Impact Of A University School Division Partnership On Professional Development Of Graduate Students

This paper documents the development, implementation efforts, and results of SUNRISE (Schools, University ‘N’ (and) Resources In the Sciences and Engineering-A National Science Foundation (NSF)/George Mason University (GMU) GK-12 Fellows Project), a unique graduate Fellowship program at GMU that targets graduate students working in the grade 4-6 school environment. SUNRISE is a new GK-12 project aimed at partnering STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) graduate students (fellows) with school teachers from three different school divisions in Northern Virginia. The project builds a unique model of collaboration among elementary and middle schools, school division administration, and GMU to foster systemic efforts in implementing Information Technology (IT) rich STEM contentknowledge into grades 4-6 education by graduate fellows, with the potential to enhance the delivery of science instruction and provide long term professional development for teachers. This is achieved by constructing a framework that provides training, exchange of information, and integration of scientific research from diverse STEM disciplines with teaching to make science exciting for students. Sponsored by NSF's GK-12 program, the GMU implementation serves as an exemplary model for the emerging trends in STEM education at the elementary school level. One of the objectives of this project is to provide professional development opportunities to fellows, particularly, communication and teaching skills. This paper presents project evaluation evidences (quantitative and qualitative) of the impact of the project on the professional development of its participants, particularly the graduate fellows. The data and the results indicate that the fellows significantly improved their communication skills, which include communicating their research to public including K-12 children, confidence in public speaking, and writing skills. The project serves as one source of evidence that demonstrates the importance and the process of building partnerships among university’s engineering/technology departments, schools of education, and the K-12 STEM education that would strengthen the nation’s educational enterprise.