Year 1 Major Activities

1. Teacher recruitment. The recruitment for Year 1 RET participants started right after September 1, 2009, the starting date of this project. Recruitment activities included advertising the program to schools in the greater Lansing area and in the Detroit area, holding a teacher workshop at the MSU College of Engineering Design Day in December 2009, and seeking recommendations from school administrators and teachers already involved in outreach collaboration. The criteria for RET participants were explicitly stated in these communications. The PIs, in consultation with other faculty mentors, selected eight final participants following the selection criteria, and paired the RET teachers with faculty based on mutual interests in early May 2010.

2. Dedicated website. A website for the BITS RET program was created.

3. 7-week Summer Institute. The Summer Institute, running from June 21 through August 6, 2010, consisted of the following components:

• Orientation, including paperwork, tours of campus and general facilities (libraries, computer labs, etc.), tutorial on research and curriculum development methods, safety training, and meeting faculty mentors and graduate students.
• Research experiences. Eight RET participants worked in their faculty mentors’ labs on projects related to the theme of Bio-Inspired Technology and Systems (BITS), and gained hands-on experiences and technical understanding that broadened their knowledge base.
• Curriculum development. A curriculum specialist, Dr. Jennifer Doherty, coached individual teachers on curriculum development. In addition, time was set aside each week for the teaches to digest research materials and work on ideas for new curriculum materials.
• Weekly workshops. Various workshops were conducted for the teachers to improve their professional skills, such as presentation and curriculum development skills.
• Weekly brownbags. Brownbag seminars were given by faculty mentors and graduate students each week to expose the RET participants to a broad range of research and educational activities being conducted at MSU.
• Weekly lab tours or field trips. The teachers visited a number of research labs and facilities at MSU, and took a field trip to the University of Michigan.
• Oral and poster presentations. During the last week of the Summer Institute, all teachers presented their research and learning experiences and findings. They further prepared a poster summarizing their summer experiences and future plans.

4. Evaluation. Dr. Patricia Farrell, a professional program evaluator, evaluated the expectations and experiences of RET participants, graduate students, and faculty mentors prior to, during, and after the Summer Institute. More details about the evaluation process are provided in the Findings section.

5. Dissemination. The BITS RET Site program was disseminated to teachers from local schools, university faculty, and the general public through various oral and poster presentations by the PIs, including one that was presented at the NSF Awardees Conference in early 2010.

Year 1 Findings:

1. Teacher recruitment. A diverse group of eight excellent teachers were successfully recruited, including one elementary school teacher, six middle/high school teachers, and one faculty member associated with the Lansing Community College. The first cohort of the RET Site program included Erin Bosch (female), Adam Ford (African American), Randall Heck, Jason Hill, Sharlene Kroneck (female), Bukola O. Ojumoola (African American, female), John Thon, and Felix N. Ngassa (African American). Each teacher was assigned one engineering faculty mentor based on mutual interest. In addition, a graduate student from each research group was identified to assist the RET participant in his/her research experiences. The roles of all personnel were reported in the section of Project Participants.

All RET participants reported pleasant experiences working with the faculty mentor and graduate students, although detailed results of the surveys are still being processed by Dr. Farrel and her group. There were several practices in the recruitment process that contributed to the success: (1) The combined use of mass advertisement and targeted recruitment based on recommendations from school officials and seasoned teachers provided a pool of diverse, highly motivated candidates; and (2) involvement of both RET participants and the engineering faculty in the matching process ensured that the teachers were motivated and able to contribute to the research projects, meeting the expectations of both the teachers and the faculty mentors. We will follow these sound strategies in future recruiting efforts.

2. Website development. The site, located at http://www.egr.msu.edu/future-engineer/ret/, provides information about the program such as personnel, research opportunities, and resources for applying to the RET Site program. The PIs are currently working with the Division of Engineering Computing Services (DECS) at MSU to enable the database management and blogging functions of the website, so that the web will serve as the repository for developed curriculum modules and other relevant documents and provide a forum for the RET participants to interact more effectively.

3. 7-week Summer Institute.

• Orientation. The orientation was conducted on the first two days of the Summer Institute. The first day was dedicated to logistics (paperwork, parking, housing, etc.), tours of campus and general facilities (libraries, computer labs), and introduction about the RET Site, the summer schedule, and expectations. The role of evaluation was also discussed by Dr. Patricia Farrel. On the second day, Dr. Alocilja (co-PI) shared her experiences in working with a high school teacher that led to a new set of lesson plans implemented at the Union High School in Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Tan (PI) gave a tutorial on research methods and provided advice on how to interact with faculty mentors. John Thon, who had been working with Dr. Tan for the past several years, also shared his experience from a teacher’s perspective. The teachers also went through online training on chemical safety. The teachers then had the opportunity to mingle with all faculty mentors and graduate students involved in the Site program, before heading to individual labs to receive specific lab training.

The two-day orientation successfully achieved its goals. The RET participants quickly learned about the RET Site program and their roles and expectations. In addition, all teachers, faculty mentors, and graduate students involved started to establish the identity of “BITS RET Site” as a team. The teachers were ready to start their research experiences at the end of Day Two.

• Research experiences. The teachers worked closely with their faculty and graduate student mentors and spent the bulk of the seven-week Summer Institute on hands-on research in the labs.