GK12 News & Events for 2009

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2009 Annual Report

    Annual Report for Period: 07/2008 - 06/2009
    Principal Investigator: Raineri, Deanna M.
    Organization: U of Ill Urbana-Champaign
    Title:TRACK 2, GK-12: EdGrid Graduate Teaching Fellows Program
    Award ID:0338215
    View Report

GK-12 Annual Meeting 2009

Title: GK-12 Impacting Out Community in Real Ways: The Nature of Bonds that Don't Break

Abstract:
The GK-12 program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a long history of excellence. In our 9 years of involvement, we have witnessed tremendous personal development in our fellows and an ever increasing impact in our community. Most notably, the relationships we have built have been strong and sustainable. These have resulted in several fellow-teacher scientific publications, presentations at national meetings, and class field trips to highlight but a few. Here, we present the work of our four current fellows: how they have (1) brought their research into the classrooms, (2) inspired students, (3) received notoriety in the community, and (4) developed an action research plan to foster their own personal growth. Our program evaluation data and experience convincingly show that not only can GK-12 programs accomplish the goals set forth as outlined by the National Science Foundation, BUT IT EXCEEDS them. We find that this program has a profound impact in developing and shaping relationships between K-12 schools and institutes of higher education. Furthermore, the lives of our K-12 students are permanently changed in such a way THAT their very perceptions of what a scientist is and what a scientist does is altered. STUDENTS BEGIN TO view science and scientists as “cool”. We know that such views provide a substantial impetus toward the pursuit of scientific careers and therefore such statements testify that programs such as GK-12 represent a wise investment in the future of our nation. We believe there is no substitute for a well established GK-12 at influencing the lives of K-12 students and developing strong bonds between the education practitioners (i.e. K-12 teachers) and the members of higher education (i.e. professors, graduate students).

Embedded Pedagogical Training

The UIUC GK-12 Program this year adopted an embedded approach to pedagogical training, adapting reflective practitioner techniques in order to support each individual Fellows' own unique classroom culture and discipline. Each Fellow was asked to create an "action research plan" that cast the classroom as a learning lab in its own right. Fellows could then ask themselves, "What do I see as my own objectives in the classroom this year relative to what I want to both contribute and learn from the experience?" This shift was significant this year, de-emphasizing the rote of pedagogical training in the past. Fellows chronicled their experiences in what one Fellow called his "Dear GK-12 Diary". All Fellows demonstrated improved ability to focus their attention on their own professional understanding of teaching and learning in the context of being a scientist. As an example of this progression, we shared excerpts from one Fellow who was having a very difficult time at the beginning of the year with her school site. This Fellow expressed frustration, and took it upon herself to visit other Fellows and school sites to better understand what high school cultures are like. When posed with the challenge of creating an action research question/inquiry to solve her disconnect in the classroom, she embraced it. As she said in an interview, she decided, "I'm going to solve this. I'm going to treat this like a scientific problem." Her progression from being frustrated by K-12 learners and the sometimes chaotic environment to actually building a collaborative community with her teacher, other educators, and Fellows was a significant indicator of transformation for this Fellow (see the attached figure showing excerpts of her reflective journal).

Overall, the fellows reported that the greatest benefit of the GK-12 program was the focus on teaching methodologies (plural) ...both learning AND trying out a variety of teaching methodologies to experience what works best with what materials and for which students. One fellow said, "it's been very useful to teach high school students, because ... they are truly a captive audience, so you have to be more engaging than you would with college students. ... I've learned a great deal regarding what I think will work and what won't work... It's invaluable. ...I've had essentially no experience developing my own curriculum as a TA[teaching assistant]. Neither have any of my peers. Thus, I am already more marketable than most graduate students and even some postdocs [post-doctoral students].

Enthusiastic Learning: Questioning Strategies

Over and over teachers report how having a fellow in their classroom inspired students, ignited dynamic on-topic discussions, and was an overall boost in excitement about science. As one UIUC GK-12 fellow in geology reported, "Just today I had a student speak out in the middle of a lab 'I love Geology!' He followed this by 'I didn't like it yesterday and I won't like it tomorrow, but I love it today'." A biologist fellow working with aquatic populations (sticklebacks) enhanced the curriculum significantly in her partner school in a small city in Illinois. Open-ended problem solving was noted as a significant risk in this school that has been working to achieve NCLB standards. Yet, the fellow was able to build a cooperative and creative relationship with her teacher who noted (almost with surprise), "Students learned as much from failures as from successes. They did a lot of very original thinking. We had the regular bio class work on genetic crosses!"

The Fellow enthused about her love of her research, and said it was working with the students that gave her the most energy: "My AP students were conducting their own experiments last semester where they were measuring the effects of different stressors on the fish's breathing rate. They really got in to it! At the end of the actual experiment, I had one group of boys stay through lunch and ask if they could test another stressor. It was pretty cool, I remember them standing in the back of the classroom huddled around the beaker with the fish in it having a very intense discussion about which stressor to pick and how exactly to do it. They clearly were very interested in what they were doing! Sometimes when I come in (the teacher) will have "Let's ask Miss (fellow)" questions for me. Apparently when I'm gone, if the kids have a really interesting question about science, they'll ask (the teacher) to remember it to ask me when I come in. I like that because it makes me realize that the kids must respect me as some sort of authority on science and also that they're thinking about me even when I'm not there. For my freshman bio classes, I asked them to create a board game about the behavior of the fishes we've been studying. I gave them an outline of the behaviors they needed to include, but beyond that they were on their own. The games I got back were amazing! It was clear some of the students were really excited about it. Not only were some of them very well done artistically, but most of them went above and beyond by including other behaviors or details of behaviors that I hadn't expected them to know."

GK-12 Teacher Workshops

The August 10-11, 2009 agenda included many workshops such as:

Poster sessions at AAAS in Chicago

Many GK-12 members attended the AAAS meeting in Chicago on February 15, 2009. One of the posters presented included the Environmental Science team of Susan Camasta and Ryan Kelly.