HR: 08:30h
AN: ED21A-03    [PDF]
TI: Collaboration and Inquiry: Cornell University Partnerships with Rural School Districts
AU: * Porter, K A
EM: kap32@cornell.edu
AF: Cornell University, Department of Earth \& Atmospheric Sciences, Snee Hall, Ithaca, NY 14850 United States
AB: Cornell University's location provides valuable opportunities for university-community collaboration. Schools in the area tend to be rural, with limited access to resources. Two projects in place at Cornell provide opportunities for collaboration between graduate students and local K-12 schools. These programs yield benefits for K-12 students by exposing them to resources (and expertise) otherwise unavailable to them; for K-12 teachers, by providing access to knowledge and resources brought to them by the graduate students; and for the graduate students who participate in the program, by giving them opportunities to teach and design curricula. The two programs provide options for outreach that fit many schedules, teaching goals, and interests. The Graduate Student School Outreach Program (GSSOP) is open to all graduate students and local K-12 teachers. Students and teachers often participate for several years in a row. Graduate students prepare a 6-8 session "mini-course" in an area of their interest, and they are matched to local teachers with similar interests or needs. Graduate student participants are required to submit a final formatted curriculum for the lessons that they have taught, and these curricula are made available to the public on the GSSOP web site. GSSOP is currently in its twelfth year as a student-coordinated program, and its funding comes primarily from Cornell's Public Service Center and alumni donations. The Cornell Science Inquiry Partnership (CSIP) provides an opportunity for graduate students in the sciences to participate in longer-term collaborations with regional schools. CSIP is administered under the National Science Foundation GK12 initiative and is currently in its fourth year. CSIP fellows make a year-long commitment to teaching and outreach and receive a full fellowship. Fellows may work with several middle- or high-school teachers over the course of the year, and they may teach many lessons over different time scales. As in GSSOP, CSIP fellows prepare curricula that are made available to the public. CSIP courses focus on inquiry-based instruction, and fellows attend weekly seminars in which inquiry-based teaching and lesson planning strategies and theory are discussed.
DE: 6605 Education
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting