GO GK-12

The Greater Orlando GK-12 program is a partnership between the University of Central Florida's College of Optics and Photonics, the Orlando Science Center (OSC), and Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) aimed at strengthening curriculum content and teacher knowledge in 9th grade science education.  Over three years, the program will team 18 graduate fellows and 6 undergraduate fellows from STEM programs at the University of Central Florida with 24 teachers from Orange County Public Schools.  The GK-12 program will be used to recruit outstanding students into UCF’s STEM doctoral programs, as well as drawing from outstanding students in existing graduate and undergraduate student populations.  The GO GK-12 Partnership builds upon many independently existing relationships between the various partners, and is designed to address the strategic needs for science education in the school system.  The program will focus on assisting Orange County teachers with their 9th grade integrated science curriculum.  This curriculum was recently introduced by OCPS in response to the State mandated testing in 11th grade, and teachers need help in teaching this broad curriculum.

Teacher Fellowships

UCF's College of Optics and Photonics is pleased to announce the availability of new National Science Foundation Fellowships (stipend of $4,500 per year) that will fund teachers of 9th grade integrated science (and in 2007, 6th-8th grade) in Orange County.  We particularly encourage participation by more than one teacher in a given school.

The role of GK-12 graduate and undergraduate fellows in the schools:
The GK-12 student fellows from UCF will spend 10 hours per week at the partner schools working along side their teacher partners to jointly plan and implement inquiry based lessons in their 9th grade integrated science classes. GK-12 fellows will act as a resource to teachers by assisting them with understanding and relevance of content areas of the integrated science course as well as assisting their teacher-partners in the classroom.  In addition, the UCF student fellows will be trained by specialists at UCF how to teach guided-inquiry activities tailored for the OCPS integrated science curriculum and may assist their teacher partners with implementing these activities in the classroom.

Duties of GK-12 teachers:

• Attend a two week workshop with GK-12 fellows at UCF prior to the start of the academic year including planning and preparation time for the coming academic year;
• Work with fellows to develop and carry out plans for content development in 9th grade integrated science throughout the school year; and
• Attend workshops (about 5 during the school year) and participate in evaluation of program activities.

Graduate Fellowships

Graduate GK-12 fellows will be outstanding Ph.D.-seeking students in any of UCF Science, Mathematics or Engineering graduate programs and will normally participate in the program in the second or third year of their graduate studies.  Fellowships are $30,000 per year and may be held for one or two years. 

Undergraduate Fellowships

Undergraduate fellows will be excellent undergraduate students majoring in any Science, Math or Engineering discipline at UCF.  They will perform similar tasks to the graduate fellows and will receive a $5000 per semester stipend for a total of $10,000 for the 2007-2008 school year.

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