ENHANCING STEM GRADUATE STUDENT COMMUNICATION SKILLS THROUGH THE INITIATING NEW SCIENCE PARTNERSHIPS IN RURAL EDUCATION (INSPIRE)

The primary goal of the INSPIRE program at Mississippi State University (MSU), funded by NSF Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12), is to enhance the communication skills of the participating STEM graduate students through their interactions with public school classrooms, outreach events, and international research partnership. The project recognizes the importance of creating opportunities for scientists in-training to practice effective communication and prepare these future Earth and space science leaders for conveying difficult scientific concepts to public audiences and policy makers.

INSPIRE is currently in the second year of the five year program with partnering ten new graduate students from MSU (fifty total over the course of the program) with five teachers from local rural school districts. Each year, INSPIRE will train ten new STEM graduate students in refining their communication skills in K-12 classrooms while creating exciting learning experiences focused on Earth and space science that incorporate the STEM graduate students’ various research areas. Outreach activities with the public, such as National GIS Day and other MSU campus events, are additional venues for communication skill enrichment. INSPIRE also provides Earth and space science research experiences at four international institutions to harbor enhanced communication and global research perspectives for the graduate students.

Observational data is collected for each STEM graduate student twice a year that provides feedback on the format of communication used while teaching a lesson linked to the student’s research, as well as the learning level at which the lesson was taught. Other qualitative measures to gauge graduate student communication skills include informal conversations with their research advisors and classroom teacher partners. At the conclusion of the first year of the project, numerous advisors of the participating STEM graduate students noted a marked improvement in their student’s communication skills when working with their research teams, during conference presentations, and thesis/dissertation defenses. Further, classroom observation show improved ability of graduate students to express scientific concepts at the appropriate level for their learners.