TxBESS Conference
(Texas Beginning Educator Support System)
TxBESS
Conference
(Texas Beginning Educator Support System)
Dean's Follow-up Message
Thanks so much for being a part of the TxBESS Science and Math Teacher Workshop at UT Arlington the week of June 15th. It was a pleasure to have you on our campus, and we appreciate the time and enthusiasm you brought to this event. We have received so many kind words of thanks and encouragement, along with many requests for more workshops of this type. Please rest assured that we hope to host another event of this type if funding becomes available.
The current climate in science world-wide is spectacularly exciting. If you have been browsing the web, you may have heard some of the amazing recent research and discoveries. A giant sea “blob” believed to be a 50 ft. long octopus was found in Chile. NASA has been trying hard to launch the second Mars rover (bringing back memories of the movie we watched.) New studies show that large fish are disappearing from our oceans, and the list goes on. As the school year approaches, I hope you will remember your workshop activities and begin to incorporate these and other contemporary science topics into your lesson plans. I hope that the new supplies and equipment you acquired will help you bring more hands-on activities into your class.
We thank those of you who took our “beta test” on the nature of science. Your feedback was a tremendous help, and it has led us to shorten the test and focus it a bit. The results are posted at the link below. We did discover differences between those with science backgrounds and others, and differences by grade levels, which will help us focus our curriculum development efforts to ensure that teachers better understand the nature of science.
Many of you asked about the forensics workshop and resources to start local science fairs. The following links will be of interest:
We consider you a friend of UTA and hope you will stay in touch. We hope to be an ongoing resource to you and your students, and have added you to our mailing lists to keep you informed of programs that may be of interest. Please feel free to call or write whenever we can assist you in any way. It was inspiring to meet so many dynamic and dedicated teachers, and I look forward to working with you in the future.
Sincerely,
Neal J. Smatresk
Dean of Science
