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

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 to seize 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 Robb. 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 sixth grades. How is the computer skills program working. Well 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 3.5 million dollars for two hundred and fifty new teaching positions and 400 and $5000 for the purchase of equipment. In addition to $100000 in scholarship long money is available this year for prospective teachers who may want to teach math and science and the Tennessee public schools. And for present teachers who may want to go back to school and become certified in those areas. Earlier

this year Tennessee Tech University decided to help students interested in math and science by providing the first annual high school science ball. 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 free scholarships to all the members of the winning team in the first anyone high school science Bowl. Twenty four teams from across the state came because you know 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 night time they were the only team left in the winner's bracket Waverley high school of Waverly who had lost earlier in the day. Add 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 24 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 Waverley came back to win the loser's bracket and face the yet undefeated Bradley team. I want to mention that this has been a double elimination tournaments 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 Waverley 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 Waverley match the

score was time Waverley team members answered a tiebreaker question successfully to win the match. Short answer biology question. Who wrote the 1960 bestseller double helix. How can you take it with. Watson. Watson is correct. From the onset of the final match their third of the night. The Waverly team of Christy Forrest Andrew comb Daniel McClure and Kent M. Holland seem determined to win the Tennessee Tech science ball. But the questions weren't easy toss a question short answer computer science. One of the digits in base 2.

Clearly you would use your own one. That's right performance. Your bonus question short answer. I'm sorry multiple choice astronomy Cassini's division is described by which of the following a break in the rings of Saturn b a break in the clouds of Jupiter. See the distance between the first two moons of Jupiter or D. None of these. And he is correct for 10 points. Here's a toss up question short answer general question. To what familiar fruit is the plantain similar. No can you take it away really. No. Banana.

Here's another toss up question multiple choice geology. Which of the following is the name of the partly melted rock layer in which the plates move a little sphere be asthenosphere see hydrosphere or D outer core. May really be as correct. As you know sphere. Here's your bonus question. Short answer math problem. Using a rectangular coordinate system gives the equation for a circle whose radius is seven units and whose center is at the point of 5 comma 5. It's not supposed to win. Plus while I'm on the spot where you think. It was before you know that is correct and the members of the way really

Tennessee team won the event and not only won trophies for their victory but all were offered one year maintenance fees scholarships to Tennessee Tech School officials expect to have more entrants 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 for runners in renewing student interest and scholastic achievement. For further information on the Science Bowl you may contact Dr. John McTiernan at the physics department of Tennessee Technological University and could fail any 10th 11th or 12th grade student may compete on a Tennessee high school team. Computer skills next as a part of the Better Schools legislation of 1994. 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 guys 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 Ochs director of computer skills next to the State Department of Education. Or 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 a computer and provide 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 the 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 the tour director of computer education

library media explains the role of the computer laboratory. A big computer education program in Tennessee or in any other to state depends upon the quality of the software programs. That is they need to be programs which are user friendly and also curriculum reunited. There's a great deal of commercial software available out there. But much of it is a very poor quality. There are 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. 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 teacher centers across the state. One of

them is quite unique in that it is a public domain clearinghouse. This is one that has programs which are not copyrighted and can be copied by educators. They simply provide us with a blank biscuit 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 found some good programs which will be available for the process of the 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 mix 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. We if they provide the blank diskettes we will leave with a copy of them are sales are 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 Mac or computer lab also offers a place for educators to come and look at commercial software programs before they purchase their are 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 farther. A particular school. Another thing the lab offers is an opportunity for a systems who are thinking of purchasing all kinds of computers are 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. Fifteen teachers from across the state were selected to write a teacher's guide. Recently these teachers met again in Nashville to revise that guy. We've come from. Different parts of the stay. Together to work on the revision of the computer skills next curriculum that God has been piloted in 12 different systems across the state. We brought those college teachers together and asked for their you know good suggestions to include in the revision we're trying to implement those revisions at this point. And the guy will be reprinted. We will train teachers. And then that will go back to their schools next year. And. Implement this and I already have 15 lessons. Yes 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. I really according to our interest or expertise.

