Objective To create a professional development partnership with neighboring school districts to address the challenges of elementary science education and empower the districts’ teachers to drive measurable change within their classrooms.
The Hands-on-Science workshops and on-site professional development work are designed to give you the opportunity to learn in the same way that you can teach your students, through exploration and discovery.
Our goal is to help you ask questions and think like a scientist so that you feel comfortable handling your students’ “why and how” questions. By partnering together we can help you overcome the challenges associated with a broad science curriculum, time constraints in preparation and teaching, and diverse student backgrounds.
We can arm you with the techniques that can be used to transform your current teaching methods and lessons to inquiry-based science lessons aligned with the TEKS.
The vicious cycle begins in the college science courses of one generation. An assorted string of lecture courses results in disconnected facts and missing components of science content. Through this experience, pre-service teachers and students of many other disciplines leave college without a solid foundation of basic science knowledge. Because they themselves were never fostered in appropriate science content knowledge and the teaching of science content, they are not prepared to teach science. Their students then leave for college without the proper foundation. The vicious cycle then continues with the college science education experiences of this second generation.
Science Teacher Mentor (STM) | Cadre Member (CM) |
One Summer Workshop each Summer | Optional Summer Workshop |
Two full days of on-site Professional Development with substitute coverage provided by your district | Science Teacher Mentor Support for Vertical Alignment and Inquiry-Based Lessons |
Monthly on-site after-school Professional Development | Monthly on-site after-school Professional Development |
UT-Austin Instructional Partner Visits | UT-Austin Instructional Partner Visits |
Stipend and Hands-on-Science Materials | Stipend and Hands-on-Science Materials |
Workshop is free to Collaborative Members
Workshop Hours: 8:00 am – 4 pm Mileage & Parking Paid Convenient garage parking, easy access from IH-35 & 1 block from workshop location
For more information, please contact:
Project Coordinator: Peggy Pitts
E-Mail: peggypitts@austin.utexas.edu