Northern Arizona University (NAU) will establish a Program for Excellence in Precollege Chemical Education to provide comprehensive summer training experiences for l92 teachers of general and advanced high school chemistry courses during the summers and academic years of l990-1993. These workshops will be conducted by experienced, master high school teachers and University faculty. The goals of the project are (1) to encourage changes in the methods of high school chemistry instruction to show more strongly the application of modern technology to the teaching of chemistry and (2) to provide a cadre of enthusiastic, well-qualified teachers to teach both general chemistry and advanced high school chemistry courses, honors, enrichment and/or AP courses. As a result of these workshops, the courses taught by these teachers should have sufficient relevance, appeal and challenge to encourage more students to enjoy science and to pursue chemistry at the postsecondary level. Forty eight teachers per year for each of the four years will be selected to attend one of two parallel workshops. One group will be comprised of those teachers who have an adequate content background for the teaching of a first-year chemistry course, but who lack any expertise in the use of technology and current science teaching methods, such as cooperative learning and microscale laboratory. This three-week workshop will stress the blend of content, technology, and methodology. The participants of the second three-week workshop will be selected from among teachers who are very well-prepared, content-wise and are comfortable with use of technology, but who need an update on modern and/or more advanced topics, since they are being assigned to teach a second-level chemistry course. NAU has piloted this second workshop very successfully in the past. As a result of several surveys taken at NSTA regional meetings, local teachers have expressed the need not only for the continuation and expansion of these Advanced Chemistry Workshops, but the addition of the General Chemistry Workshop as described above. The schools from which the majority of the teachers will be selected are in regions serving large numbers of minorities and underrepresented groups, both Hispanic and native American. One half to two thirds of project participants will come from those population groups. Northern Arizona University has demonstrated its ability to attract teachers from this region to workshops for advanced chemistry teachers on the basis of its expertise and geographical location. An amount equivalent to approximately 30% of the NSF request is being cost shared by the NAU, school districts and grants from the Eisenhower Math and Science Education funds of the State of Arizona.
