Nuggets 2003

University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth (0139089)

Rustin E. Reeves, rustyr@hsc.unt.edu

The University of North Texas Health Science Center's Project SCORE (Schools' Cooperative Opportunities for Resources and Education) partnered our first year with four high schools in the Fort Worth Independent School District, placing 8 graduate students into their biology classrooms. These 8 graduate students and 4 FWISD biology teachers participated in a summer class/workshop entitled "Tools for Teaching Science", where a laboratory enhancement exercise was designed by each student and presented to workshop participants. Those participating in the workshop included UNTHSC faculty and staff, curriculum development and instructional support specialists, Project SCORE graduate students and evaluators, FWISD biology teachers, science department chairs, and science administrators. The laboratory enhancement exercises developed in this workshop will be integrated into the biology curriculum of the four participating classrooms in Project SCORE. The "Tools" summer course/workshop also gave the graduate students valuable information on pedagogical skills, such as communicating scientific concepts and classroom discipline. Within the next two years, we plan to increase our number of graduate student participants in Project SCORE to 12 teaching fellows, and to increase the number of participating high schools to 6, involving approximately 30 FWISD biology classrooms during the third year of the project.