UTPB professor wins UTeach award

Jun. 7—University of Texas Permian Basin Assistant Professor in the College of Education David Sparks has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 USEA Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award.

Sparks is also co-director of UTeach Permian Basin. The recognition is presented every year at the UTeach STEM Educators Association. He will receive the award June 14 at the UTeach STEM Educators Conference in Austin. UTeach STEM Educators Association is a professional network of university faculty, master teachers, and UTeach alumni who are committed to UTeach and excellence in STEM education.

An email from the UTeach STEM Educators Association said the committee was very impressed with Sparks' "long-standing commitment to STEM Education from your time in the classroom at UT Arlington and now to your co-director position at UT Permian Basin. We are excited to celebrate your work and contributions to the UTeach network."

Dean of the College of Education Larry Daniel said Sparks is a deserving recipient of the prestigious award.

"He has developed curriculum for the UTeach program, taught the courses regularly, and mentored other faculty into teaching roles within UTeach. He is a respected colleague both within UTPB and nationally within the network of UTeach institutions," Daniel said.

Sparks said awards for the administrator of the year, master teacher and alumni are also given.

"Since I was on the board of directors while I was at UT Arlington, I wasn't able to apply for this award because you couldn't be on the board and an award winner. This was the first year I was able to apply because I rotated off the board last year," Sparks said.

While he was at UT Arlington, they won three of the four awards.

Plans are to take 14 faculty members, including himself, to the ceremony and three students that are in the program — one that is finishing the program and two that are just starting.

Sparks came to UTPB in fall 2021. UTeach is a five-year grant with the first year being a planning year to get everything lined up. The Permian Strategic Partnership helped with the initial funding.

He added that PSP believe in the program and wanted to try it in the Basin.

"We really are trying to prove to them that it's worth the funding ... so we're excited to see how things start going with the new staff members that are brought on and the recruitment. We did a lot of recruitment, local school districts, community colleges, transfer students, to really just get the word out ...," Sparks said.

He added that it's a really great opportunity for early college high school students. Those programs are in Odessa and Midland and with the hours they earn, they could be out of UTPB in two or three years.

"Our first courses were last fall with our students, so we're ramping up the program. Everything is going great," Sparks said.

The program has about 15 students.

The program started off slowly because the word wasn't out about it. It also underwent a transition from a previous program to prepare math and science teachers and some students were finishing that up, Sparks said.

They are pushing the intro class for freshmen, sophomores and transfer students.

"The intro class is good for students that aren't 100 percent sure if they want to teach or not, but they want to explore," Sparks said. "We built it so that they can take the intro class if they are interested, if they decided that they like it and they want to continue they can take the second course. Those first two courses are basically free because they get reimbursed for the tuition for those."

"We've also set up some scholarships for the juniors and seniors as they progress through the program, but we'll be wrapping those up as well," he added.

This is the 25th anniversary of UTeach, which started at UT Austin.

"It's always been designed for students to be able to get their degree in STEM-related fields and then add the teacher certification without having to add any hours to their total degree plan. They'll work it into electives, or a second major ... If all goes well and they have all the hours they are supposed to have ... then they can go into their senior year, take the last couple of classes and then do student teaching in the spring of their last year and they'll graduate with their degree, plus teacher certification," Sparks said.

There are more than 50 universities nationwide that participate in the program and the majority go straight into teaching.

At some larger universities, they use the UTeach model for social studies and a few have humanities programs.

"It's the same kind of process of having master teachers that help the students along and real intense supervision," Sparks said.