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This is the first of a series of spotlights on Annenberg Channel users. If you have an innovative or interesting use of the Annenberg Channel programs at your school or in your community, email us and we'll tell your story here. View the spotlight archive.
Annenberg Channel User Spotlight
California State University - Chico
Like many rural colleges and universities, Cal State - Chico serves a range of populations over a broad geographical area. Using the educational resources delivered through the Annenberg Channel, the university meets the needs of on-campus students, regional teachers, and even K-12 students.
California State University - Chico, located in rural Northern California, has been an Annenberg Channel user since 1999. Jeff Layne, a program director in the college's Center for Regional and Continuing Education, oversees the ongoing use of 50 or more Annenberg Media programs as both educational resource materials for college instruction and continuing education for teachers.
 One of the university's most active users is Dr. Bev Marcum, director of the California Science Project of Inland Northern California. A professor of biological sciences at Cal State - Chico, Dr. Marcum has been a longtime user of Annenberg Media programs on videocassette. She was introduced to the programs by a colleague who showed the program A Private Universe during a summer workshop. Since then she has used many more programs at all levels: as a resource for college-level courses, as a foundation for continuing education workshops for K-12 teachers, and for the development of special science programs for K-12 students. Lessons From Thin Air, from Minds of Our Own, she says, "illustrates how powerful and important prior knowledge can be to understanding scientific concepts and how difficult some ideas are to comprehend." Clearly a fan of the Wednesday science programming, Dr. Marcum's favorite series is Learning Science Through Inquiry, but she also uses programs from Rediscovering Biology, Teaching High School Science, Essential Science for Teachers, Earth Revealed, and Planet Earth, which she says, "allow students to observe natural phenomena and stimulate interesting, in-depth discussions."
Dr. Marcum began requesting tapes from the satellite feed when the university became a Channel licensee in 1999. With access to a range of instructional and professional development programs, she was able to incorporate Annenberg Media videos into the university's inservice programs for teachers in the region. The California Science Project, a state-funded professional development program in science content for teachers, is ideally suited to the Annenberg Media programs. Teachers from kindergarten through high school from as far as 400 miles away participate at a distance for one or two week-long summer courses in the content areas of physical, life, or Earth science. During the school year, these teachers meet three to five more times on weekends for further study and additional continuing education credits (CEUs). The California Science Project at Chico also provides a Masters in Science Teaching degree program that uses distance learning technology. Because of the diversity of teacher levels and backgrounds, Dr. Marcum takes advantage of the range of topics and complexity of the subject matter to select programs that will stimulate discussion among teachers at all grade levels. She says the Annenberg Channel has "something for everyone."
Proving this point, programs from the Annenberg Channel are also part of The California Math Science Partnership (CMSP) that reaches middle school students as well as the university's undergraduates. CMSP consists of two interrelated programs - The Hands-on Learning Lab (HOL) and the Internship in Integrated Science Teaching. More than 2,000 fourth- through eighth-grade students come to the university campus each year to learn science through investigation and inquiry as part of the HOL. They are guided by science interns and university students enrolled in liberal studies. The teaching experience is required for the teacher preparation program and the course uses the Annenberg Media videos to provide subject matter and methodology content for these future teachers.
 Undergraduates teaching the Plate Tectonics lab, for example, learn Earth science and geology content using the Earth Revealed programs, and combine this with strategies for guiding students' critical thinking from Minds of Our Own. Striving to act as real scientists, the school children don white lab coats and goggles, and record data in a log book. Under the guidance of Cal State - Chico students, the children are taught to make observations from a series of inquiry-based lesson plans, and learn to ask meaningful questions to guide the learning process at each lab station.
Classroom teachers also spend time at the HOL to strengthen their science content understanding and learn inquiry-based approaches to teaching science. As they observe their young students participating in the lessons and interacting with the interns, they often remark: "I can't believe how engaged my students are!" Teachers say their students definitely respond to the material-rich environment and to the Cal State - Chico students who have been trained in content and critical-thinking approaches to teaching science.
This summer, June 6-10 and June 13-17, 2005, special inquiry-based HOL institutes will be offered for area teachers. During these institutes, which will focus on the content for Hands-on Learning Lab Field Trips, the classroom teachers will design preliminary and follow-up lessons to integrate with the lessons taught on campus by the interns. The Annenberg Media collection will play an important role in the development of these integrated lessons. As is evident from the California State University - Chico example, Annenberg Media is a key ingredient in the development of a continuum of science education from elementary school classrooms through high school, preservice, inservice, and university coursework.
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