Issues in Education; Science Bowl, Computer Skills, Centers of Excellence

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo the state of tennessee with the passage of the better schools legislation by the tennessee

general assembly last year took a giant step toward improving the quality of tennessee teachers improving the quality of education and preparing tennessee's future citizens for the computer age this is issues in education a program designed to help you learn more about the innovative educational opportunities taking place not only in our elementary and high schools but also in our colleges and universities and now our host rebecca robertson good evening tonight we'll take a look at the computer skills next aspect of the better schools program computers are now being used in all junior high schools throughout the state and plans are being made to expand downward into the kindergarten through six grades how is the computer skills program working we'll find out later in this program and we'll see how the centers of excellence established by the legislature last year at several state universities are beginning to pay off not only by providing students with superior educational

experiences in their fields but also by bringing prestige and recognition to those institutions but first we have this story this year's ninth and tenth graders will be among the first classes to graduate under a new state board of education regulation requiring additional credits in both math and science in order to obtain a high school diploma to help school systems absorb the cost of additional high school math and science programs needed this year the state is providing three point five million dollars for two hundred and fifty new teaching positions and four hundred and five thousand dollars for the purchase of equipment in addition two hundred thousand dollars in scholarship loan money is available this year for prospective teachers who may want to teach math and science in the Tennessee public schools and for present teachers who may want to go back to school and become certified in those areas earlier this

school year Tennessee Tech University decided to help students interested in math and science by providing the first annual high school science bowl let's take a look at that story now we often think that the best way to win a college scholarship may be to excel in athletics because these scholarships seem to be the ones we most frequently hear about Tennessee Tech University however in an effort to promote achievement and study in the sciences recently awarded maintenance fee scholarships to all the members of the winning team in the first annual high school science bowl twenty four teams from across the state came to Cookville earlier this school year to compete in a day long double elimination tournament throughout the day Bradley High School of Cleveland continued to win their matches and by nighttime they were the only team left in the winners bracket Waverly High School of Waverly who had lost earlier in the day at one more losers bracket team to face Cleveland High School of Cleveland Tennessee we've had a fairly exciting day of it we started off

with twenty four teams and we are now left with three teams the semifinals are being held now the two teams competing in the semifinals are Waverly and Cleveland High School the moderator for the evening's event is Brian O 'Connor from the math department at Tennessee Tech at the beginning of the match it looked like the Cleveland team would win but in the second half of competition Waverly came back to win the losers bracket and face the yet undefeated Bradley team I want to mention that this has been a double elimination tournament the winners of the winners bracket is Bradley Central High School and the winner of the losers bracket has been Waverly Central therefore we're playing in the finals now if Bradley Central wins this match they are the champions of the tournament if Waverly Central wins this match then they play one more match to determine the champion at the end of the regulation play in the first Bradley Waverly match the

score was tied Waverly team members answered a tiebreaker question successfully to win the match short answer biology question who wrote the 1968 bestseller the double helix Clark and Creason no can you take it Waverly Watson Watson is correct from the onset of the final match their third of the night the Waverly team of Christie Forrest Andrew Combe Daniel McClure and Kent Milholland seem determined to win the Tennessee Tech Science Bowl but the questions weren't easy toss up question short answer computer science what are the digits in base two zero and one that's right for four points here's your

bonus question short answer I'm sorry multiple choice astronomy Cassini's division is described by which of the following A. a break in the rings of Saturn B. break in the clouds of Jupiter C. the distance between the first two moons of Jupiter or D. none of these answer A A is correct for ten points here's toss up question short answer general question to what familiar fruit is the planton similar no can you take it Waverly no orange banana here's

another toss up question multiple choice geology which of the following is the name of the partly melted rock layer on which the plates move A. lithosphere B. esthenosphere C. hydrosphere or D. outer core Waverly B. is correct esthenosphere here's your bonus question short answer math problem using a rectangular coordinate system give the equation for a circle whose radius is seven units and whose center is at the point five comma five X minus five squared plus Y minus five squared that is

