{"id":3352,"date":"2017-02-07T16:13:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T21:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/?page_id=3352"},"modified":"2017-02-07T16:13:44","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T21:13:44","slug":"teaching-to-teach","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/features\/teaching-to-teach\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching to Teach"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Science<\/a>
Science teacher intern Maegan Nelson of Whitman College leads a summer workshop at Trinity. Photo: John Atashian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NSF-funded program aims to increase number of STEM educators<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Andrew J. Concatelli<\/em><\/p>\n

A new program hosted in part at Trinity College gives aspiring secondary education teachers the most practical experience possible: teaching a course to high school students.<\/p>\n

Twelve undergraduate students from around the country came to Trinity last summer to teach a science workshop to 10th-grade students from Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy (HMTCA). The 12 students constituted the first cohort of science teacher interns in the Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates from Liberal Arts Institutions (TEU) program, which is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal of the NSF grant is to increase the number of students from liberal arts institutions who are preparing to teach math and science,\u201d says Trinity Science Center Director Alison J. Draper, who is also a lecturer in interdisciplinary science. \u201cThis puts Trinity at the forefront of liberal arts colleges who are trying to support students who want to go on to a career in secondary education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Draper is a co-principal investigator on the grant, along with two mathematicians from Vassar College and Bryn Mawr College. The grant of $2,137,727 was awarded to Vassar College, with $685,445 of that going to Trinity. Brown University, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard College are also partners on the grant, which will fund the TEU program for five years.<\/p>\n

\"Beachland61\"<\/a>
Larsson Family Scholar Jessica Voight \u201917 instructs HMTCA 10th-graders at Beachland Park as Denise Rau, senior lecturer and laboratory coordinator in chemistry at Trinity, looks on. Photo: John Atashian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Undergraduate students from a network of about 60 liberal arts colleges and universities \u2014 Trinity students included \u2014 are eligible to apply for the summer program each year. Twelve students participate in a mathematics TEU program at Brown, and 12 in the science TEU program at Trinity. The grant also pays for instructors to train the undergraduates to teach the high school students and to supervise them in the field.<\/p>\n

Last summer\u2019s seven-week program included two weeks of training, four weeks of teaching, and a week of debriefing. Undergraduates from Columbia University, Whitman College, Lawrence University, Grinnell College, Harvey Mudd College, Bryn Mawr College, and Wesleyan University, along with two Trinity students, gathered in Hartford. The group bonded quickly. Draper says, \u201cFor these undergraduates, on their home campuses, they are each one of a very few students who are intending a career in secondary education. So to come together as a cohort of 12 of them who are interested in the same thing, for many of them this is the first and only time that has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of Trinity and HMTCA\u2019s ongoing education partnership, HMTCA students must take a writing workshop before 9th grade and a science workshop before 10th grade to maintain a spot in the award-winning magnet school. The summer science workshop has been held at Trinity for the past five years. \u201cOur goal for the science workshop is to model how science is done in the real world,\u201d Draper says.<\/p>\n

Robert Cotto, Jr., director of urban educational initiatives and lecturer in educational studies at Trinity, says that the HMTCA partnership gives high school students a positive, early experience on a college campus and allows the undergraduates to gain real teaching skills. \u201cThe NSF-TEU program has strengthened the HMTCA-Trinity College partnership and has provided new resources and expertise in the teaching of science for the summer academy,\u201d Cotto says.\u00a0\u201cTaking advantage of our urban location and unique partnership, HMTCA-Trinity College [Summer Science Academy] is becoming a\u00a0national\u00a0hub for\u00a0undergraduates interested in teaching science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kurt Love, the director of science education for the summer TEU program, teaches the summer \u201cMethods of Teaching Secondary Science\u201d course at Trinity, which includes giving lessons in secondary science pedagogy, supervising the practicum, and leading a team of three experienced HMTCA teachers who serve as mentors and instructional coaches to the undergraduate students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent two weeks talking about what it means to be a science teacher,\u201d Love says. \u201cThe undergraduates all had strong science backgrounds, but not all of them had a teaching background. To become a teacher is to do<\/em> teaching. That\u2019s the strength of the program; they get right into it, and they have a lot of support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Beachland16\"<\/a>
Voight takes the students out into the water to collect samples. Photo: John Atashian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The HMTCA curriculum includes problem-solving activities \u2014 such as building catapults and completing an \u201cegg drop\u201d challenge \u2014 and laboratory experiments. Draper says, \u201cThey dissected a sheep eyeball, they did a set of vision tests and explored the sense of vision, they did a forensics activity and a DNA extraction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most important part of the experience for the high school students is the research project to assess the health of the Trout Brook, which is part of the Park River Watershed,\u201d Draper says. \u201cWe took them to two different sites \u2014 Beachland Park and Spicebush Swamp [in West Hartford] \u2014 where the students did some water chemistry tests and looked at the macroinvertebrate populations in the sediment as a way to tell how much pollution is there. At the end of the course, they have to present what they found.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the coming years, Draper says, more emphasis may be placed on the research project, and the curriculum could be adjusted to highlight the themes of sustainability, conservation, and ecology, which seem to resonate with the students. Those subjects are also of particular interest to Love, an assistant professor at Central Connecticut State University in the teacher education department who studies environmental issues and promotes land consciousness.<\/p>\n

Warrington Scholar and Trinity Club of Hartford Scholar Connie Ky \u201917, a Trinity neuroscience major who was a member of the TEU program last summer, grew up in Hartford and attended the school that is now HMTCA. She says that she enjoyed exposing high school students to new experiences outdoors during their trips to the river. \u201cSome students had never gone that far outside of the city before,\u201d Ky says. \u201cThey wanted to have their parents bring them back there and to do more things that would get them outside. The students were really willing to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ky, who plans to become a science teacher, appreciated the opportunity to encourage high school students to pursue STEM by showing them the diverse array of careers and people within the fields. \u201cWhen we discussed DNA, we made sure the students knew not only Watson and Crick, but also Rosalind Franklin,\u201d Ky says. \u201cWhen we discussed the intersection between art and science, we showed them the works of Maria Pe\u00f1il Cobo, a woman who creates art out of cell cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Love says that by the end of the program, the participants are well prepared to go into student teaching. \u201cThey could go into a classroom today and teach science if they wanted to,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a new way of teaching science education preparation, and I think it\u2019s something that more colleges should look at as a possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Beachland46\"<\/a>
Two HMTCA students examine their finds. Photo: John Atashian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Draper adds that the interns gained experience teaching in an urban school district and learned to engage students who may be reticent. \u201cIn terms of expanding the pipeline of prospective teachers who want to serve in urban districts, this is huge,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The program also will serve as a way to develop and to test a model that can be shared and duplicated. \u201cWe would really like other institutions in other parts of the country to be able to pick up this model and mount their own program,\u201d Draper says. \u201cWe think it\u2019s a good idea, and it serves a number of purposes all at once. We\u2019re continuing to serve HMTCA and their students, but we\u2019re also serving our own students and students at partner institutions, so it\u2019s a win-win-win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NSF-funded program aims to increase number of STEM educators By Andrew J. Concatelli A new program hosted in part at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"parent":1464,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-full-width.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3352"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3352\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}