I engage in teaching, scholarship, and service to address how middle and high school science teachers can best implement instructional and assessment practices that promote scientific sense-making and literacy development in multilingual classrooms. As a Co-Principal Investigator for the NSF funded Secondary Science Teaching with English Language and Literacy Acquisition (SSTELLA) Project, my colleagues and I have developed and researched innovative approaches in secondary science method courses to better prepare new science teachers to teach English learners. I have also studied how new and experienced science teachers come to develop expertise at assessing science learning responsively in multilingual classrooms. This scholarship has helped me frame my teaching for single subject candidates around a set of high-leverage teaching practices that candidates experience analyze, and approximate in the context of new national teaching priorities and standards, namely Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core. 

Dr. Rajeev Virmani is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education in the Department of Curriculum Studies and Secondary Education at Sonoma State University. Virmani has focused on providing rich learning experiences for preservice and inservice teachers to improve their skills and knowledge for teaching mathematics and ultimately support student learning. His research and teaching centers on eliciting and attending to student thinking. Virmani collaborates with teacher educators and practitioners to develop learning environments that provide opportunities to learn about teaching practices through pedagogies that approximate practice. In particular, he uses rehearsals of instructional activities with teachers to engage in and reflect upon equitable pedagogical practices, student thinking, and mathematics content. He has extended this work to embed mathematics methods courses in school classrooms in which teachers have authentic interactions with students and build upon student mathematical, cultural, and linguistic strengths.

Angelica Andrews Buot supports the STEP Center with program administration. She holds her BA in Environmental Studies and Planning from Sonoma State University. She began her career in environmental education and aptly made it back to SSU where she has been working since 2019. In line with her work, Angelica is a proponent of STEAM education, values students' access to passionate, equipped instructors, and is committed to supporting educators so they may thrive.