correct the members of the Waverly Tennessee team won the event and not only one trophies for their victory but all were offered one year maintenance fee scholarships to Tennessee Tech school officials expect to have more entrance next year hope to encourage new interest in the sciences and also hope to help promising science and math students achieve their goals making both Tennessee Tech and Tennessee forerunners in renewing student interest in scholastic achievement for further information on the science bowl you may contact Dr. John Matea at the physics department of Tennessee technological university in Cookville any 10th, 11th or 12th grade student may compete on a Tennessee high school team computer skills next is a part of the better schools legislation of 1984 the aim of the state department of education is to have every student a computer literate by the 10th grade to achieve this goal every junior high school now has one computer for every 30 students teachers guides have been printed and teachers have even undergone special training in

order to teach computer skills to their students but how is the program working? our reporter talked with Jim Oaks director of computer skills next of the state department of education computer education in Tennessee has taken a giant step forward during the last year computer skills next one of the governor's 10 points of the better schools program has provided the financial support for a curriculum for hardware for training for teachers and continued support for those teachers through the funding provided by the state legislature the hardware the Apple computer was purchased through a competitive bid for the price of what a computer would have cost approximately one year ago students in Tennessee have access to a computer a workstation that holds that computer and provides security and surge protection

a curriculum written by teachers from across the state of Tennessee software to run on the computer as well as additional software for all students in the elementary grades and other materials that are useful in providing support for the teachers as they teach computer literacy to all seventh and eighth graders Tennessee is the first state in the nation to mandate a literacy program for these students and to provide the hardware and the support and we're very proud of this effort here in this state we consider that Tennessee is now a bellwether state as far as literacy instruction is concerned to provide support for these school systems a computer laboratory has been established by the State Department of Education Betty Latour, director of computer education library media explains the role of the

computer laboratory a good computer education program in Tennessee or in any other state depends upon the quality of the software programs that is they need to be programs which are user friendly and also curriculum related there's a great deal of commercial software available out there but much of it is a very poor quality through our office we're doing a number of things to try to get quality software into the hands of Tennessee educators one of the programs which is sponsored by the Better Schools program it's part of the computer technology component and that is the Tennessee Computer Evaluation Clearing Houses each quarter we send out a publication similar to this one of software programs which have been evaluated by educators during that quarter there are six of the software clearing houses they're located in universities and in teacher centers across the state

one of them is quite unique in that it is a public domain clearing house this is one that has programs which are not copyrighted and can be copied by educators they simply provide us with a blank diskette and we will copy those programs for them we're looking at all this public domain software that's available and indeed a lot of it is poor quality but we're trying to sift through this and to find some good programs which will be available for the price of a blank diskette to Tennessee educators this is our computer lab we offer a number of services to Tennessee educators through our computer lab one of our most popular programs is our mixed software program we have an institutional membership with the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium this membership allows us to copy software programs for all K -12 educators in the state if they provide the blank diskettes we will either copy them ourselves or they

can come into the lab and make their own copies it gives them an opportunity to have a collection of quality software that can be integrated into their instructional program in our lab we also have a hardware consultant and a software consultant who are available to do in -service workshops with school systems across the state the microcomputer lab also offers a place for educators to come and look at commercial software programs before they purchase they're able to look at the software that we have available in our laboratory for each of the different kinds of computers and to look at it to see if they want to purchase those particular programs for their particular school another thing the lab offers is an opportunity for systems who are thinking of purchasing all kinds of computers or peripheral equipment to come in and look at the different kinds of hardware before they actually make the selection before the computer education courses were

introduced in junior high schools 15 teachers from across the state were selected to write a teacher's guide recently these teachers met again in Nashville to revise that guide we've come from different parts of the state together to work on the revision of the computer skills next curriculum the guide has been piloted in 12 different systems across the state we've brought those pilot teachers together and asked for their input of suggestions to include in the revision and we're trying to implement those revisions at this point and then what? and the guide will be reprinted we will train teachers on the guide in May and June and then they will go back to their schools next year and implement this and they already have 15 lessons as the seventh grade curriculum and this will be the continuation we've divided the curriculum into different parts so that each of us is working on a different lesson

