Texas Regional Collaboratives for Excellence in Science Teaching
Sixth Annual Meeting, July 21 – 23, 1999
EVALUATION ASSESSMENT

• The individual collaboratives should play more of a role in the annual meeting. Some suggestions include presentations from three to five of the collaboratives per day, allowing each collaborative to share the activities and experiences that have promoted professional growth among their members throughout the year. Also, it was suggested that one or two collaboratives could be "highlighted" at each annual meeting, allowing a special session for them to share experiences or to give a workshop on an especially creative activity that they found useful.

• Panel discussion groups should be smaller. Specifically regarding the Science Teachers Roundtable, participants feel that sharing would be more effective if it was done in smaller groups. This would allow more people to share their experiences. It would also be a more efficient way to facilitate question-and-answer periods by overcoming the problems participants have with hearing what others are saying.

• We had several comments about the length of the conference on Thursday, especially because it did not include a break during or after lunch. People expressed the willingness to begin earlier or end later on Thursday (or the second day of the conference) in order to provide for an hour break after lunch that would allow participants to more receptive and involved in the afternoon sessions.

• Handouts for each session would be helpful. This would enable participants to take back notes and details from the sessions that they find applicable to their collaboratives and classrooms.

• Participants were most impressed with the "hands-on" activities like those in the Cambridge Physics session. This gives them specific lessons and activities to take back to their students and to share with other teachers.

• There is a need for a session dealing with small, rural district issues. This would be of assistance to all of the rural collaboratives and also to the business partners by giving them an insight into these issues and how they can better aid those districts that are in need.