This award provides funding for a 3 year continuing award to support a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering Site program at the University of Connecticut (UConn) entitled, RET Site: The Joule Fellows-Teachers in Sustainable Energies Research Laboratories", under the direction of Dr. Kazem Kazerounian.
This Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering Site is a comprehensive program to host a total of 36 teachers and instructors (12 each year for three years, 8 from high school, 2 from middle school and 2 from community colleges) as Joule Fellows at the University of Connecticut for six summer weeks with long term academic year follow-on programs. At UConn they will participate in a rich spectrum of activities that will provide them a broad view of research methods and hands-on education and research experience in ongoing programs in sustainable energies. The planned activities of the program are integrated into the following five categories: 1) research preparation, 2) research participation, 3) professional development, 4) bridging technology and K-12 curriculum, and 5) mentorship and outreach. To attain sustainablility and institutionalization, the project team will develop a combination of activities: an innovative Master of Engineering Education degree program, collaboration with the State to develop engineering frameworks in K-12 curricula, and building community-based enabling partnerships.
The School of engineering at the University of Connecticut developed and implemented a comprehensive program hosted 42 teachers at UCONN for 6 weeks summers 2009- 2012. The activities were integrated into five categories: (I) research preparation, (II) research participation, (III) professional development, (IV) bridging technology and K-12 curriculum, and (V) mentorship. Participating Joule Fellows: - Examined engineering developments through classroom instruction, guest lectures and field trips including visits to various facilities such as Windham Water Work, UTC Power and UConn Center of Clean Energy where they gained a more intimate familiarity with the engineering applications and career opportunities; - Gained exposure to discoveries in sustainable energies by working with faculty researchers in their laboratories; - Learned best engineering research practices (including measurement and data acquisition, data analysis and presentation, and computational tools), proposal writing, technical communication, scientific ethics and code of conduct, to expand the impact of their experience beyond the RET program; including, computing tools, and an overview of energy research in order to deepen the understanding of engineering and its applications among instructors. - Learned techniques for creatively solving problems in the laboratory and learn how to translate this knowledge into effective lessons for their students; - Developed and implemented experiments based on the research activities of the Joule Fellow program to use in their home institutions during the academic year In addition to developing an in-depth perception of engineering and its relevance, the participants gained a sense of confidence and appreciation about engineering research and its national and international advantages. We also learned valuable feedbacks and modified the program accordingly. A handful of these findings can be summarized as follows: • The Selection of host faculty and graduate students plays a vital role in program success. In the second round of the program we did this task more meticulously by considering faculties, graduate students and teachers’ personal interests and capabilities which resulted in a more dynamic environment. • We had to compete with other summer programs for teachers to attract their attention to this program. It requires early advertisement at schools to have a richer and more diverse pool to select participants • Specific attention is needed in selection of projects to assure that the project is reasonable and at the same time remains substantial. • Technical high schools have shown elevated interest in this program. To conclude, in order to observe the efficiency of the program, each of the participants was assigned to prepare a lesson plan, an educational kit and a movie entitled "How I spent my summer at UConn?" After getting feedback from UConn mentors, the materials were used in classes to transfer the knowledge to students. The best lesson plan and movie have been chosen to be posted in the program website to be available for interested individuals. Also teachers have been assisted to share their educational kits and lesson plans to benefit their students from the other participants’ experience.
