Wipro Innovation Projects

After Fellows complete the two-year Wipro SEF Classic or “foundation” program, District Science Coordinators work with their university partners in exploring ways in which to build on the Fellows’ experiences, projects and leadership skills in order to support district transformation. Through various initiatives, Fellows engage with other teachers in their districts. Simultaneously, administrators, who are now more engaged members of the team, are made more aware of the resources that the Wipro SEF program has seeded in their schools and districts. This phase of funding is also intended to encourage district incentives to support future work that will continue after this Wipro external funding concludes.

A SINGLE VISION WITH DIFFERENT STRATEGIES

The first part of the Wipro SEF program includes Fellows participating in their Year 1 V-CCLS and H-CCLS teams and reflecting on their teaching with a focus on disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices and applying pedagogical innovations to their classroom practice. Year 2 of the Wipro SEF program has Fellows designing and implementing a professional development initiative of their choosing.

The overall vision of the Wipro SEF program is to promote district transformation through teacher leadership. The core program, repeated over three cohorts of Fellows, provides a critical mass of teacher leaders in school districts that have the leadership skills to support and shape district initiatives in a distributed leadership model. The seven universities that have implemented the Wipro SEF program have demonstrated its viability and success across 35 school districts ranging in K-12 student populations from 1,000 – 175,000 students per district.

We now refer to these initiatives as Wipro SEF Classic. Based on the success of Wipro SEF Classic, Wipro has generously committed to continue support for the universities to further their work in their local districts so that we can approach our vision of district transformation through teacher leadership.

The Wipro Innovation Projects in the new phase of the Wipro SEF program are unique to their districts and their Fellows. Each university has created strategies that they think will move our collective group closer to our goals and vision. Here are summaries of those strategies with more details for each site:

California – Two more cohorts of Fellows from their existing partner districts are going through the Wipro SEF Classic program; a School Leaders Program will provide leadership professional development for selected leaders from their partner districts.

Florida – Fellows from partner districts are engaging in extended GPS one- or two-year projects that involve new Fellows.

Massachusetts – Districts as a whole and/or individual Fellows are participating in selected projects such as vertical teaming; professional development seminars will be offered
to interested Fellows.

Missouri – Three more cohorts of Fellows from their existing partner districts (and possibly new districts as well) are participating in a Wipro SEF Classic program with a focus on science and math educators at the 6-12 level.

New Jersey – Fellows from partner districts are developing and implementing two-year district goal-aligned projects involving new Fellows.

New York – Fellows from partner districts are engaging in new GPS projects that are generated, in part, at an annual K-12 STEM Teacher Conference each fall.

Texas – School-based projects are happening in each partner district annually; collaborative mini-grants are being offered for projects that involve at least one Fellow and one other district personnel.

California – Stanford University

The California Wipro Team’s vision for developing teacher leadership in the Wipro SEF Program focuses on developing leadership practices and broadening educators’ perspectives beyond the classroom by applying their leadership skills within their school and district contexts. To meet these goals, the California Wipro Site is continuing to offer the Wipro SEF Classic program to two more cohorts of science teachers from their partner school districts.

In addition, the California team is investing in the five partner school districts by creating specific plans that meet the needs of each district. These plans have been co-constructed with District Science Coordinators and often include the participation of past Wipro SEF Fellows. The goal of this work is to develop each team’s collective capacity to advance high quality science teaching and learning in their districts that align with NGSS and reduce the persistent inequities that pervade science education.

Finally, the California Team has launched its first Wipro School Leaders Program which is bringing together school leaders from across the five districts and build their capacity to support high quality teaching and learning, increase equitable opportunities, and support the goals of the Wipro SEF Program. By addressing the work from these three levels- teachers, district teams, and administrators- the California site is working towards the goal of district transformation.

Florida – University of South Florida

The Florida team’s goal is to continue the empowerment of the Wipro SEF Fellows. It is unusual for educators to choose their professional development path much less spearhead a project with it. In this phase, Fellows are further enhancing what they have learned from Phase 1 to increase the district wide impact. The continued personal vested interested in their Phase 2 projects make them the champion for it, as well as involving other individuals (administrators and additional teachers) to help them work towards the overarching goal of district transformation. They have increased the number of projects in their second cohort which has also resulted in every district having a project which helps them achieve the desired district transformation.

Missouri – University of Missouri

The current project is an expansion of the Wipro SEF teacher network, providing opportunities for collaboration and leadership, and focusing on collaboration between science and math teachers in middle and high school. The project is addressing the challenges of teaching science and math in a harmonious manner at the middle and high school grade levels. The collaboration between math and science teachers is essential to the implementation of successful science and math curricula. This project is focusing on having teachers develop such a culture in a systematic manner using appropriate research articles and paired science and engineering practices and Common Core math practices.

In the first year of a fellow’s participation, the project is enrolling middle school math and science teachers in teams from previous and new school districts. A team can be either from a middle (6-8) or a high school (9-12) grade band. A team consists of 2 to 4 teachers, with at least one science and one math teacher.

In Year 2 of each cohort (beginning fall 2023 for cohort 4) elementary teachers are recruited from Year 1 fellows’ districts as associate fellows. Elementary teachers typically teach both math and science. The purpose of having them work with middle and high school teachers is to have them learn content and methods as well as work on vertical collaboration across the K-12 spectrum so that they can integrate science into their math classes and vice versa.

New Jersey – Montclair State University

This project involves twelve alumni Fellows working on district-related initiatives and one Fellow working on publicizing the program.  Each of the alumni Fellows has recruited a team of district teachers. Together, these teams will work towards their respective goals as a new cadre of teacher leaders are nurtured.

The current projects being undertaken by the Fellows range from VCCLS/HCCLS type activities to partnerships with local community programs. The table below offers a snapshot into the Fellows’ work.

New York – Mercy University

The Mercy University Greater New York Wipro Science Education Fellowship has successfully supported a new branch of Wipro SEF, that the Mercy University Center for STEM Education (MCSE) calls, “Wipro SEF Reimagined.” This innovation phase of Wipro involves teacher led, collaborative projects that are designed to enact district change in STEM education. These projects, created by Wipro SEF Fellows and newly participating teachers, receive buy-in from administrators as associate group members, as well as in-district support from DSCs. Over the course of 4 years, MCSE aims to establish a norm of collaborative action towards district change in the five existing Wipro SEF partner districts.

With their eyes set on sustainable change, MCSE is equipping participating teachers with the tools and practices necessary to carry on transformative efforts even when Wipro funding has ended. In Year 1, Wipro SEF Reimagined Fellows and the MCSE team established and strengthened relationships with district administrators to ensure sustainability. Year 2 is continuing to foster these relationships to help both Fellows and administrators to meet district goals. Mercy intends to reach teachers in more grade levels (expanding from Year 1 to include secondary level teachers) and in all five partner districts.

Texas – University of North Texas at Dallas
The Wipro SEF Innovation phase is underway at UNT Dallas with the specific goal of achieving district transformation through teacher leadership. Toward this end, they are funding three types of projects: school projects, collaborative projects and individual projects, The school projects are designed to address a specific need of the school or district. Of a total of 14 projects funded, there were 9 school projects in the first year. During Year 2, two of the participating school districts are expanding on previous school projects to other grades and subjects.

Summary of Current Project(s) and Goals
These were the projects UNT Dallas funded for Phase 3, Year 1