College of Engineering and Information Technology
University of South Carolina
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The University of South Carolina was awarded over $1 Million from the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program to support fellowships and associated training that will enable graduate students in engineering to serve as resources in K-12 schools. Why, you ask?
With the introduction of new K-12 science standards and achievement testing in South Carolina, the time is right for the significant expansion of the College’s existing K-12 ortreach programs. The theme of this proposed project is “Engineering - the Stuff of Science.” One objective of this project is to improve science learning of students and assist in the professional development of teachers in grades 3-8. These groups are targeted because the most significant curriculum changes resulting from the new science standards are associated with these grades. Also, these teachers often lack the formal education and content knowledge to enthusiastically develop new curricula and lesson plans that support the learning of many of the scientific principles now required of their students. Today's elementary and secondary school students must have knowledge, thinking skills and problem-solving abilities to contribute in society (NRC 1996). Too often, however, science and mathematics are viewed by the students as facts and figures to memorize, with little significance to the world around them. Engineering (the art of applying scientific and mathematical principles, experience and judgment to make things that benefit people) can provide the applications that make science real to the novice learner. Although there are a significant number of curriculum materials available that link science and engineering, they are underutilized in most South Carolina schools. To address this, an interdisciplinary project is underway involving graduate students from the five departments in the College of Engineering and Information Technology. The graduate Fellows will help teachers adopt, adapt and develop state-of-the art learning materials that situate science learning in design problem solving and other experiential learning activities. The Fellows can also help with school-specific needs such as laboratory development, the use of technology, etc
Another objective of this project is to help prepare today's engineering graduate students to be the engineering faculty of tomorrow. To succeed, these graduate students must be prepared to teach to a generation of students that has grown up in a global, high-tech society. To teach these students, tomorrow's engineering faculty needs better communication and teaching skills, and greater knowledge of cognitive processes that enhance student learning, than today's faculty possesses. Traditional engineering graduate educational experiences rarely provide opportunities for the student to develop these additional attributes that they will need. We need to make better teachers out of our graduate students, and this program trains them to teach.
The benefits of the project described herein to the engineering Fellows and the K-12 students and teachers can be summarized in terms of five basic project goals:
For the complete story, download our winning proposal here.
Download the Teacher Partner Application in HTML format or as a Word97 file. Please send your completed application by Mail, Fax or Email to:
Visit Our K-12 Home Page or Email Dr. Jed S. Lyons.
The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of the page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of South Carolina. Questions or comments email lyons@sc.edu. This site copyright (c) 2001, The Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina. Updated on December 4, 2001.