REU Site: Restricted Scope for Participant Support Costs: Supporting Undergraduate Research Fellows In Timely STEM Education Research Via the University of Kentucky's STEM Education Research Laboratory

Our project’s ultimate goal is to see an improvement of K-12 students’ STEM knowledge and processes understanding and application. The creation of a larger and better-prepared K-12 STEM teacher population is our main strategy towards meeting our goal. Our REU project will redefine the focus of STEM teacher preparation towards the development of students’ higher order thinking skills and deep conceptual STEM understanding based on research-confirmed best practices discovered by pre-service teachers themselves. Our basic pedagogical approach centers on the active participation of pre-service teachers in authentic inquiry into local educational issues with national and international implications. Our novel REU project will expose pre-service K-12 STEM teachers to timely problems involving STEM teaching and learning through original research conducted with eight successful faculty Mentors affiliated with University of Kentucky’s STEM Education Laboratory, situated within the university-supported College of Education’s P-20 Innovation Laboratory. Our REU project will foster in pre-service K-12 STEM teachers an appreciation of the interplay between society and education and research, especially concerning the multiple transformative means of fostering STEM literacy across diverse learner populations.