Math and science across the board: Connecting professional development to classroom practices via an embedded research initiative

With rising expectations of the educational community, general public and state/national policy makers, it is imperative that new curricula and teacher training programs adhere to the rigor and high standards presented in No Child Left Behind. Over the past eight years, the Kentucky Electronics Education Project (KEEP) has grown from an outreach project into an embedded research initiative. KEEP utilizes a microelectronics theme to connect math and science standards based lessons with hands-on real world applications. Efforts to date include teacher training, hands-on circuit building activities, construction/validation of training and classroom evaluations and standards-based lessons. This paper demonstrates the alignment of KEEP concepts with national math, science and technology standards, overviews the circuit project steps, reports empirical findings and summarizes current progress toward long term objectives.