EXCEPTIONAL COLLEGE TEACHING/LEARNING BEGINS IN PRE-COLLEGE CLASSROOMS: AN INNOVATIVE EXAMPLE

Outstanding instructors demonstrate exceptional skills as mentors, coaches, counselors, and leaders of inquiry. Post-secondary instructors (POSI), via graduate training and often as a practitioners in that discipline, are usually very knowledgeable in the academic discipline; actively pursuing professional development in the discipline; and are more involved in service to institution and community than pre-college instructors. POSIs often lament that students lack research, critical thinking, and communication skills, comments especially critical of college freshmen whose high school transcripts include Honors or College Prep courses. Conversely many pre-college instructors (PRCI) note that they lack discipline knowledge and skills to truly prepare their students for the college experience. This becomes a greater concern as pre-secondary school systems move toward requiring research-based projects of high school seniors, and also to elevating the caliber of student work in Honors courses.

The majority of PRCIs surveyed, who would be involved in supervising senior projects and Honors courses, admit the lack of content knowledge or research skills. Such skills are often learned through an undergraduate senior thesis, and later honed in a Masters thesis and/or Ph.D. dissertation. Sadly, many of these graduate programs are now non-thesis programs. So, the question is how can this recognized gap be bridged?

We present this innovative teaching/learning strategy of a professional partnership between a PRCI and a POSI. This partnership has resulted in: (1) enhancement of discipline-specific knowledge and research skills for the PRCI; (2) enhancement of teaching skills for the POSI; (3) sharing of that knowledge and skills via multiple in-service programs for other PRCIs; (4) involvement of high school students in field-based research and presentations at student academies of science and science fairs; and (5) college-bound students with a better grasp of critical thinking, and research skills.

The basis of this particular partnership began in 1982 with the recognition of Ediacaran fossils in late Precambrian strata of Stanly County, NC. That discovery has fostered years of joint field-based research, publications and presentations, teacher in-service training, and student participation.