HR: 0830h
AN: ED51B-1185    [PDF]
TI: Organization and Implementation of a University-Wide Collaboration for Advancing Teaching Technology and Science in Public Schools
AU: * Regens, N
EM: nregens@geo.arizona.edu
AF: University of Arizona, Dept. of Geosciences 1040 E 4th St, Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
AU: Hall-Wallace, M K
EM: hall@geo.arizona.edu
AF: University of Arizona, Dept. of Geosciences 1040 E 4th St, Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
AB: The University of Arizona's Collaboration for the Advancement of Teaching Technology and Science (CATTS) was formed 4 years ago for the purpose of teaming university graduate and undergraduate science students with local K-12 teachers to enhance science teaching at all grade levels. This NSF-funded GK-12 program has been remarkably successful at training university students to use exemplary science education materials and to enable them to work within the culture of K-12 classrooms. The program relies on the formation and maintainence of a respectful, robust, and mutually beneficial relationship between the university and Tucson area school districts, school principals, and schoolteachers. This paper explores the process we have used and are using to build and maintain a partnership between two very diverse cultures: the K-12 culture and the university's research-based culture. The CATTS program links University of Arizona outreach projects with schools, trains CATTS Fellows on current educational pedagogical thinking, and provides a means of evaluating the teaching effectiveness of CATTS Fellows. The presentation will describe the strategies and techniques for building and maintaining alliances and creating ownership of the CATTS programs by school districts, school administrators, and teachers. We will also describe recruiting and training practices and various corrective actions we have taken to improve the program over its lifetime. The CATTS program provides an effective outreach tool for educational programs in geophysics, marine biology and oceanography, climatology, hydrology, and space physics and astronomy, to name a few. As such it is an example of a core outreach program that can be used at research universities, national research facilities, or non-research oriented colleges. The program also provides an effective way to train future teaching professors and scientists to effectively participate in formal and informal education and public outreach programs.
UR: http://www.geo.arizona.edu/catts/
DE: 6605 Education
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting