Fishy Tales Involving High School Students and their families

We had a very cool opportunity this semester as high school students from Alice, Texas came to Texas A&M Corpus Christi as part of program involving Dads and Students. I volunteered my morning preservice teachers to work with this group and do a perch dissection with them. We provided the materials, the Dads (and Moms!) came in and went to work -- it was unbelievably awesome -- like Family Science coming to the classroom!

I am working to make this happen several times during the semester from now on. Authentic learning at it's best! My PST's learned along with the families. Amazing!

My student's reflections:

*"I wish I wold have had opportunities like this when I was in high school. I also would have loved for my Dad to be involved in activities like this with me."

*"Parent's showing interest gives the students inspiration to want to learn because it helps them to be proud of themselves knowing their parents are proud of them."

*"Another realization that occurred to me was how important it is to allow time to let students warm up to an activity, get motivated to participate, and have time for reflection afterwards. Overall, this experience taught me a lot about planning executing lessons for students."

*I enjoyed the second group that came because I got to work with a father, his daughter and her friend by myself. They were all very fascinated by the fish. The dad and I discussed some fishing trips that he had with his son. They were so kind, you could really tell they appreciated us taking the time to show them university life....It would be nice to get them thinking about college even more."

"Eleven years ago when I graduated from high school, there was not anything like this available. It was really nice to see these proud parents accompanying their children to such a great function."