Center for Initiatives in Pre-College Education

Through the innovative efforts of the Center for Initiatives in Pre-College Education (CIPCE), Rensselaer is helping our nation's public school education system prepare the college students of tomorrow.

Raising the Bar of Improvement
Rensselaer believes that it shares with the nation's schools an obligation to develop and deliver a first-class education to students at all levels. The work of the CIPCE in pursuit of that goal can enrich its own intellectual environment, tap new sources of funding for these outreach efforts, deliver substantial long-term benefits to its admission efforts, and improve its public and community relations.

To achieve its vision, the CIPCE fosters innovations in pre-college education that build upon Rensselaer's strengths and traditions in pedagogy, interactive learning, educational technologies and teacher education. Its activities include:

• a graduate M.S. in Natural Sciences program, taught over three consecutive summers, for secondary-school mathematics and science teachers,
• professional development projects for teachers, including on-site classroom support; after school workshops; and summer institutes,
• the development of interactive multimedia instructional materials,
• the development and integration of robotics activities into classroom curriculum, including distance experimentation,
• the use of online and other distance learning technologies to facilitate its professional development activities, and
• cognitive research focused on how technology affects student learning.

M.S. in Natural Science
The M.S. in Natural Science program provides teachers with an opportunity to upgrade their qualifications and examine how their curricula can make the best use of advancing technologies.
The goal is to help secondary-school science and mathematics teachers enhance their skills with new techniques, tools, and a rich body of scientific and mathematics content.

The importance of providing excellent mathematics and science curricula to students in middle and high school cannot be overestimated. For additional information, see the following by President Shirley Ann Jackson:

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