Building Connections to Colorado Teachers:
A Brief Overview of the Hands-on Science Institute in Colorado

The Need for the Institute in Colorado
The Hands-on Science Institute workshops continues the very successful model of inservicing teachers in the morning sessions and then immediately practicing the science demonstrations and activities with children who attend the science camps in the afternoon. Current research shows that this immediate practice of the material by the teachers directly corresponds to a higher retention rate and the likelihood that the learning concepts will be integrated into the curriculum. This evaluation component has been the key to the success of this authentic assessment model. The immediate feedback allows teachers the opportunity to fine tune their presentation skills and to develop hands-on strategies that will prove effective in their own classrooms.

The Outcome
Many of the elementary teachers who attend our Institute experience a high level of science anxiety and lack the confidence to effectively teach even the fundamental aspects of their district's science curriculum. One of the paramount goals of the Hands-on Science Institute is to instill a sense of confidence in teachers as they lead their students through the process of scientific inquiry. It is our desire that the teachers leave the Institute with a strong working knowledge of the elements of inquiry and the ability to design their own hands-on activities that encourage students to wonder, discover, and explore a topic of interest on their own.

In an effort to make a systemic change in science education in the state of Colorado, we strongly encourage our teacher participants to share the information and teaching strategies from the Hands-on Science Institute with other schools as they present two or three science inservices at schools in their district. We also support their involvement as workshops presenters at state, regional, and national science education conferences. During the past nine years, over sixty percent of the teacher participants have returned to their districts and presented one or more inservices, and approximately thirty percent of the participants have presented workshops at local or national science conventions.

Most importantly, teachers tell us in our follow-up evaluations that their experience at the Hands-on Science Institute has made them more confident in their teaching style, has boosted their level of enthusiasm for teaching science, and increased their desire to integrate science education into other areas of their daily curriculum. In the long run, the people who benefit the most are the students.

The Follow-up
The Directors of the Institute feel strongly that teachers need more than just a summer science course in order to truly develop innovative teaching strategies and formulate new ideas about science curriculum design. In addition to the summer training, these teachers need to collectively participate in a forum of science educators who share their same goals and who are eager to further their training in a cooperative learning environment.

Each October, the Hands-on Science Institute offers a follow-up opportunity to all past workshop participants to extend their initial learning experience in the following areas…

• Share their science teaching experiences as they relate to the information that was gained from the summer workshop.
  
  
• Participate in the exchange of new and innovative science teaching ideas.
  
  
• Analyze the effectiveness of the hands-on activities that were developed in the summer workshop and offer suggestions for modifications and improvements.
  
  
• Establish an open dialogue between the program instructors and the teacher participants so that there is a two-way exchange of ideas. Teacher participants will not assume the role of passive learners under this feedback model.
  
  
• Return to the classroom with materials that are needed to conduct new hands-on activities with their students.
  
  
• Gain additional knowledge about current reform efforts on both a state and national level and obtain up-to-date information on strategies for designing curriculum that reflects these emerging standards.

In many ways, this second phase of the Hands-on Science Institute is just as important as the previous summer's learning experience since teachers will be given the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities after they have been tried and tested in their own classrooms. The week-long summer workshop at Regis University was the stimulus that many of these teachers needed to start doing more hands-on type activities in the classroom, and this follow-up will provide the teachers with the impetus and resources to further their efforts.