University of Oklahoma
Grant: $512,824 - National Institutes of Health - Sep. 5, 2009
No votes have been cast for this award yet
Join the conversation: Post a comment about this award
Award Description: Medicines, Explorations, and Discoveries in Biotechnology Education (MEDBEd) is the program we will initiate with this workforce development administrative supplemental award. MEDBEd will use lessons we have learned as we implemented our successful SEEDBEd outreach program. We will change the structural model of SEEDBEd and adapt it so that immediate acquisition of lab materials and increased autonomy for the high school faculty at the rural school systems can quickly be achieved in the proposed MEDBEd program. This is an important modification since the supplemental funds are supposed to provide immediate economic stimulus and the modifications we will make for MEDBEd will allow us to provide a stream of funds for outreach to the rural high schools in the most expeditious manner possible. MEDBEd will also be adapted to expand on the current biotechnology pipeline focus of SEEDBEd and include a focus specific to awareness outreach activities centered around biomedical professions, an important mission of the parent OK-INBRE award. Dr. Diana Spencer is the MEDBEd Program Coordinator and she will provide six professional development workshops during the academic year in biomedicine for high school teachers. Additional workshops may also be offered during the summer semesters, and the project assistants that are requested in the budget will assist Dr. Spencer with the delivery of all workshops and help her to teach additional workshops as needed. The MEDBEd project will provide for the infusion of biomedical education into many rural high schools using a focused, inquiry-based experimental learning system that will be provided for the two years requested in this proposal. It is also envisioned that the experimental MEDBEd learning system proposed here will be incorporated into the high school curricula of the rural high schools on a permanent basis. To implement MEDBEd, 10-15 high school teachers at a time will attend professional development Workshop opportunities that will be offered on Fridays from 8 am to 3 pm with one-hour lunch breaks. When a teacher successfully completes a specific workshop, they will have demonstrated the ability to implement the experiments in their classrooms. At this point, 'footlockers' will be provided to all science teachers that have successfully completed the professional development workshop and the footlockers will contain all of the necessary equipment and supplies a teacher will need to implement specific experimental protocols into their own classroom. Many of the high schools that will be interacting with TCC through the proposed MEDBEd system do not currently have formal hands-on research laboratories integrated into their science classes. Therefore, this will be an excellent opportunity to allow students at these historically underserved high schools to experience performing 'real world' science experiments for the first time. This will allow us to not just teach students about science, but it will allow us to provide them multiple, actual hands on experiences of what it is like to do an actual scientific experiment. Adding this new dimension to the educational repertoire of the science teachers at these rural high schools will (i) enhance their own overall professional development and (ii) allow them to be role models and provide them with information to pass along to their students as to what scientists really do to solve problems in the 21st century. All high school teachers from the 50 selected rural schools will have workshops taught to them by Dr. Spencer and the two assistants at TCC that we propose to hire for the MEDBEd program. Teachers will be able to choose from six biomedical workshops.
Project Description: As defined in the Award Description Field
Jobs Summary: No jobs created this quarter (Total jobs reported: 0)
Project Status: Not Started
This award's data was last updated on Sep. 5, 2009. Help expand these official descriptions using the wiki below.
No comments have been added for this project.