By Jeff Joiner | UT Dallas News Center
The first science lesson Preston Dozier BS’18, MAT’22 taught as a student teacher quickly turned into a mess.
“It was a mystery powder lab where the students got to test some powders and try to figure out what they were,” said Dozier, who was teaching fifth graders during her first semester in The University of Texas at Dallas’ UTeach Dallas program. “One of the kids opened up a container of cornstarch and dumped water into it, which makes a substance that’s like a slime. It’s kind of a solid and kind of a liquid, and it got all over the place.
“I was sure I had failed my first classroom experience, but the kids were having a blast. It was hard to be discouraged when your students are having so much fun. Even my teaching mentor thought it was funny. The kids, smiling and laughing, wanted to learn from what happened.”
Fortunately for the Richardson Independent School District, the messy start didn’t dissuade her from becoming a science teacher.
Dozier recently finished her fourth year as a biology teacher at J.J. Pearce High School, and she has already earned recognition for her work. She was named Pearce High School Teacher of the Year, and Richardson ISD named her one of eight STARS (Superior Teaching Achievement in RISD Schools) teachers for the 2022-23 school year. Dozier capped the year by winning the national Outstanding Alumni Award from the UTeach STEM Educators Association.
The UTeach Dallas program in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics recruits and prepares undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors to become successful secondary science and math teachers. Started in 1997 at UT Austin, the program is now offered at 55 universities in 24 states. In 2008 it launched at UTD, where more than 300 students have graduated from the program.
Dozier enrolled at UT Dallas in 2014 as a biology major but was unsure what she wanted to do for a career. She made a chance visit to the UTeach Dallas offices on campus and found herself sold on the idea of becoming a science teacher.
“In the back of my mind I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but in high school I thought I wanted to be an English teacher,” Dozier said. “I stumbled into Hailey King’s office, the academic advisor for UTeach Dallas, and she sat me down and talked to me about teaching science. When I started student teaching, this became my passion.”
Dozier, who admits to not being an exceptional science student in high school, said when she started the UTeach Dallas program, something clicked, and she knew that teaching biology was what she wanted to do.
“In high school, I thought biology was always very interesting,” Dozier said. “Things like microcellular biology and learning how the human body works at a cellular level, something about all of that is just so exciting to me.”
Dozier teaches freshman biology students and a class of 10th grade English-as-a-second-language students. This May, Dozier watched as her first class of students from four years ago graduated.
“I think there’s something so fun about teaching freshmen and watching them turn into young adults,” she said. “This graduating class includes my first biology students, who I watched become 18-year-olds who are now going to college and joining the workforce. It’s really rewarding to see them become part of the real world and to be a part of that whole process.”
Dozier credits her success to the teaching philosophy of UTeach. The program stresses a social and emotional learning approach that focuses on teaching a child how to learn rather than emphasizing curriculum.
“UTeach gave my life so much direction, and my instructors, like Pam Kirkland and Jim McConnell, were so supportive, so encouraging.”
Preston Dozier BS’18, MAT’22
“You need to make decisions based on the whole student, and when you focus on the whole student, then you can teach them how to learn through inquiry,” she said.
Dr. Jim McConnell has been training teachers at UTD since the program’s start; before that, he was a science and math teacher and administrator at RISD for 37 years. He said Dozier exemplifies the type of students who excel in the program.
“She’s the reason that people like me stay in the business long past retirement age,” McConnell said. “When you put people in the classrooms like Preston, they’re going to be successful. They’re going to stay in the classroom and bring up the next generation after generation after generation of science and math students.”
Dozier said the supportive faculty and staff at UT Dallas were instrumental in fueling her passion for teaching science.
“UTeach gave my life so much direction, and my instructors, like Pam Kirkland and Jim McConnell, were so supportive, so encouraging,” she said. “At first, I was kind of lost. I’d never written a lesson plan before. The materials I was reading were just a lot, and I was overwhelmed. I would sit in Pam’s office, and she would just talk me through it. And in every single class after that, it was always the same level of support.”