Stephen J. Mattingly is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
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Master's Program in Microbiology for K-12 Teachers
This University of Texas program enables teachers to study at night while working and also to gain valuable research experience
Stephen J. Mattingly
Research scientists typically are dissatisfied with how science is being taught in our K-12 schools. Complaints range from the diffuse and shallow content of the material being taught to comments that it tends to be out of date and irrelevant. Although student interest in science often is high in elementary grades, that interest markedly declines when students move into the middle and high school levels, and their decreasing test scores reflect this declining interest. Despite positive steps, including direct involvement of scientists with teachers and students through classroom and laboratory visits, collaboration on science projects, and summer educational and research programs, many K-12 students continue to lose interest in the sciences. What can microbiologists do to reverse these trends?
One critical step would be to upgrade the training of our K-12 science teachers. Because microbiology touches the physical and biological sciences and also can generate an awe-inspiring appreciation of its influence on virtually every aspect of life, microbiology could be used as a core science for many of our K-12 teachers. We believe that our Master of Science (M.S.) evening program in microbiology for K-12 teachers at the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHSC) at San Antonio provides an outstanding example of how this challenge may be met.
Master of Science Began as Summer Enrichment Program
The current M.S. program has its roots in a three-week summer enrichment program that UTHSC offered to area teachers from 1986 through 1991. The decision to begin offering a master of science degree in microbiology also received impetus from the revised K-12 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) statewide curriculum in 1998, which includes high school electives in medical microbiology and pathophysiology and the introduction of microbial concepts in K-8.
We developed the evening M.S. program with selective admission criteria, rigorous courses, and the requirement of a written, laboratory-based thesis. The program is presented in eight three-hour courses that are held two evenings per week along with one summer research session (Table 1). Approximately thirty full-time and adjunct faculty from the Departments of Microbiology, Cell and Structural Biology, Medicine, Pediatric Dentistry, Periodontics, and School of Allied Health Sciences at UTHSC and the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research provide time, energy, and laboratory resources to train the K-12 teachers who enroll.
To date, 21 K-12 teachers have either graduated or nearly completed all degree requirements, and a third class of 10 teachers began the 2000 fall semester. Of these, 2 were elementary school teachers, 11 were middle school teachers, and 18 were high school teachers. The program allows teachers to complete all degree requirements in 21 months, although some may require longer to complete their research. While the emphasis is on microbiology taught at the high school level, elementary and middle school teachers in the program are encouraged to offer microbial concepts and techniques that are appropriate for the grade levels that they teach.
Admission requirements include a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in the United States or proof of an equivalent degree, submission of an official application with transcripts of all schools attended, submission of acceptable scores on either the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or Miller Analogies Test, and employment as a full-time K-12 teacher in the San Antonio/South Texas area. The use of the Miller Analogies Test is accepted in lieu of the GRE because the exam format is more familiar to teachers. Combined (verbal and quantitative) GRE scores of 1000 or a 50th-percentile score on the MAT are considered minimally acceptable. In addition, all applicants are interviewed by three UTHSC faculty members, who evaluate teachers on their backgrounds and ask them how they plan to use what they learn through the program in their classroom.
Curriculum Provides Broad Perspective in Microbiology
Once K-12 teachers enter the M.S. program, they enroll in an introductory course, "Contributions of Microbiology to Science and Society," that establishes a historical as well as current basis for microbiology as a core subject. It features the book and tapes of Intimate Strangers: Unseen Life on Earth as well as excerpts from Bernard Dixon's Power Unseen: How Microbes Rule the World. Selected papers are also discussed from Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective by Wolfgang Joklik et al. along with selected readings about famous microbiologists. An introductory laboratory is included with this course, which emphasizes basic culture and microscopic techniques.
Another course offered in the first semester, "Biopolymers of Life," introduces the K-12 teacher participants to the basic language and concepts of biochemistry and molecular biology through a lecture-discussion format using Lehninger's textbook Principles of Biochemistry. Our experience with elementary and middle school teachers indicates that, although they typically have had little education or training in chemistry or biochemistry, they can master the information needed in the remaining courses largely through peer review sessions.
During the second semester, one course, "Molecular Biology and Biotechnology," presents basic concepts as well as laboratory techniques and procedures in molecular biology, many of which are then used during the research program that leads to thesis projects. A second course during the second semester, "Immunology in Health and Disease," focuses on fundamental aspects of the immune systems, particularly as they relate to children.
Research Experience a Key Component of M.S. Program
The summer semester in the UTHSC M.S. program for K-12 science teachers is devoted entirely to research. Unquestionably, the single most important aspect of the program is its requirement that participants develop an original, hypothesis-driven, bench research project that each of them completes in the laboratory of a principal investigator. This project leads participants to conduct varied thesis projects (Table 2), and each participant defends his or her work before their peers and members of the UTHSC faculty.
The writing and defense of a thesis not only meet requirements imposed by the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences for obtaining the M.S. degree, but more importantly involve teachers firsthand in the process of basic scientific research. Teachers have remarked that the thesis requirement, while extremely demanding, enables them to apply research techniques that they ordinarily would have only read about or done as part of demonstration projects for their own K-12 students. Significantly, they also learn that not all experiments yield the anticipated data.