really according to our interest or expertise this is a workstation, there are other workstations that's right and we're working on a particular lesson right now that deals with illustrating how the computer can be used to show graphs, bar graphs, line graphs and pie charts at this computer we're working toward revising a lesson which is a part of the last 15 lessons that will be offered to the eighth grade students this lesson deals with applications for computer assisted instruction the full 15 lessons are divided into applications and part of the lessons will deal strictly with programming we are working toward revising the application section and some of the other members of the committee are working toward revising the programming sections what I'm doing here is I'm printing out our lessons once we complete them this lesson that I did on

database processing and database management once we get our lesson put on the Apple writer or processor we then proceed to come in and print it out to make sure it is formatted properly so it can be included in the guide that we'll be introducing here computer education in Tennessee is something that we're extremely proud of not only do we have things going on with computer skills next which is a statewide literacy program something that is an out front lighthouse project in the state very few states if any have a literacy program at the level that we have it for seventh and eighth grade students but in the general education division we also have another division library and media software and a director for that position with a full time software specialist and hardware specialist to service schools not only at the seventh and eighth grade but K -12 providing help in determining software hardware that needs to be bought we also are fortunate to have

software clearing houses across the state the opportunity with several universities and teacher centers to provide evaluations of commercial software to help locals deal with the software issues as they develop their computer programs locally again the state of Tennessee is very fortunate we have been on the cutting edge because in fall of 82 the commissioner had the foresight to see that the coming issue of computer education was one that needed to be addressed the future of computer education in the state is bright not only because of computer skills next and the other services that we're providing through our library and media people but because there is a real interest across the state to follow up on what's been provided very seldom do you find a state that will enact legislation for computer education in the area of computer education that will put forth the money, the appropriations, the funding to implement it successfully in the school we have that

basis, we have a nine million dollar budget this year that money will be spent for local schools for the 140 ,000 seventh and eighth graders across the state to remain in their schools we have something out there to build on we have teachers, 858 that were trained during the summer on that equipment and how to use it and we're moving it down to the K -6 with some work that's being done by K -6 Task Force to give it local assistance before students get to the seventh and eighth grade with all the combined efforts, the clearing houses, the whole spectrum the future is very bright for computer education in the state of Tennessee for further information about computer skills next program contact Jim Oakes, director of computer skills next 214 Cordell Hall Building, Nashville, Tennessee, 3 -7 -2 -1 -9 our final story tonight also deals with computers but this time on a college level the General Electric Corporation recently donated a CAD -CAM computer and a robot to the Tennessee Tech Center of Excellence for Manufacturing Research and Technology

Utilization the center is one of 14 established last year by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and funded by a bill passed by the 1984 General Assembly but just what are the centers of excellence? Dr. Arliss Rodin, president of Tennessee Technological University explains the philosophy of establishing such centers I should like to provide a little background if I might this year is a year in which all of education has taken a monumental leap in the state of Tennessee that transpired with the passage of what became known as a better schools program and also the legislative package the comprehensive educational reform bill through the legislature a part of that bill was a call for the establishment of centers of excellence in higher education that's concept with which I have always had great affinity throughout my professional career because I think it's

quite impossible across a state, any state regardless of its wealth to talk about excellent higher education programs across a full spectrum of all of the institutions and all of the programs in that state it's therefore necessary to build, as I refer to it like building a great edifice one brick at a time so you take the areas where you already have exhibited a great deal of strength and start building on them, around them until by and by you have a great institution the centers of excellence program which was funded in Tennessee at $10 million for the current fiscal year and is projected for $15 million for next fiscal year and $20 million for the following fiscal year projects some additional centers but more important certainly to us is it projects some continuing support over a multi -year period so the notion is you take a program that's already strong

infuse resources into it over multiple years and then you build a nationally and internationally recognized center of excellence The 14 centers of excellence approved for funding by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission last year include the Science Alliance which is a joint center established by the University of Tennessee Knoxville and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee Memphis State University in Memphis was awarded four centers of excellence one for the school of accountancy one for research and services for the communicatively impaired one for the applied psychological research one at the earthquake information center a center for laser applications was established at the University of Tennessee Space Institute and Telehoma and a center of excellence for historic preservation was established at Middle Tennessee State

