Dr. Raul Gonzalez shares a letter to the TREC community!
Dear TREC Community,
I am honored and excited to introduce myself to you as the new director of the Tucson Regional Educator Collaborative. It has been amazing to see from the outside what Dr. Kinser-Traut, staff, and the TREC Advisory Board, have been able to accomplish these past five years supporting educators throughout the greater Tucson area. And now, I am both thrilled and humbled to help continue this work.
Though originally from the Texas/Mexico borderlands, I have called Southern Arizona home for the past eleven years where I have immersed myself in the educator community — serving first as a teacher at Pueblo High School in Tucson, and then later as director for the Arizona Teachers Academy here at the University of Arizona.
Along this path, I have had the privilege of working in professional development spaces with educators from across the state. I intend to bring the insights I have gained from these experiences to further expand TREC’s relationships with those state and local partners already working with PK-12 educators. What’s more, I aim to focus significant efforts and resources on engaging with area teacher-leaders who are eager to serve.
I look forward to working with — and learning from — Southern Arizona’s educator community, and I encourage you all to be on the lookout for what TREC has planned for the rest of 2023 and beyond.
Best regards,
Raul C. Gonzalez, Ph.D
(he/him/él)
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Check out TREC's new Blog!
TREC is launching a blog on our website! We are excited to share teachers' voices and professional ideas. If you are you interested in adding to the TREC blog, please reach out to Alicia Durbin, adurbin@arizona.edu. This effort was made possible by a grant from UArizona's College of Humanities, alongside the Writing Skills Improvement Program. Check out the new blog entries here and keep an eye out for more to come!
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Don't forget that the Call for Proposals are now open! Calling all educators and those that support them...consider submitting a proposal for TREC's June Summit!
To learn more, find additional details, and submit your proposal click here.
Proposals are due Friday, March 17th, 2023
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TREC and the Center for Recruitment & Retention of Mathematics Teachers (CRR) are excited to partner for our third year of the Math for Early Learners webinar series! These webinars are free for participants thanks to a generous donation from the Helios Education Foundation.
The webinars will focus on Math Exploration on Saturday May 6th, 9am-12pm and Data Science on Saturday May 13th, 9am-12pm! Join us for one or both of these great opportunities of teaching mathematics to young children!
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TREC and El Rio Health’s February webinar Stress Strategies for the Teacher— Combating Compassion Fatigue with Gloria Irigoyen-Montijo and Kya James was a success! We had over 65 educators attend! View the full webinar here.
Interested in viewing other TREC webinars? These are available along with many on demand resources on the TREC website!
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Thank you Dr. Jen Kinser Traut
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Jen has been the director of TREC since its inception in 2018. With the University of Arizona College of Education leading the way, TREC began with 12 community organizations alongside teachers who were committed to supporting meaningful professional development in the Tucson Region. TREC now partners with more than 65 organizations, has had over 28,000 visitors to the TREC website, more than 500 educators with profiles on the website, and 1,600+ resources posted. TREC has also directly provided 43 webinar/PD events, 3,974 hours of PD to 2,280 educators, supported 4 cohorts of Teacher Leaders, offered more than 20 Communities of Practice, and so much more to support educators in the Tucson Region! Thank you, Jen, for your work and dedication to this collaborative effort.
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Thank you, Jen, for being so integral in this work!
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Arizona Science Teachers Association (ASTA) is a non-profit organization committed to supporting science educators by providing resources, professional development and networking opportunities. ASTA’s mission is to inspire, engage, and support science teachers in preparing STEM learners for success.
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One of the many programs that ASTA offers is Deeper Dive in which teams of teachers work together over several months to truly master the Framework and Arizona Science Standards focusing on creating 3D lessons based on these big science ideas. The networking and camaraderie which takes place during these intense professional learning opportunities has been phenomenal and the feedback we've received from teachers highlights the growth the teachers are making all while creating an engaging and effective science unit which can be shared with others at their grade level.
- “The biggest impact this program has had on me is providing me with training, information, and time to dig into the new standards. The project has motivated me to really look at the standards, and it has taught me how to design a 3D instructional sequence”—Middle School Deeper Dive participant
- “This program was more than creating a unit, it was about changing science instruction.”— District Leader
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Opportunities from the Community & Our Partners
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Tax Assistance from United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona
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