[093] MTeach Plans Sept. 22 Open House for Campus, Public

Release date: Sept. 15, 2010

News & Public Affairs contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or jweiler@mtsu.edu
MTeach contact: Leigh Gostowski, 615-898-5786 or gostowsk@mtsu.edu

MTeach Plans Sept. 22 Open House for Campus, Public


(MURFREESBORO) — Leaders of the first-year MTeach program want to introduce themselves to campus and community, and plan to do so with an open house.
The MTeach open house will be held Wednesday, Sept. 22, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., in Room 123 of the Cason-Kennedy Nursing Building, said Program Coordinator Leigh Gostowski.
The event is open to the entire MTSU community and general public.
“The open house is intended to introduce the university community, including students, and public to the MTeach program, let them see where we are located and meet the staff,” Gostowski said. “We will have MTeach students on hand, demonstrating science and math activities that represent best practices in inquiry education.”
Master Teacher Sally Millsap joined the MTeach staff this summer. Dr. Amy Phelps, a professor in the chemistry department, serves as co-director.
Last fall, the university received a five-year, $1.925 million grant to launch MTeach, a replicate of the nationally known UTeach program started at the University of Texas at Austin in 1997.
When the program was announced, Dr. Tom Cheatham, dean of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences, said UTeach “fundamentally changes the way high-school math and science teachers are trained. UTeach recruits strong math and science majors with a chance to try out teaching for free through two, one-credit freshman courses that help the college student prepare and deliver an active-learning lesson for elementary and middle-school students. UTeach supports deep content knowledge and early and often engagement of future teachers in K-12 classrooms.
MTeach is a partnership between the Colleges of Education and Basic and Applied Sciences.
It’s possible that Cheatham and Lana Seivers, dean of the College of Education, and education associate dean and MTeach co-director Dr. Phil Waldrop will share remarks during the open house, Gostowski said. Waldrop played a major role in the establishment of the MTeach program at MTSU.


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Media welcomed.

Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree — the only one in Tennessee — as a model program. This fall, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.

For MTSU news and information, go online to mtsunews.com.