Re: Ideas for a course

[Michael Bowen <fizzbowen@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 12:07 2002/07/26, Tina Fanetti wrote:

> ... I need to come up with a science class that can be transferred that
> would attract lots of students.  Something like the role of science in society.
>
> I got about 3 weeks to make this work.

Physical science for elementary teachers in training (e.g., liberal studies
majors) and/or those already in the classroom? I don't know about the
teacher prep situation in Iowa, but this is big in California (at least in
our region of the state). The CSU schools (which do the bulk of
California's teacher training) in our area can't offer enough sections, and
they are begging the nearby CCs to take up some of the slack by offering
this course also for transfer credit.

Despite the horror stories and the documented attrition rate of primary
classroom teachers, there are lots of eager young people around here who
(think they) want to teach, but are scared to death of science and won't
teach it well unless college science instructors start to do something
about it.

--MB