FUTURE PROGRAM

myIDEA Graduate Student Research Assistant

Cesar Delgado, delgadoz@umich.edu, Science Education, PhD expected Aug. 2009

OVERVIEW PROJECT SNAPSHOT WHAT I LEARNED

My job is to help the undergraduates develop and
implement effective and engaging science lessons, in
collaboration with Dr. Mary Starr and more recently Dr.
Morten Lundsgaard.
I am involved in other IDEA projects, including the
development of an introductory reader in science
education for science doctoral students, with Ryan
Baxter (a doctoral student in chemistry) under the
direction of Drs. Coppola and Krajcik.
Mary Starr and I have been using the 5 E’s model to
help the undergraduates think about the structure of
their lesson plans:
Engage - How will the lesson motivate students? How
could it relate to their everyday life?
Explore - Hands-on, minds on activities.
Explain - Crystallizes conceptual understanding.
Elaborate - Refining skills and applying knowledge
Evaluate - Assessing learning and understanding
During my job interviews, I was frequently asked if I
had experience teaching undergraduates. I pointed to
my participation in the FUTURE program as an
invaluable source of experience in helping to set up
and run an interesting hybrid of a traditional class and a
traditional field experience. I expect to be able to apply
the lessons learned in the FUTURE program in my
upcoming career as assistant professor.
My experience developing a reader will likewise be very
useful as I begin to develop courses.

“I didn’t have time to read a short letter, so I wrote a

long one instead.”
-Mark Twain

Selecting a small number of foundational articles in the

field of science education for the IDEA Reader has
TIMELINE proved to be an interesting challenge. There is a
Project FUTURE: tension between the intended function as a “primer”
I have been involved from the first semester (Fall 2008) and the need to portray an idea of what science
education research is actually like. Ryan and I are
IDEA Reader in Science Education: testing different annotation formats with doctoral
I have been working on this project since summer students in chemistry (the intended audience).
2008.

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Teacher Information: Everyone!
Project Coordinator: Mary Starr
 FUTURE PROGRAM

myIDEA Title of student’s project

Name of student, email address, department, major, year of graduation

OVERVIEW PROJECT SNAPSHOT WHAT I LEARNED

Put an overview of what you did in the classroom, here. Here you should describe what you did. Describe what you learned in the FUTURE program.
Start with a description of why you chose to engage in How will this learning change what you do tomorrow or
this project. Include the goals of the work. in 10 years?

Then, list the teacher, topic, number of classes, and The importance to the students, etc.
team members, to give an overall idea of your
collaboration.

TIMELINE
DESCRIBE the Project Timeline

Partner Information:
School Information:
Teacher Information:
Project Coordinator: Mary Starr