University a center of excellence for science and math teaching was established at the University of Tennessee at Martin and a center for excellence in computer applications was established at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga Tennessee State University was awarded a center of excellence to help with their studies of basic skills for the disadvantaged and East Tennessee State University was awarded a center of excellence to help in their Appalachian studies and services program The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture received a center of excellence award to help with their studies of livestock diseases and human health Tennessee Tech University in Cookville now has two centers of excellence one to study water management and the other the center of excellence for manufacturing research and technology utilization tonight we will take a look at this center for manufacturing research and technology utilization to see just exactly what a center of excellence is and how it will impact university students and the state to see how centers can bring

both prestige and funding to universities Dr. Joseph Scardina, director of the center of excellence for manufacturing research This center is drawing together the areas of expertise from all the departments both within the College of Engineering and from other colleges to focus on advanced technology manufacturing as we're seeing it today faculty, students from all departments within the College of Engineering from the College of Business from the College of Arts and Science are involved in the center some typical examples would be Dr. Sid Gilbert from Safe Fujita in the department of industrial engineering Dr. Bill Swim Dr. Marie Vantries Dr. Ed Griggs in the department of mechanical engineering Dr. Aaron Collins in the electrical engineering department Dr. John Burnham in the

College of Business and I've just mentioned a few presently for the 1984 -85 year our objective is to have about 8 -10 graduate students working directly on center projects and about 5 undergraduate students working directly on center projects however there will be a number of other students that are indirectly affected by the center really has a two -fold purpose one purpose or one goal is to aid industries in the state and to attract other industries to the state and assist them in advanced technology manufacturing the computer -aided design the computer -aided manufacturing all of the things that we're hearing about today that are being used in manufacturing the second goal of the center is to impact the instructional program both at the undergraduate and the graduate level and those areas related to manufacturing we want to expose our students to these new concepts either directly by having

them work on center projects or indirectly by bringing the results of these projects into the classroom Bob Mabry is the director of computer -aided engineering laboratory at the center of excellence for manufacturing research he explains what the computers can do to aid designers, engineers and manufacturers as well computer -aided design and graphics is the area that we're dealing with mostly in solids modeling we've been working with a number of people students as well as faculty in civil engineering, mechanical engineering electrical engineering and even some people in physics and mathematics basically displaying three -dimensional surfaces that they had to work with that were difficult to visualize visualization is probably one of the main or key features of computer -aided graphics it allows you to see things rather than looking at lots of computer output and data as far as numerical data goes the entire package that we're

working with or going to be working with is going to allow us to build one three -dimensional database which is a model of some particular design that we're working on we can actually do the testing and analysis right on the computer rather than having to build the models physically if we like what we've come up with and have made the changes making it appropriate then we can take the model directly from the computer make a computer tape from it to drive a numerical control machine which will make the part and also we can drive drafting systems which will draw two -dimensional drawings for manufacturing to use or whatever all from one database without ever having to build an actual model and that's what the engineering side of it is and the design side is to be able to use one database and completely design and produce a part or an item Recently Jim Baker, an executive vice president of the General Electric Corporation came to Cookfield and made two presentations to the university Automated,

highly productive manufacturing is very close to the heart of our livelihood along with educated employees and computer aided design is in turn at the heart of the automated manufacturing process and that's why we're so happy to make an investment in our own future as well as yours by helping you get this remarkable CalMA systems into your center for manufacturing research We hope you have enjoyed our program this evening and that you've learned about some of the interesting happenings in Tennessee's education We also invite you to tune in next month as we feature more stories about the schools of Tennessee Until then, I'm Becky Robertson, good night you