The UNC Charlotte and Phillip O Berry Academy of Technology Cooperative: Graduate Resources for a Technology Academy

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Phillip O. Berry Academy of Technology, a new high school located within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, are jointly creating a series of activities that prepare science, engineering and computer science, and mathematics graduate students to act as resource persons in high school classrooms and the teachers in those classrooms to work effectively with them. UNC Charlotte faculty serve as the instructional staff for eight-day workshops each summer for the Fellows and cooperating high school teachers. Participating Berry Academy teachers and selected GK-12 Fellows serve as workshop leaders each summer for new cohorts of Fellows and teachers. These workshops focus on policy regulations for working in K-12 schools, school safety, and pedagogy instruction, and include a curriculum-sequencing guide that is aligned with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for the courses being taught the subsequent fall semester. During the academic year weekly seminars taught by UNC Charlotte faculty develop specific inquiry-based activities in science and mathematics for each course according to the sequencing guide. Each high school mathematics and science course affected is organized thematically addressing four program strands: the nature of science, science as inquiry, science and technology, and science in social and personal perspectives. The Fellows receive special preparation in teaching science as inquiry, in the use of NSF supported, research-based mathematics materials, and in the integration of technology in instruction. There are numerous broad impacts. Over the three years of its action more than 4800 high school students (approximately 82% minority) and over 25 high school teachers will be directly or indirectly impacted. In addition the activities encompass more than just classroom work. A website is being provided as a conduit between university mathematics and science faculty, project staff and high school mathematics and science teachers and students. This site acts as a forum for posting questions and answers, as a source of information concerning scheduled project activities, and as a resource for database sharing. A broad spectrum of teachers are benefiting as the cooperating high school teachers are serving as resource persons for other teachers at Berry Academy of Technology and, along with the Fellows, are developing and teaching two area-specific day long workshops during the school year. In addition, a grade-specific activity book is being developed for distribution to all Berry Academy teachers. Part of the support for this project comes from the Directorate for Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Project Title: The UNC-Charlotte and Phillip O"Berry Academy of Technology Cooperative: Graduate Resources for a Technology AcademyInstitution: The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC)PI/Co-PI: David Royster, James Lyons (UNC), David Baldaia, Deborah Ramsey (Berry Academy of Technology)Partner School Districts: Philip O berry academy of Technology, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Funding: $1,411,841 total for 3 years Number of fellows/year: 10 graduate Setting: Urban Target audience: 9-12 NSF supported disciplines involved: Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Computer Science