Integrating Teaching and Research : A New Model for Graduate Education ?

www.biosciencemag.org February 2006 / Vol. 56 No. 2 • BioScience 159 N faculty face challenges significantly different from those of their predecessors, including working with students who represent increasingly diverse ages, ethnicities, capabilities, and levels of interest and commitment (Golde and Dore 2001, Austin 2002). Science graduates who become faculty commonly find themselves underprepared for their teaching responsibilities, which can include the challenge of trying to motivate undergraduates with little background or interest in science (Pruitt-Logan et al. 2002). In addition, faculty increasingly are called on to function in interdisciplinary teams and to conduct service and outreach along with teaching and research (Anderson and Swazey 1998, Austin 2002). Similarly, students entering nonacademic careers need organizational, managerial, and collaborative skills that typically are not addressed in traditional doctoral programs (Golde and Dore 2001, Gaff 2002). New models of graduate education are emerging in response to the need to prepare students for careers involving teaching, outreach, service, and interdisciplinary work in addition to research (Austin 2002, Pruitt-Logan et al. 2002). Austin (2002) recommends that graduate students aspiring to be faculty be given opportunities to think deeply about teaching, working with mentors to address topics such as how curricular choices are made, how learning occurs in a specific field, and how to address difficulties that arise in the classroom or laboratory. One mechanism for meeting these needs is through intensive K–12 teaching partnerships. This article describes the impacts of such partnerships on graduate students’professional development.We focus on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Teaching Fellows in K–12 Education (GK–12) program, with a particular emphasis on evaluation results from Cornell University’s GK–12 program, for which we serve as co–principal investigators.