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HSTA
General Information - FAQ's
- West
Virginia University has established a seamless approach
to health sciences education which shepherds talented
minority and underrepresented students through pre-college,
college, and graduate training in health sciences programs.
The Health Sciences and Technology Academy of West Virginia
University (WVU) is a 9th-12th grade math and science
program which encourages aspirations, opens doors, and
empowers minority and underrepresented students and
rural communities. This partnership among the numerous
units of the state's land grant university and many
Appalachian communities brings minority and underrepresented
students and teachers to campus each summer for clinic,
laboratory, and classroom training and activities. The
partnership then provides the infrastructure and support
for community-based science projects mentored by teachers,
health professions, students and volunteer community
leaders during the school year.
- Faculty
from the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center and
cooperating university departments provide a teacher
professional development component which includes
state-of-the-art math and science material, techniques
and projects appropriate for 9th through 12th grade
students. In addition, the workshop covers multicultural
sensitivity and diversity training, self-esteem building,
motivation enhancement, leadership development skills,
and study skills in a multidisciplinary context with
an emphasis on how to incorporate these skills in
teaching math and science. These ideas are the foundation
for projects in the Student Enrichment Program as
well as in the Community-Based Programming.
- The
one to two-week campus-based program provides intensive
academic enrichment emphasizing science and math for
each grade from 9th through 12th as well as laboratory
experiences where students work with scientists/clinical
practitioners. The students work on projects emphasizing
science in ways to develop their knowledge and skills
to observe, hypothesize, and develop methods to answer
questions which generate knowledge. The hands-on project
experiences promote the concept of biology as an experimental
science. The students learn to collect, analyze and
interpret data as well as communicate their results.
Self-esteem building, motivation enhancement, leadership
development skills, and study skills are incorporated
into the experience. More information about individual
HSTA club projects can be found at the HSTA Club Home
Pages.
- Students
matriculating from the summer programs progress into
community-based programs which consist of academic enrichment
projects further developing their cognitive skills emphasizing
observation, hypothesis formation, experimentation,
analysis and communication. These projects promote self-paced
individualized learning. More information about individual
HSTA club projects can be found at the HSTA Club Home
Pages. As in the campus-based programs, the leaders
of the community-based programs weave leadership skills
training, goal identification, and self-esteem promotion
into each student's project experience. These projects
supplement each student's in-school learning. The goal
is to bring knowledge and skills up to or beyond chronological
grade level. The program is developed and carried out
in partnership with other WVU units, higher education,
West Virginia public schools, community leaders, parents,
health care providers and students. The program relies
heavily on WVU county extension faculty, and West Virginia
Rural Health Education Partnerships faculty and staff
to facilitate live instruction, organization and support.
Both parents and teachers are involved in the process
of teaching-learning as part of the development of a
community based after school enrichment program. In
the situation when a parent cannot assist with their
child's learning experience, mentors such as physicians,
pharmacists, dentists and nurses are recruited to be
a project leader. Experts in fields of health and science
are now available online as part of our Ask the Experts
program to answer questions via email from the students.
This process of utilizing adult volunteer leaders to
support youth learning and experiences has been extremely
successful in West Virginia and the United States. Biology,
math and experimental science projects are developed
in collaboration with the West Virginia State Department
of Education to maintain congruency with the public
school curriculum.
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