Original Vision

While GEMS-NET has held fast to its original goals, the design has changed over the years of our work together. Our original goals were:

• provide high quality professional development in science content, inquiry pedagogy, and assessment knowledge,
• train teachers to utilize exemplary inquiry-based, hands-on science kits in delivering a core science curriculum which is aligned with national science reform initiatives,
• build communities of learners with K-8 teachers, science educators, and scientists,
• establish the mechanisms to maintain science materials, and
• establish a sustainable framework for science education reform.

The structure that we envisioned to reach our goals is shown in Figure 1.

ORIGINAL STRUCTURE

Initially, we saw a partnership between the University of Rhode Island's School of Education and seven Rhode Island school districts, funded by the NSF LSC program. URI scientists and engineers would assist us by helping to steer the science content presentations. We knew we would build teacher leadership through the teachers-in-residence (TIR) and the leadership training for teacher/lead trainers. We wanted to help the TIRs build presentation skills and knowledge of both content and pedagogical/assessment practices in science. We planned to accomplish this through work with the PI, a university-based science educator, and the workshops provided by the American Physical Society and the Institute for Inquiry at the Exploratorium. Our science Co-PIs and Science Mentors would also help teachers build skills and knowledge. We worked out our vision with highly regarded classroom teachers from each of our partner districts and the superintendents and curriculum directors in the central offices of each district. We thought more about developing teacher buy-in through their participation and somewhat less about tapping into the talents of classroom teachers. Finally, we wanted to tie the URI teacher education program to our science reform efforts and deliver this curriculum to the pre-service teachers with the help of 'real teachers' who could validate these methods as good for learners.

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