New, GK-12 -Collaborative Curriculum Development: Interdisciplinary Middle and High School Education in Biomedical Engineering through Graduate Student/Teacher Interaction

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

GK-12, Collaborative Curriculum Development: Interdisciplinary Middle and High School Education in Biomedical Engineering through Graduate Fellow/Teacher Interaction PI: Michael L. Shuler Co-PIs: Shivaun Archer and Chris B. Schaffer Department of Biomedical Engineering Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Abstract: This GK-12 program capitalizes on the strength of Cornell University?s biomedical engineering graduate fellows in interdisciplinary research as well as the education experience of local science teachers to create and implement new interdisciplinary curricular materials for middle and high-school science classes. The principle aim of this program is to help graduate fellows make the critical transition from student to scientist by asking them to identify the conceptual underpinnings of their field in order to develop outreach materials related to their research. Graduate fellows then teach these underlying concepts to teachers and students, thereby helping the fellows to develop the science communication skills that are essential for their future as interdisciplinary researchers and citizen/scientists. At the core of the program is the ?collaborative curriculum development? project: Graduate fellows will work with a teacher and faculty advisor during a six-week summer program on the development of innovative, inquiry-driven science education activities related to the fellow?s research, which will then be implemented in underserved rural and urban schools during the following year. In addition to graduate fellows becoming more conceptually-oriented scientific thinkers with better science communication skills, the participating teachers will improve their science knowledge and receive help implementing best-practice science teaching methods, while students will receive enhanced science education. In particular, the inquiry-driven activities will let students experience science not as an abstract collection of facts from separate fields, but as a process for discovery that integrates knowledge across disciplines, thereby increasing student understanding of and interest in science.