in the room has worked for less than $34k/yr.

13. The Mines TAG Discussion
After the presenters encouraged them to use the data at hand, the conversation turned to:
Teachers in Colorado typically start at $38,500 -$44,800
Steps are very nice and industry folks have to change companies for that type of raise
Industry folks floored that Colorado teachers retire in mid to late 50’s with a ~90% pension

14. The Mines TAG Discussion
Many teachers say the number one benefit to teaching is spending their summer and winter breaks with their kids.
Industry folks were surprised at the AIP survey showing 80% satisfaction for private sector STEM physics grads since they observe lower satisfaction than that.
Often make $4 - $12K during the year coaching, tutoring, in-school subbing, etc.
Both industry reps said their colleagues often don’t feel passionate about their jobs and most of the conversations during the work week are about what they did last weekend and what they plan to do next weekend.

15. Starting Salaries School year +$4-8K
Based on the input from the TAG, we modified the data from AIP to show the extra income that most teachers earn.
School year
+$4-8K

16. The Mines TAG Discussion
Lockheed Martin employee said that when advertising salaries, the monetary value of the pension should be included.
Estimates Yearly Annuity Value at $17.3k/year
Industry value at $3k/year
Suggested a recruitment sheet similar to industry job offer.
FYI: Yearly Annuity Value means someone in industry would have to invest this amount at 7% ROR to have same available retirement as pension based on average life expectancy

17. Teaching vs. Industry Teaching Lockheed Martin
Salary + Retirement Benefits Mid-Career Salary + Benefits
Early: $43K+ $17K = $60K
Mid: $75K+$17K = $92K
Contract
9-month contract
74 days not on contract
Retire late 50’s with 87.5% of HEI
Salary + Retirement Benefits (4% contribution into 401K)
Early: $66K + $3K = $69K
Mid: $78K + $3K = $81K
Contract
12-month contract
10 – 40 days off
Retire at 65 salary depends on market performance & life expectancy
An employee from Lockheed Martin made a calculator for determining the monetary benefit of PERA, which is huge compared to industry. The following year, the suggestion was to make a one page handout with the benefits of the job, just like industry does when making a job offer.
10-40 days off (higher numbers due to Flex Fridays) – also emphasize that some schools are moving towards 4 day week.

18. The Mines TAG Discussion
"We have done this to ourselves [teachers].  It's so important to keep pushing to improve teachers’ salaries and to stop districts from taking away from salaries; but, now look what we've done to the public's view of the profession.” 
Barbara Hickman, CDE
Important to note that we are probably on the same page with wanting teachers to be paid more because they do such an important job, and there are some areas (especially rural) where teachers are not making enough to stay in the middle class. But we do not want to imply that the vast majority of teachers are living in poverty, can’t retire, and leaving the profession in droves, since it simply isn’t true and is keeping passionate students from pursuing the profession.

19. Thoughts?
I would feel comfortable with my favorite student becoming a secondary teacher.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
FYI: Would only recommend doing this anonymously with clickers, otherwise modify.

20. Getting the Word Out Ideas for getting the word out around campus?
Use this time to brainstorm recruiting ideas now that (hopefully) the faculty/staff group is on board with their students choosing this profession.
Suggested modification: Add any other questions that would be helpful for your program.

21. Interested student can contact:
Wendy Adams
Lacy Cleveland
Contact information for people in the program.
Suggested modifications: Update with your people and, if possible, include someone from the department that you are presenting to who is an ally of your program
Kristine Callan
Steven DeCaluwe