Mary Hobbs

Professional Title
Coordinator for Science Initiatives
Organization/Institution
University of Texas, Austin
About Me (Bio)
Mary Hobbs is a teacher, researcher, and writer with hands-on experience directing science curriculum and instruction for Pre-K through Grade 12. She has been a classroom teacher in private pre-kindergarten and elementary classrooms, but her 10-year public school career was spent teaching middle school science.
She earned a Bachelor of Science in Vocational Home Economics Education from Abilene Christian University, a Master of Arts in Science Education from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Mary is a former President of the Texas Science Education Leadership Association (TSELA). She holds memberships and presents regularly at conferences for the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE) and the Texas-based Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST), among others.
Her current work with the Texas Regional Collaboratives (http://theTRC.org) allows her to draw from her experiences with a variety of high quality, research-based curricula and instructional programs and use her professional relationships with nationally recognized leaders in science education to coordinate professional development for TRC statewide science programs.
Keywords
Professional Development

Building BLOCKS for Science: What Young Children Should Know and Be Able to Do When They Enter Kindergarten

University of Texas, Austin
09/01/2008

Building Base Line Objectives for Children’s Knowledge Skills for Science (BLOCKS)is a 4-year project that integrates research and applied teaching to take a close look inside prekindergarten classrooms. The overall research project includes extensive classroom observation by teachers and researchers of children’s ability to learn science processes and content; intensive professional development and mentoring support for teachers to learn science; and multiple qualitative, as well as, quantitative assessment strategies.

Project I.D.: Instrument Development for Exploring the Professional Growth Continuum

University of Texas, Austin
08/01/2006

This project identifies pivotal experiences of career science teachers that have promoted their advancement along the teacher professional continuum. The goal of the project is to develop an instrument that informs researchers about professional development opportunities that successful, empowered science teachers recall as having impacted their teaching and their overall sense of professionalism. The project is using a methodology in which teachers draw behavior over time graphs while telling their stories of empowerment.