Overview of AMSTI

Overview of AMSTI
The Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative, commonly referred
to as AMSTI, is the Alabama Department of Education's initiative to improve math and science teaching statewide. AMSTI was designed by a
Blue-Ribbon committee comprised of K-12 educators, higher education
representatives, and business leaders. The committee pursued every step
possible to design the most effective statewide initiative for improving math
and science teaching. AMSTI is research-based and incorporates best
practices for math and science teaching.
The initiative provides three basic services: professional development, equipment and
materials, and on-site support. Schools become official AMSTI Schools by sending all
of their math and science teachers, and administrators to two week Summer Institutes
for two summers. At the Summer Institutes teachers receive grade and subject specific professional development that is highly applicable to their own classrooms. Instruction is delivered at the Summer Institutes by "master" teachers who have been certified as AMSTI trainers after successfully completing AMSTI trainer workshops.
AMSTI sites provide AMSTI School teachers with essentially
all of the equipment, supplies, and resources needed to effectively engage students with hands-on, inquiry-based learning.
Examples of equipment include labware, DNA replicators, nuclear scalars, chemicals, global positioning devices, electrophoresis apparatus, plants with growth containers, and many
other items. The resources arrive packaged in "kits" ready for
immediate use. Each kit is customized for the specific activities that will be taught. Once students complete the activities
from a kit, it is returned to a materials center where it is refurbished to "like new" condition. Another kit targeting the next
activities to be undertaken is delivered to the teacher and the
newly refurbished kit is sent to another teacher.
AMSTI sites also provide extensive, on-site support
and mentoring. Research has shown that for teachers to effectively implement the best practices and
activities with their students that they learned at
Summer Institutes, they need additional support. AMSTI continues to support teachers in their
classrooms as they transition to this new way of
teaching. Once teachers complete the Summer Institute, math and science specialists from the AMSTI
site regularly visit the teachers in their classrooms
where they serve as mentors, helping teachers implement what was learned during the summer. Such
support is vital for teachers to become comfortable
and skilled at inquiry-based, hands-on learning.
Each region of the state has an AMSTI site to support
schools within the region. The AMSTI sites, under the
supervision of the Alabama Department of Education,
conduct the Summer Institutes for teachers within the
regions. The sites also operate materials centers that
refurbish the kits and rotate them among teachers. In
addition, math and science specialists from the site
provide on-site mentoring and coaching to teachers.
Approximately half of all schools statewide are official AMSTI Schools. To date, AMSTI has trained approximately
20,000 teachers and administrators and provided service to
over 400,000 students statewide. AMSTI also provides
limited support to non-AMSTI Schools, when possible.
AMSTI has strong partnerships with 16 of Alabama’s Institutes of Higher Education. Many colleges and universities
have partnered with AMSTI to provide AMSTI preservice
training to their “teachers in training.”
Numerous external evaluations have proven that AMSTI is highly successful in improving student achievement. A $3 M landmark randomized controlled-study,
funded by the USDE (the largest study of math and
science ever performed in North America) confirmed
that AMSTI is highly effective in increasing student
achievement. Multiple other studies have proven that
students in AMSTI Schools score dramatically higher
on the Stanford Achievement Test in math, science,
and reading, and on the Alabama High School Graduation Exam, as compared to schools with similar demographics that had not participated in AMSTI. As a
result, AMSTI is being studied by many other states
and countries as a scalable and effective model for
math and science reform.
Even with numerous external evaluations showing AMSTI making strong gains in student achievement, and
with both national and international accolades, funding
for AMSTI has been cut from $41 M for Fiscal Year
(FY) 2008 to $28 M for FY 2014. This has essentially
halted the ability of AMSTI sites to accept new schools
into the initiative and limited services to all of the
schools that have previously received training. Currently 332 schools are on a waiting list to become AMSTI
schools. It is hopeful that as the economy rebounds,
additional funding will be provided by the legislature to
allow schools wanting AMSTI to join the initiative.
For more information, please contact:
Steve Ricks, Email: [email protected]
Phone: (334) 353-9151