Professor

Education

I have been a science educator for over twenty years. I began my career as a high school physics and biology teacher in El Paso, Texas, shortly after completing my Master of Arts in Teaching from Colorado College. I continued my teaching at the sixth grade middle-school level until 1994, when I began my doctoral work at Iowa State University.

At Iowa State, I focused on boundary layer meteorology, earning a Ph.D. in Water Resources in 1999. I did post-doctoral work under Danny Edelson at Northwestern University before accepting an appointment at the University of Northern Colorado as an Earth Science Educator. In 2006, I joined my alma mater, Colorado College, as a professor of education. My professional goal is to contribute to the understanding of how the use of scientific data can promote the learning of inquiry, particularly for pre-service teachers.

Academic Positions

Associate Professor, Professor, Chair (2010-2019), Colorado College Education Department

Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, University of Northern Colorado, Earth Sciences

Research Assistant Professor, Northwestern University, School of Education and Social Policy

Graduate Research Assistant, Iowa State University, International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics

Teacher, Panorama Middle School, Colorado Springs, CO

Teacher, Hanks High School, El Paso, TX

Leadership Positions

Chair, Colorado College Education Department

Faculty Director, Children's Summer Programs, Colorado College Education Department

Co-chair, representing Private Institutions (1 year appointments), Colorado Council of Deans of Education (CCODE)

President, National Association of Geoscience Teachers

Director, Environmental Program, Colorado College

Co-Director, WhizBang Summer Children's Program, Colorado College

Chair, Science and Math General Education Committee, University of Northern Colorado

Activities & Interests

Areas of Specialization

Areas of specialization include education research on teacher preparation, inquiry, curriculum development utilizing visualization technologies and culturally responsive design, on using data in the classroom, and how we learn complex systems. Science research focuses on heterogeneous surface energy fluxes.

Research

(Lead PI) Colorado College Noyce Scholarship Program (CCNSP). Manya Whitaker, Tina Valtierra, Howard Drossman, Co-PIs. Funding for providing a community of undergraduate science interns to develop into science teachers. $1,193,400. NSF Award #1540672.

(Lead PI) Proactive Positioning of Future Educators for Rural Community Success. Co-PI: Robert Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Education, UCCS. Funding for providing an early rural education experience for future teachers. $63,199. Funding supported by the Colorado Department of Higher Education.

Recently Completed (2013-2018)

(Co-PI) Colorado College Rural Organizational Pikes Peak Partnership (CCROPPP). Kathy Randolph, Lead PI. Co-PIs Manya Whitaker and Tina Valtierra. A project to develop a strategic partnership between Colorado College Education Department and the Pikes Peak Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) for improving the preparation of rural teachers. $41,875. Funding supported by the Colorado Department of Higher Education. Project completed in July 2018.

Comparative Environmental Issues - Diverse Study Solutions: Collaborative exchange between Colorado College, Carleton Collage, member Associated Colleges of the Midwest, University of Juiz de Fora, and the Universidade de Brasília. A $264,000 project through U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), CFDA 84.116M. Completed in May 2014.

Elementary Integrated Math-Science Partnership with Colorado Springs School District 11 and Colorado College Education Department. Funding for developing a cohort of teacher leaders on the integration of math and science at the elementary level. A three-year project funded by the Colorado Department of Education ($952,000). Completed in May 2014.

Collaborative International Event: Approaches to Pedagogy and Learning about the Environment. An ACM FaCE Collaborative Event project with Nick Gomersall from Luther College and Fabio Roland from University Federal of Juiz de Fora. ($15,000). Completed in May 2012.

Enhancing Use of Data in Education: Bridging the Scientific and Educational Communities: A collaborative project with Tamara Shapiro Ledley (TERC) and Ben Domenico (UNIDATA/UCAR). (Subcontract with TERC). $135,441 awarded by NSF (EAR-0623136). Completed in May 2010.

Publications

Juried

In preparation
Taber, M.R. Rethinking Constructivism: Developing a Critical Consciousness Through Visual Thinking Strategies and Culturally Responsive Praxis. Journal of Science Education.

Pending
Taber, M.R., K. Randolph, N. Wurzweiler, 2018. Teacher Autonomy and Job Satisfaction: Comparing Rural, City, and Suburban Teachers. Submitted November 11, 2018 to Journal of Research in Rural Education.

Taber, M.R., 2018. A New Paradigm for Implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to Pre-service Science Teachers. New Perspectives in Science Education: Conference Proceedings, 7th Edition. Published by Liberiauniversitaria, Florence, Italy.

Taber, M.R., E. Benedict, E. Waterman, 2015. The Cognitive Development of Visual Literacy for Scientific Symbolic Problem Solving. New Perspectives in Science Education: Conference Proceedings, 4th Edition. Published by Liberiauniversitaria, Florence, Italy.

De Souza Machado, P. , J.H.C. Ribeiro, T. P. da Silva, Taber, M., E. B. Pasin, 3028. Atividades lúdicas relacionadas a questões hídricas: inclusão de abordagens CTS no currículo de Biologia do Ensino Médio. Cadernos da Educação Básica, vol. 1, n. 2, outubro 2016.

Taber, M.R., F. Roland, B. Milanez, E. Pasin, F Alvim Carvalho, 2014. Water in a Changing World: Developing Learning Materials for Pre-Professional Teachers in Brazil and the United States. New Perspectives in Science Education: Conference Proceedings, 3rd Edition. Published by Liberiauniversitaria, Florence, Italy.

Taber, M. R., T. Ledley, S. Lynds, B. Domenico, L. Dahlman, 2012. Geoscience Data for Educational Use: Recommendations from Scientific/Technical and Educational Communities. Research results from the Enhancing Use of Data in the Classroom Project (EAR-0623136). Journal of Geoscience Education, Vol. 60(3), August 2012. Outstanding Paper Award for 2012.

Ledley T., M. R. Taber, S. Lynds, B. Domenico, L. Dahlman, 2012. A Model for Enabling an Effective Outcome-Oriented Communication Between the Scientific and Educational Communities. Research results from the Enhancing Use of Data in the Classroom Project (EAR-0623136). Journal of Geoscience Education, Vol 60(3), August 2012.

Taber, M. R., 2012. Building new cognitive knowledge structures about complex systems: An illustration of a model activity. Earth and Mind, Volume II. Kastens and Manduca, eds. Geological Society of America Special Publication; pp 123 - 125.

Ledley, T., L. Dahlman, C. McAuliffe, N. Haddad, M. Taber, B. Domenico, S. Lynds, M. Grogan. Making Earth Science Data Accessible and Usable in Education. Science. Vol. 333. 30 September 2011. Note: This paper was the recipient Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE) award from the journal, Science.

Non-Juried

Articles
Taber, M. R., 2011. Book review of Stories in Stone by David B. Williams. In the Trenches, an editor reviewed publication of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. April 2011. http://nagt.org/nagt/publications/trenches/issues/apr11.html

Books and Chapters
Taber, M. R., K. Kester, P. May, A. Yurkanin, 2011. Environmental Stewardship - a dialog between religion and the environment, in Fostering Religious Diversity Across Campus, Miriam Diamond, ed. New Forums Press, Inc.

Regular Classes