Pursuing a Passion for Teaching

The first science lesson Preston Dozier BS’18, MAT’22 taught as a student teacher was for a class of fifth graders that quickly turned into a mess. As part of The University of Texas at Dallas’ UTeach Dallas program, Dozier was teaching a classic science lesson for youngsters in only her first semester as a college student.

“It was a mystery powder lab where the students got to test some powders and try to figure out what they were,” Dozier said. “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 and all over the boy’s clothes and it wouldn’t come out.”

But what started out as a near classroom disaster for a teacher-in-training turned into a wonderful teaching moment.

“I was sure I had failed my first classroom experience, but the kids were having a blast,” she said. “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 Richardson Independent School District (RISD), Dozier didn’t let a messy start dissuade her from finishing her UT Dallas education and becoming a science teacher. Dozier just finished her fourth year as a biology teacher at J.J. Pearce High School, and, needless to say, she’s enjoyed an amazing year in her young career. She was named Pearce High School Teacher of the Year and Richardson ISD named her one of eight district STARS (Superior Teaching Achievement in RISD Schools) teachers for the 2022-23 school year. Dozier capped the year by winning the national 2023 Outstanding Alumnus Award from the UTeach STEM Educators Association.

Dozier is a product of the UTeach Dallas program at UTD in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The program is a national training approach that recruits and prepares undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors to be successful secondary science and math teachers. Started in 1997 at The University of Texas at Austin, the program can now be found in 49 universities in 23 states. It was launched at UTD in 2008, where more than 300 students have graduated from the program.

Dozier enrolled at UT Dallas in 2014 as a biology major but wasn’t sure 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 being 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 Haley King’s office, the 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 freshmen biology students and a class of 10th grade English as a Second Language (ESL) students who are recent immigrants to the U.S. This May, Dozier watched as her first class of students from four years ago graduated from Pearce High School.

“I think there’s something so fun about teaching freshmen and watching them turn into young adults,” said Dozier. “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 said her success in teaching has much to do with the staff and faculty of the UTeach Dallas program and the teaching philosophy that the program uses to prepare future teachers. The program stresses a social and emotional learning approach to teaching that focuses on teaching a child how to learn rather than emphasizing curriculum.

“They build us to be student-centered teachers and not content-centered teachers,” she said. “Sometimes you see teachers who are so heavily focused on what am I going to teach? ‘This is the content. I have to get the content.’ But have you considered that a student cannot learn the content until they are mentally ready to learn?

“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.

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 Richardson ISD for 37 years. The approach UTeach Dallas takes is unique, he said.

“I make the point of telling my students that they don’t teach a subject, they’re teaching children,” McConnell said. “It’s about relationships. If you feel safe in my class, you’re going to learn from me and you’re going to respect me, and I’m going to respect you. And that goes miles into helping students learn, because on any given day, who cares what X is equal to?”

McConnell said Dozier exemplifies the type of college students who excel in a program like UTeach Dallas and who will become excellent science teachers.

“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 at UT Dallas are instrumental to her achievements as a young teacher and the growth of her passion for teaching science. From her time as an undergraduate in the program to her entering the Master of Arts in Teaching program in the Department of Science and Mathematics Education, and working as a graduate teaching assistant, Dozier said program faculty and staff were there to support her.

“UTeach gave my life so much direction, and my instructors, like Pam Kirkland and Jim McConnell, were so supportive, so encouraging,” Dozier 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.”

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