NSF GK-12 PROJECT TEAMS MEETING: A TEACHER’S EXPERIENCE |
In this article, Mrs. Lois Webster of Estill County Middle School shares her experience at the Annual meeting for National Science Foundation GK-12 Project Teams held in Washington, DC, March 2006. |
The weekend of March 24th-26th was the opening of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC. The festival commemorates the friendship between the U. S. and Japan and celebrates the close relationship between the two peoples. That weekend five individuals involved with Project ISMAM traveled to DC, not for celebrating the Cherry Blossom Festival, but to commemorate and celebrate the partnerships between the National Science Foundation and GK-12 projects teams from throughout the United States.
The ISMAM team comprised of Undergraduate Fellow (Ms. Megan Alexander), a science teacher from Estill County Middle School (Mrs. Lois Webster), a faculty participant (Dr. Sherry Harrel), the Internal Evaluator (Dr. Karen Carey) and the Principal Investigator (Dr. Tom Otieno).
As did other projects, we presented a poster explaining and demonstrating the benefits of ISMAM. There was a particular emphasis on the Fellows and their future as scientists. It was very enlightening to see how different projects took on their own personalities as they incorporated the vision of NSF for the GK-12 program. Some projects did not assign Fellows to a certain school for the whole year. In fact, some even had Fellows write lesson proposals for topics that teachers felt they needed extra help with or wanted to make their lessons more inquiry based. While some projects, such as ours, focused on the middle grades, others focused on high school or even kindergarten.
I learned that the main focus from NSF was for the Fellows to share their research with students in the classroom. Their goal was, or is, for students to experience what science is like “out in the world”. Having Fellows in the classroom allows students to see possibilities for their becoming scientists or mathematicians in the future.
The meeting consisted of poster presentations and several small group sessions. I was very fortunate to be able to attend two sessions on lesson/activity sharing. I got a lot of good ideas for inquiry based lessons. Also, I presented a lesson on using a Dichotomous Key to identify Jelly Belly jellybeans. The lesson was well received and I had a lot of fun doing the presentation.
It was a little melancholy knowing this was the last year of the ISMAM project. I just hope that I have the opportunity to participate in another such program that has been as beneficial to me as a classroom teacher and to my school.
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| ISMAM Team by their poster at the NSF Meeting in DC. |
The ISMAM team comprised of Undergraduate Fellow (Ms. Megan Alexander), a science teacher from Estill County Middle School (Mrs. Lois Webster), a faculty participant (Dr. Sherry Harrel), the Internal Evaluator (Dr. Karen Carey) and the Principal Investigator (Dr. Tom Otieno).
As did other projects, we presented a poster explaining and demonstrating the benefits of ISMAM. There was a particular emphasis on the Fellows and their future as scientists. It was very enlightening to see how different projects took on their own personalities as they incorporated the vision of NSF for the GK-12 program. Some projects did not assign Fellows to a certain school for the whole year. In fact, some even had Fellows write lesson proposals for topics that teachers felt they needed extra help with or wanted to make their lessons more inquiry based. While some projects, such as ours, focused on the middle grades, others focused on high school or even kindergarten.
I learned that the main focus from NSF was for the Fellows to share their research with students in the classroom. Their goal was, or is, for students to experience what science is like “out in the world”. Having Fellows in the classroom allows students to see possibilities for their becoming scientists or mathematicians in the future.
The meeting consisted of poster presentations and several small group sessions. I was very fortunate to be able to attend two sessions on lesson/activity sharing. I got a lot of good ideas for inquiry based lessons. Also, I presented a lesson on using a Dichotomous Key to identify Jelly Belly jellybeans. The lesson was well received and I had a lot of fun doing the presentation.
It was a little melancholy knowing this was the last year of the ISMAM project. I just hope that I have the opportunity to participate in another such program that has been as beneficial to me as a classroom teacher and to my school.
