SUCCESSFUL ASPECTS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION'S GK-12 PROGRAM

This study investigates the successful aspects and activities of the National Science Foundation's GK-12 Program; a professional development program that supports graduate and advanced undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and partners them with cooperating teachers in the k-12 classroom. Final evaluations from 26 of 31 GK-12 sites from the program's inception year in 1999 were analyzed with a priori and emergent content analyses which included rigorous inter- and intra-reliability testing. The a priori portion was based on research-based effective characteristics of professional development linked to student learning. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the GK-12 program incorporates all of the effective characteristics of professional development, but to drastically varying degrees. The a priori characteristics that appeared most often were “treats Fellows as professionals”, “involves collaboration between Fellows and others”, and “professional development is on-going”. The two emergent characteristics derived from the analysis included “improves communication skills” and “has real world application”. Implications of the study include that GK-12 educational leaders and principal investigators need to be aware that research-based effective characteristics of professional development that are linked to student learning exist, and should be used to guide GK-12 endeavors.