We have had feedback from graduate students that some of the teachers, despite their expressed enthusiasm and fidelity to their role in the project, have not always been as available to the graduate students as those students would have liked. We are not sure if this is an issue with buy-in or burn-out.
If we were to continue with these teachers we would specifically address this issue. A refresher session on the goals and objectives of the larger HHMI pre-college project would be one step we would take to revitalizing the participation of teachers. Had funding continued, we would probably also have identified teachers through a more rigorous application process in order to better assess depth of interest.
Scheduling continued to be a challenge. Teachers' schedules do not include very much on-line time so email communication is rarely in real time. In addition, as our teachers are from three different schools, their academic year varies slightly (due, in part, to number of snow days experienced). Our solution has been one of persistence. We found that it is important to help our graduate students understand the nature of this challenge and to address it by engaging in multiple modes of communication and taking more time to get to know their teachers personally.