During the fall semester of the second year, students generally complete their research projects while taking additional courses such as "Fundamentals of Virology" and "Biodiversity in the Microbial World." The final spring semester includes courses such as "Medical Microbiology" and "Microbial Ecosystems." Within all these courses, emphasis is placed on basic biological and molecular concepts that are likely to appeal to K-12 students as well as their teachers. Infectious disease case presentations with follow-up discussions are particularly popular and represent an example of problem-based learning that can have an immediate impact, particularly on high school students. Near the end of the spring semester, each teacher-student submits a final written thesis for committee approval and participates in an oral defense of the thesis before faculty and peers.
UTHSC Program Benefits K-12 Teachers and Their Students
The UTHS program is bringing numerous benefits to K-12 teachers and their students. Because the program allows teachers to complete their degree requirements in 21 months, mainly by taking courses offered after the school day, they can maintain full employment. Moreover, the program meets state and district requirements for an advanced degree, allowing those high school teachers who have completed it to offer advanced placement courses to their high school students.
Some of the program participants establish long-lasting bonds with one or more members of the UTHSC faculty. These relationships prove helpful when the teachers ask to borrow specialized equipment and supplies with which to conduct state-of-the-art experiments in their K-12 classroom. This accessibility helps those teachers to be more confident about the scientific subjects that they present to students and more comfortable about explaining recent scientific studies. Some of the teachers enrolled in the program have joined ASM, a step that enhances their access to current educational information in microbiology and related subjects.
From their participation in the M.S. program, the K-12 teachers who participate in our program also learn about career opportunities and other current issues, such as ethical questions involving science as well as genetic and forensic-based applications. An additional benefit is that these teachers, now with considerable scientific expertise and experience, often can gain employment as research assistants during the summer months and maintain their research expertise. Earning the status of colleague has had an enormous impact on the self-image of these teachers. They have returned to their classrooms with renewed enthusiasm and self-esteem, determined to change not only their classroom science content, but also their methods of teaching science, turning their classrooms into problem-based learning environments.
In addition, teachers who graduate from the program are brought back to help with instruction of the next class of teachers. They indicate how they have updated their teaching and how they have introduced microbiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology into their classrooms. Another benefit is that they can have an immediate and direct impact on the science taught in local K-12 schools. In addition, they tend to bring microbiologists into efforts to select biology and related textbooks to be adopted in various K-12 classes. Most importantly, microbiology can be introduced to students during the formative years of their education.
On a professional level, teachers, as graduate students, help generate data for abstracts, publications, and grant applications. Teachers enrolled in the program have submitted abstracts for presentations during the ASM General Meeting, published manuscripts in ASM journals, and provided key data for new and continuation grant applications. The program has aided younger faculty in enhancing their teaching and student training for tenure and promotion considerations. It has also aided senior faculty members near retirement by providing the opportunity to continue in research and training of students.
Ph.D. students in the last year of their program and with an interest in an academic career have gained valuable experience in teaching and mentoring. With approximately 30 teachers now involved in various aspects of departmental activities, including attending classes and seminars, conducting research, teaching, designing microbiology-based Web sites for area teachers, and experimenting with laboratory exercises for K-12 students, the department has become a primary educational resource for teachers and their students in the San Antonio and south Texas area.
Our collective experience with San Antonio K-12 teachers has been extremely gratifying and has benefited UTHSC by providing community exposure to our graduate, medical, dental, and nursing programs as well as our allied health sciences schools. Our local teachers can now discuss various career options in the health field with students, particularly minority and disadvantaged students, from the perspective of being an on-campus student and knowing what it takes to succeed in postgraduate education.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Joel Baseman, Joan Ratner, and Vic Tryon for introducing the faculty to the need to work with K-12 teachers in our local schools. I also thank the faculty and staff at UTHSCSA and the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research for generously giving their time and dedication to the teachers enrolled in the program, and the President's Council at UTHSCSA for providing initial financial support for this program. Current financial support is provided by a grant from Houston Endowment, Inc.
SUGGESTED READING
American Association for the Advancement of Science. 1993. Benchmarks for science literacy, Project 2061. Oxford University Press, New York.
Dixon, B. 1996. Power unseen: how microbes rule the world. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Joklik, W. K., L. G. Ljungdahl, A. D. O'Brien, A. von Graevenitz, and C. Yanofsky (ed.). 1999. Microbiology: a centenary perspective. ASM Press, Washington, D.C.
National Academy of Sciences. 1995. National Science Education Standards. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
Needham, C., M. Hoagland, K. McPherson, and B. Dodson. 2000. Intimate strangers: unseen life on earth. ASM Press, Washington, D.C.
Olson, S., and S. Loucks-Horsley (ed.). 1999. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: a guide for teaching and learning. Committee on the Development of an Addendum to the National Science Education Standards on Scientific Inquiry, National Research Council. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Department of Education. 1998. Pursuing excellence: a study of U.S. twelfth-grade mathematics and science achievement in international context. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=98049 .
U.S. Department of Education. 1996. Pursuing excellence: a study of U.S. eighth-grade mathematics and science teaching, learning, curriculum, and achievement in international context: initial findings from the third international mathematics and science study. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=97198 .
U.S. Department of Education. 1997. Pursuing excellence: a study of U.S. fourth-grade mathematics and science achievement in international context. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=97255 .
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