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FHS grad awarded prestigious fellowship
Kim Johnson - Thu, Jun, 5, 2008
Farragut resident Denise Koessler has returned home for the summer with collegiate accolades in tow.
Koessler graduated magna cum laude from The College of Wooster in Ohio, Monday, May 5, with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and her teaching certification.
As if that were not accomplishment enough, Koessler has been awarded a two-year, $60,000 fellowship by the National Science Foundation to attend East Tennessee State University and participate in its newly designed Science First graduate program.
Koessler said, “During those two years I am at East Tennessee State University I will be achieving my Master’s in mathematics. But instead of being a graduate student who is a teaching assistant for undergraduate classes, they [have] organized this really great pairing with a local elementary school, North Side Elementary.
“The fellows that have been brought in by the National Science Foundation to E-T-S-U are going to work together to revamp the curriculum at the local elementary school then start developing ways to integrate our graduate level research as a way to motivate the students to be more geared toward science and mathematics studies.
“The school almost closed several years ago because of poor performance, but it has now become a signature school for math and science,” she added.
“As N-S-F Fellows, we will try to help the school become even stronger in those areas.”
Koessler, who is the only one of the nine fellows with an education degree, said the graduate students will work together as they review textbooks and rearrange lesson plans to provide continuity in the school’s math and science programs.
“For example, on a day in which students study the orbits of the planets in science class, they might also calculate what they would weigh on the moon in math class, and then study the history of the planets and the role of Galileo in social studies class,” she said.
Gordon Anderson, dean of ETSU’s College of Arts and Sciences and principal investigator for the grant, said in addition to their coursework and research activities, the graduate students will work with North Side teachers to develop experiments, demonstrations and other resources to be used as the school creates a science-focused curriculum.
Koessler is excited by the opportunity and confident that her experience at Wooster has prepared her well.
“Everything I’ve done at Wooster will play a role in what I do in this program,” she said.
“This prestigious and unique opportunity allows me to continue walking the fence between becoming an educator or a math researcher.
“I could not be more thrilled to be a part of this new National Science Foundation program and the groundbreaking bridges we will be building between graduate level research and the elementary classroom,” she added.
The NSF fellowship was not the only academic honor Koessler received.
“I also received a Whitney E. Stonebruner Memorial Prize in Education,” she said.
“It is a Wooster specific prize. It honors the memory of a professor of education who was at Wooster from really early on in the 1920s to the 1950s. It is awarded to a senior who has prepared for a teaching career and has achieved distinction in the field of education.
“It is a $700 cash prize,” she added
Koessler will begin her graduate studies at ETSU Friday, Aug. 1, but has no intention of taking the summer off.
“I am home for the summer and I will be coaching [the swim team] at Gettysvue Country Club. It will be my fourth season as head coach but 10th season with the program either as a swimmer or a coach,” she said.
“It is one of the loves of my life. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the summer except on that pool deck with all my swimmers.”
Koessler’s coaching job will end Thursday, July 29, leaving her only two days before leaving for ETSU.
“I had to squeeze that in,” she said. “I love coaching those kids.
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