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Award IV, Innovation in Teaching Science Teachers, recognizes the best paper submitted for nomination and presented at the last ASTE conference that seeks to encourage the development and dissemination of new designs for courses and curricula, new instructional methods or approaches, and other types of innovations in the pre- or in-service education of teachers of science.
The authors of best paper nominated and presented at the ASTE 2009 conference are Dr. Nancy M. Trautmann, Cornell University and Dr. James G. MaKinster,
Hobart & William Smith Colleges (pictured with Beth Klein, ASTE awards committee
chair). Trautmann and Makinster entitled their paper, "Flexibly adaptive professional development in support of teaching science with geospatial technology." This paper also won the National Technology in Leadership Initiative (NTLI) award last year at the 2008 ASTE conference.
Nancy Trautmann and Jim MaKinster co-direct GIT Ahead, an NSF Advanced Technological Education project designed to enable secondary teachers to incorporate GIS, Google Earth, and other geospatial technologies into their science teaching. They began collaborating in 2003 to evaluate the impacts of an NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) project in which Cornell graduate students partnered with middle and high school science teachers to design and implement inquiry-based lessons and student research projects. Nancy and Jim's mutual interest in coupling environmental science and teaching with technology led them to develop the GIT Ahead project in 2006. Their research interests focus on various aspects of environmental science education, including how to design effective professional development for secondary teachers interested in incorporating emerging technologies into their science teaching.
Nancy began serving last summer as Director of Education at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, where education encompasses informal and formal programs for children through adults on local to global scales. Before starting in this position, Nancy conducted outreach through the Cornell Department of Natural Resources with the aim of engaging secondary students and teachers in authentic environmental science research. The NSF-funded Environmental Inquiry curriculum development project that she directed culminated in publication by the National Science Teachers Association of four student research manuals and accompanying teacher guides.
Jim is an Associate Professor in Education and Environmental Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. His scholarship focuses on the design and implementation of teacher professional development and engaging students in project-based learning. His work on the GIT Ahead project served as the foundation for a new NSF ITEST project that enables science teachers and students to explore international environmental issues by using a variety of information, communication, and geospatial technologies. This project, which he is also co-directing with Nancy Trautmann, will include travel to and curriculum development focused on Brazil, Mexico, and Kenya.
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