UTeach Celebrates Collaboration with AT&T, Demonstrates New High-Tech Resource - May 15, 2007
Associate Vice President for Development Phil Oswald, Dr. Kamil Jbeily and College of Education Assistant Dean Karl Miller
Representatives from UTeach Natural Sciences and AT&T gathered in the Sanchez Building on April 27 to celebrate a successful, longstanding partnership and to formally inaugurate a new, high-tech College of Education classroom that will better-prepare future science and math teachers.
With a gift of $75,000 from the AT&T Foundation, UTeach was able to reconfigure a third-floor classroom in the Sanchez Building so that the space can accommodate the growing number of students who are enrolling in UTeach and offer state-of-the-art technology training as well. The $75,000 was part of a $1 million gift to The University of Texas at Austin, with the $1 million going to 11 different campus programs to support math, science, education and technology.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I had not been able to be a part of UTeach and had this experience – every day that I go work with my students just reinforces to me that I’ve made the right decision. I cannot wait to have my own classroom!”
Tessa Popp, student in the UTeach program
Dr. Larry Abraham directed the room renovation project, with support and guidance from Drs. Anthony Petrosino and Walter Stroup, associate professors in Science and Mathematics Education, and Dr. Jill Marshall, assistant professor in Science and Mathematics Education. Abraham is chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction as well as co-director of the UTeach program.
“UTeach has around 480 students enrolled right now,” says Abraham, “and this College of Education classroom that we’ve been using for ten years was only outfitted with 22 desktop Pentium computers and a local network. Fortunately, UTeach has experienced a wonderful growth surge and we now need resources for around 30 students per class, so expansion and redesign were necessary.
“Our role in helping UTeach is analogous to driving a car – you have an institution that builds the best cars – or students – in the world, and you just need fuel from us to help with that. You’re producing top-level math and science students and teachers, and those excellent students will staff our companies. It’s a perfect partnership.”
James Lydon, AT&T
“The AT&T gift has allowed us to accommodate more students in this classroom, upgrade to laptop stations, change the number and layout of wet-lab workstations and add new storage cabinets for lab supplies and equipment. We’ve upgraded electrical and data access for student computers and provided new multi-media projection capabilities, and all of this gives us flexible, reconfigurable work spaces appropriate for a variety of project-based, student-centered learning activities.”
The room also has been equipped with a large projection screen, a ceiling-mounted LCD projector, handheld electronic devices and probes for gathering scientific data.
In addition to serving UTeach students, the classroom is used by College of Education graduate students in science and mathematics education, for professional development workshops attended by practicing teachers and by faculty and students who are conducting research on teaching and learning with new technologies.
At the dedication ceremony, UTeach instructors Stroup and Marshall demonstrated some of the classroom’s new capabilities by distributing personal response clickers and handheld Texas Instruments computing devices to attendees so they could execute learning exercises that middle- or high-school teachers might use with their own students.
“The handheld clickers give students a chance to sound in and answer questions anonymously,” says Marshall. “They can take risks and participate without fear of being embarrassed when they get an answer wrong. It seems to stimulate more discussion between students and has been a particularly successful tool for working with students who traditionally do very poorly in math and science.”
“UTeach is the number one program of its kind nationally and is being replicated all over the U.S. We could not have enjoyed this level of success without the generous support of benefactors like AT&T.”
Manuel J. Justiz, dean of the College of Education
Along
with a sampling of the renovated room’s capabilities, the dedication
ceremony also included the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the
partnership between AT&T and UTeach. College of Education dean Dr.
Manuel J. Justiz, College of Natural Sciences dean Dr. Mary Ann Rankin,
associate vice president for development Phil Oswald and James Lydon,
the executive director for external affairs at AT&T, offered
remarks, and UTeach students gave testimonials about the value of their
experiences in the program.
UTeach is the result
of collaboration between the Colleges of Natural Sciences and
Education, and the program prepares and supports UT secondary
mathematics, science, and computer science teachers. Recently, the
National Mathematics and Science Initiative announced a large-scale
effort to create and promote similar programs at other universities.
Because of its exceptional student recruitment and support, successful
partnership of two colleges, top-notch faculty, innovative curriculum
and induction support for graduates, the program has garnered
increasing national media attention over the 10 years that it has been
in existence.
The UTeach program is co-chaired by Dr. Michael Marder in the College of Natural Sciences and Dr. Abraham.
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