WINS: Winning Institutional Nomination System

National Science Foundation

NSF Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12)

Program Summary

This program provides funding for graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to bring their leading research practice and findings into K-12 learning settings. Through collaborations with other graduate fellows and faculty from STEM disciplines, teachers and students in K-12 environments, and community partners, graduate students can gain a deeper understanding of their own research and place it within a societal and global context. The GK-12 program provides an opportunity for graduate students to acquire value-added skills, such as communicating STEM subjects to technical and non-technical audiences, leadership, team building, and teaching while enriching STEM learning and instruction in K-12 settings. This unique experience will add value to the training of U.S. graduate students and will energize and prepare the students for a broad range of STEM careers in a competitive globalized marketplace. Furthermore, the GK-12 program provides institutions of higher education with an opportunity to transform the conventional graduate education by infusing and sustaining GK-12 like activities in their graduate programs.

Eligibility

• Proposals may only be submitted by Academic institutions in the United States and its territories that grant masters or doctoral degrees in STEM disciplines supported by the National Science Foundation.
    
• The lead Principal Investigator (PI) must be a STEM discipline faculty member actively conducting STEM research at the lead institution.  Faculty members whose primary research is on science education (e.g. physics education, technology education, mathematics education, engineering education, etc.) are not eligible to serve as the lead PI. 
    
• One proposal per institution. Institutions having an active or past GK-12 project are eligible to submit a new proposal, but they must coordinate evaluation efforts of any projects located on the same campus or working with the same school districts.  They must also specify the outcomes, lessons learned, best practices, and sustainability efforts of prior projects. Renewal proposals will not be accepted.

Internal Selection Procedure

The Office of the Vice President for Research has established an internal review procedure to select the UI nominee.  Applications will be reviewed according to the sponsor’s selection criteria.  Consideration will also be given to UI institutional strengths and strategic directions.  Potential applicants must submit, using the preselection link below, the following information:

1.     A two page CV; and
2.     A description of the proposed project.  It should have the following elements:

• A cover sheet with the project title, your name and department, and the title of the program you are responding to.
• A description of the proposed project (up to but no more than the sponsor-identified limit of 15 single spaced pages in length).  Additional pages may be added for references.
• Please be sure the project is identified on each page and number the pages.

The above materials must be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 15, 2010.  A required letter of intent is due Tuesday, April 20, 2010.  The selected nominee will be asked to complete the full application package in accordance with the sponsor's June 3, 2010, deadline.  

Calendar of WINS