For the Times: Education

UMass Boston’s work in education speaks to today’s students, who bring a wide range of experiences, values, and aspirations and will benefit from new educational paradigms, partnerships, and collaborations, and opportunities to develop workforce skills.

So it’s exciting that the Wipro Science Education Fellowship, known as the Wipro SEF, received an additional $4.5 million award this spring.

Wipro SEF is a partnership between UMass Boston, which leads the project, and Mercy College, Stanford University, Montclair State University, and the universities of North Texas Dallas, Missouri, and South Florida. Its objective is to foster teacher leadership and science teaching excellence among teachers in partnering school districts from California, Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Texas.

This grant extends the Wipro SEF agreement to 2026, for a total of $18 million in external funding over the past decade.

“This is evidence of a successful collaboration between private industry, university and school district partnerships that other companies could emulate,” said Arthur Eisenkraft (pictured above), Distinguished Professor of Science Education, director of the Center of Science and Math in Context, and leader of the Wipro SEF program. “UMass Boston takes pride in the ways in which it can contribute to improving science education within the Boston area and nationally.”

The Wipro SEF program grew out of the success of the Boston Science Partnership’s Science Education Fellowship, a grant initiative funded by the National Science Foundation from 2009-2012 that was also based at UMass Boston. In 2013, Wipro, a leading global information technology, consulting, and business process services company, embarked on a program to improve the quality of K-12 science education by transforming school districts.

Led by UMass Boston, what began at two university sites has expanded to seven, positively impacting 35 school districts across the country, and creating a network of these districts and the universities facilitating the work.

As part of the program, each university creates a critical mass of K-12 teacher leaders in high-need school districts that are fostering transformation. They engage in two years of professional development opportunities that include individual work as well as collaboration with other fellows.

Transforming a school district requires coordinated communication and cooperation among teachers, science coordinators, principals, and central administration. The new funding will enable the partnership to build on the expertise of the universities, school districts, and new and existing fellows. The program will be able to expand to rural districts within the existing states, initiate cross-district efforts, and enhance evaluation and research.

“The importance of high quality science education is not only for employability of individuals, but for development of scientific temper in societies, which is crucial to well-being and progress overall,” says Wipro Limited Chief Sustainability Officer Anurag Behar. “And teachers play the central role in this endeavor.”

Wipro SEF by the numbers

35 school districts across seven states

420 Wipro fellows

840 additional teachers involved in projects initiated by Wipro fellows

250,000+ students