Baylor College of Medicine, in partnership with the Houston Independent School District (HSID), builds on a three-year GK-12 project aimed at improving high school life science education. Program accomplishments to date include student and teacher content knowledge gains, and improved student attitudes toward science. In addition, the partnership has led to greater awareness by Baylor research faculty and students of the importance of K-12 science education, the permanent establishment of a Biosciences Resource Lab at Baylor for K-12 educational activities, and successful funding of four new initiatives that link scientists-in-training at Baylor directly to Houston schools, teachers and students.
The Track Two project will: continue to select four Fellow-Teacher Teams per year; develop GK-12 Fellows' communications and teaching skills; provide teacher professional development through partnerships with GK-12 Fellows (four teachers per year) and an annual professional development series (24 teachers per year); sustain the Baylor-HISD GK-12 partnership beyond the period of NSF-support through refinement of the partnership model, and phased-in institutional commitments; and disseminate resources developed by GK-12 Fellows and Partner Teachers on an existing biology teaching website.
INTELLECTUAL MERIT. By focusing on a single content area (biology) and grade-level range (9-12) within a large urban school district, Baylor's GK-12 program has been able to make progress in improving teacher knowledge and instructional experiences for students. The program also has contributed to the development of graduate student scientists as educators without affecting the quality of their research or their times to graduation. Track Two support will allow further refinement and evaluation of this model. Both Baylor and HISD have made formal commitments to sustain the project to continue to support and improve biology education for the more than 40,000 students enrolled in HISD high schools.
BROADER IMPLICATIONS. The GK-12 activities focus on schools with high enrollments of students underrepresented in STEM careers. In addition, schools in Texas are updating their curricula to align with new state assessments and to meet requirements that all high school students pass biology for graduation. GK-12 Fellows are assisting by contributing up-to-date and in-depth science knowledge, in addition to serving as professional role models for students. The dissemination of project-generated resources, including streaming video presentations, downloadable PDF files and annotated slide sets, on a state-of-the-art biology teaching website, BioEd Online (www.bioedonline.org), will expand the scope of the project nationally.