That's right. That we're working on a particular lesson right now. That deals with. Illustrating how the computer can be used to. Show graphs bar graphs. Graphs and pie charts. And this computer we're working toward revising a lesson which is a part of the last 15 lessons that we are today. Grade students. This Wesson deals with applications. For a computer assisted instruction. The full 15 Lessons are divided into applications and. Part of the lessons will be illustrated with programming. We are working toward revising the application section and some of the other members of the committee are working toward a vising the programming section. What I'm doing here is I'm printing out our lessons. Once we complete this lesson that idea at home database process the database when we listen

to you can bring that to the. Show. Thank you for saying your puter education in Tennessee is something that we're extremely proud of. Not only do we have things going on and with computer skills next which is a statewide literacy program something that. Is an out front light house 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 sorry schools not only to 7th and 8th grade but providing help in determining software hardware that needs to be involved. We also are fortunate to have software clearing houses across the state. The opportunity with. With several universities and teacher centers to provide evaluations of commercial software is 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 the 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 media people. But because there's a real interest across the state. To follow up on what's been provided. There seldom do you find a state that will act legislation for computer education in the in the in the area of computer education that will put forth the money and the appropriations of funding to implement it successfully in the SKU. We have that basis we have a 9 million dollar budget this year. That money will be spent for local schools for the

140000 seventh and eighth graders across the state to remain in their schools. We have something out there to build on. We have teachers eight hundred fifty eight they were trying during the summer to own that equipment and how to use it. And we're moving it down to the k 6 with some work is being done by K six task force to give locals 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. Further information about computer skills next program contact Jim Ochs director of computer skills next to 14 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 1994 General Assembly. But just what are the centers of excellence. Dr. Arliss Roden 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 dollars for the current fiscal year as and is projected for 15 million dollars for next fiscal year and 20 million dollars 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 a multiple years and then you build

a nationally and internationally recognized center of actual lands. 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 Oakridge Tennessee Memphis State University in Memphis was awarded for centers of excellence one for the school of accountancy one for research and services for the communicative Lee 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 Tullahoma 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 Cookeville now has two centers of excellence one to study water management and the other at the Center of Excellence for manufacturing research and technology get a list. Tonight we will take a look at the 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 press stage and funding to universities. Dr. Joseph Scardino 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 today faculty students. From all the parliaments within the College of Engineering from the College of Business College of Arts and Science. You are involved in the center of some typical examples would be doctor said Gilbert and say Fujita and a Department of Industrial Engineering. Dr.. Bill swim Dr. Marie Ventry said Dr. egg Griggs and department mechanical engineering Dr. Aaron Collins and the electrical engineering department Dr. John Barnum and the College of Business and I've just mentioned a few. Presently for the 1984 85 year ject is to

have about eight to 10 graduate students working directly on center projects and about five undergraduate students working directly on center projects. However there will be a number of other students that are indirectly affected by the center. The center really has a twofold purpose and one purpose or one goal is to aid industries in the state and to attract other interest rates 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 graduate level and those areas relate 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 these the results of these projects into the classroom.

Bob Mayberry 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. And computer aided design. And graphics is the area that we're dealing with mostly unsolved modeling. We've been working with a number of people students as well as faculty and civil engineering mechanical engineering electrical engineering. And even some people in physics and mathematics. Basic of this playing 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 are going to be working with is going to allow us to build one three dimensional data base.

Then we can 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 on one database without ever having to build a national model. And. That's what the engineering side of it is on the design side has to be able to use one database and a completely new design and produce a part more. Recently Jim Baker an executive vice president of the General Electric Corporation came to Cookeville 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 Kalma systems into your center for manufacturing research. Enjoyed our program this evening and the truth 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 Roberson. Goodnight.