Pre-College Teacher Enhancement Program for Middle/Junior High School Life Science Teachers

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This teacher enhancement project consists of three-full year cycles, beginning with a summer workshop and followed by the school year. This design gives the participants an opportunity to interact and learn the biological concepts, processes and teaching methods, to share and work together with outstanding life science teachers and to establish and maintain a continuing collaborative partnership with scientists and science educators from University of Texas at Austin. Twenty-four of the less well-prepared middle/junior high school life science teachers from the counties around the University will be selected for each cycle. Twenty summer and seven fall sessions, a total of 118 contact hours, will be required of participants for which they will receive six semester hours of credit. The summer sessions will include laboratory and field experiences, content presentations by scientists, and small group work periods during which lessons will be prepared. During the fall, in addition to working with the scientists, the participants will prepare instructional units and special sessions entitled "Middle/Junior High School Kids Meet the Scientist" which will be held in the participants' classrooms. A series of visits by two scientists to participants' classrooms will be made during the fall and spring of each yearly cycle. The participating school districts as well as other non-NSF sources are contributing more than 30% of the cost of the project.