“If you look really long term one of the things we are doing is turning them on to careers that are a little abstract…especially in a rural setting,” Matt Militello, Principal Investigator of the $999,751 NSF grant said. “Also, having them exercise their brains in different ways and across disciplines will help them with the big tests like the ACT or SAT that determine if they get into colleges.”

“The ECU Lab School will be a demonstration site to provide exposure and training for teachers and principals to address challenges in high-needs schools, and be used to determine best practices, provide educational research and foster professional development.” Dr. Grant Hayes, dean of the College of Education, said.

Project INTERSECT (Interactive STEM Education Competence in Teaching), a a $599,939 NSF grant, will address the nature and role of discipline-specific discourse in the classroom. The goal of the project is to explore how training with immersive classroom simulation activities affect the ability of ECU math and science teacher candidates use of discourse as a means of instruction.