Each of the four participating PATHS-UP institutions will provide hands-on research experiences for high school and/or middle school teachers, with the main goal of enhancing content knowledge and STEM education. RET participants will be K-12 educators at schools within the test bed communities, which include both rural and urban environments. This approach serves to foster relationships between the project and these communities, which will enhance dissemination of PATHS-UP health technologies and systems.
Another common feature is that participating teachers will work with vertically integrated research teams, which include high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in the PATHS-UP labs. These interactions with students, trainees and faculty will allow the teachers to translate their experiences into new, research inspired, PATHS-UP lesson and activity plans that reflect “real world” endeavors.
The K-12 educators will also work with the team to develop new PATHS-UP modules will be implemented at educational outreach programs, including Field Experiences, Engineers on Wheels, the Engineering EXPO, and Research Day. Additionally, they will form the basis for workshops at professional development (PD) conferences for teachers, including Texas A&M’s annual K-12 Summer Institute, which will broadly disseminate the ERC deliverables. As the workshops are refined, materials will be further disseminated through national PD conferences, such as the annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) or American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).
