FREE TEACHING TUIDES WILL AID LEARNING

New teaching guides distributed throughout Missouri at no cost to local or state taxpayers are designed to help teachers make major improvements in elementary science and mathematics scores statewide.

Representatives of Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. are distributing the newest K-6 Science and Mathematics Improvement Program (KSAM) Activity Guide Series to 1,279 public elementary schools in Missouri.

The science and math activity series, developed at Southeast Missouri State University under a $97,000 grant from the Southwestern Bell Foundation, has been revised to help elementary teachers meet new learning goals required this year for the first time by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Ernest Kern, KSAM director, said Southwestern Bell not only paid for the new teaching materials, but also agreed to use its own personnel and shipping facilities to distribute them to all public elementary schools in the state. Southwestern Bell's efforts are designed to demonstrate the direct linkage between business and education.

The KSAM project, originally funded by grants from the National Science Foundation in 1985 and 1987, is designed to awaken children's interest in science and mathematics by helping elementary teachers implement improved teaching methods.

According to the project's developers, many elementary teachers do not feel adequately prepared in science and math and lack confidence in teaching those subjects. This lack of enthusiasm may be transferred to students who lose interest in science and math at an early age, the project's developers say.

The activity guide series is part of the KSAM Program and provides elementary teachers with assistance and materials for enhancing science and math in Missouri schools.

The guide series includes four volumes that together provide 725 biology, earth science, physical science and math hands-on activities for the elementary classroom.

More than 5,000 volumes of the recently published second edition and more than 12,000 volumes of the first edition have been distributed.

"This was an attempt to help elementary school teachers and bring hands-on activities to school children," Kern said. "Research clearly shows that children learn much better with such a hands-on approach, and their interest in science and math is maintained or enhanced."

The first edition of the guide series was written in 1986 and 1987 by Kern and several Missouri elementary and secondary teachers, and published in 1989. Kern developed the second edition to meet the new Missouri Core Competency and Key Skills Objectives that took effect this school year.

Other contributing writers to the second edition of the guide series at Southeast were John Young, professor of mathematics; Sharon Coleman, instructor of chemistry; and Robert Cook, professor of biology and education.

The program has provided in-service instruction to more than 12,000 teacher participants. The program also has served teachers in other states, including New Jersey, Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas and Kansas.

"Orders for the KSAM Guides have been received from virtually every state and from as far away as England, Yugoslavia, Australia, Samoa and Saudi Arabia," Kern said.

"Our next step will be to remove specific references to Missouri" in program materials "and make them available nationally," Kern said.