In the final monthly meetings of Year 1, the Fellows begins planning their individual GPS (Growth Plan System) that they will implement in the coming school year. In these initial stages, Fellows are given the framework of the GPS and asked to think about how they, as a Wipro SEF Fellow, can support district initiatives in his/her school and district while also defining personally important work, tied to improving science teaching, that the Fellow may not have an opportunity to do otherwise. In the final monthly meeting and at the year-end Teacher Leadership Conference, Year 1 Fellows are asked to verbalize and share their preliminary GPS ideas through conversations with their colleagues, their DSCs (District Science Coordinators) and the Wipro SEF Leadership team so they can receive feedback and ideas to help their plan take shape.
Fellows are given the summer between Year 1 and Year 2 to form their ideas into a cohesive plan to deepen their own content knowledge, professional skills, and capacity to lead others. They will accomplish this by setting goals with regular benchmarks and by,] meeting regularly with a Wipro SEF GPS Advisor, their District Science Coordinator and other Fellows. They put their plan in writing.
GPS projects have two components: 1) A project of their choosing that will support school or school district initiatives; and 2) a project of their choosing that fulfills a personal goal that they have. Fellows will devote 125 out-of-school time to Wipro SEF. Approximately 25 of the Fellows’ hours in Year 2 are for call-back cohort meetings, meetings with their advisor, and meetings with their DSC and other fellows, leaving about 100 hours for their GPS work.
The following chart illustrates how Fellows have identified their GPS goals as individual (i.e., personal) and school related (i.e., district goal).
| Grade | Individual goal | District goal |
|---|---|---|
K | To create a usable technology library for integration of science and technology in Kindergarten and Grade One. This included a document created throughout the school year to provide staff with options in integrating technology with their new science curriculum. | To develop and implement a life science curriculum and usable space to aid in early childhood social and emotional growth via the science curriculum throughout the following school year. |
2 | To research teacher stress and the causes of teacher burnout. Fellow then creates a handbook that included indicators of teacher stress, plans for maintaining continued wellness, and strategies for dealing with acute attacks of stress in the moment. | I will create lab activities and supporting materials aligned with NGSS Practice #3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations. |
HS | To use cartooning to create a “180Dayz” teacher, comic, graphic novel that will help new teachers avoid common pitfalls, obtain necessary skills, knowledge, etc. to become successful teachers and improve student learning within their first year of teaching. | To realign current physics curriculum with new state science standards (identifying resources to use, shifts needed across grades or subjects, and identifying any new content required is needed, etc.) |
MS | To foster Scientific Self-guided Journeys through the Art of Questioning the World Around You | With the incoming standards, several changes will need to be made to Fellow’s current district curriculum. Together with the other Fellows in the district cohort, worked on creating a cohesive unit to teach one of the strands of the new 8th grade standards. |
HS | To use research to guide the creation of homework and track completion and content retention (as measured on quizzes). The first semester was used to research and begin implementation. The second semester was used to implement edits based on data in the fall semester, as well as to gather more data to see if results were consistent with a new group of students. | Used the SEP to increase scientific analysis skills in students with lower academic fluency, and allowed “stretches” for the more advanced students. Focused on the following SEPs: analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations, and engaging in argument from evidence. |
Supporting Fellows During Year 2
The community that develops among the Fellows, the DSC, and the people from the partner university is a significant feature of the Wipro SEF that has enabled its success. Embarking on an independent project of the magnitude of a GPS does not require a Fellow to navigate alone. Fellows need a safe space in order to be successful which includes emotional, intellectual, and logistical support. Some people can find the challenges and setbacks quite devastating and need \ support to navigate these challenges. In this regard, the Fellow may just need someone who will listen, or the Fellow may need someone who can help them reappraise their goals. A Fellow’s goals may be too ambitious and may need the support and encouragement to limit their goals or to give up or modify one of the goals. We have had Fellows who were so overwhelmed with their original project and the sense that the hurdles were too high, that they thought the only solution was to quit the program. Listening, discussion, empathy and a reappraisal of the goals provided enough slack that they realized that they could be successful with a more limited approach.
The emotional, intellectual and logistical support can be provided by other Fellows (past or present), the DSC, the IHE leadership or a mentor assigned to the Fellow. Each person in this support network can bring different perspectives and guidance. This depth and breadth of experience and expertise is a defining feature of the Wipro SEF community. The chart below gives a few, but hardly exhaustive, suggestions of how the community supports each other.
| Emotional | Intellectual | Logistical | |
| Fellows (Past/present) | Empathizes; relates their own experience | Shares interest in their project and how it relates to their project | Offers examples of help that they received while they were completing their GPS |
| District Science Coordinator (DSC) | Checking in; reminding the principal of the work being done | Clarification of district goals | Provides resources available at the school/district level |
| University leadership | Reassurance that projects of this scope are difficult | How others have approached projects like this; what the research literature may say about the initiative | Locating research articles and other resources through the university library |
| Mentor | Provide the reassurance of a critical friend who is not in an evaluation role | Shares interest in the goals of the project | Guidance on timetable and progress |
GPS Feedback from Fellow
“The great thing about my GPS is that it will live on beyond [Wipro SEF]. I am scheduled to present at the MAST conference, will put in an application for NSTA and will continue to work with the BSAC students around promoting and engaging others into the climate change curriculum project. Working on the GPS has allowed me the opportunity to find an avenue to engage in a project that is something I care deeply about and enjoy working on. I have always been involved in activities and projects outside the classroom, whether it was summer or afterschool programs, but this is the first project I have complete control over and have leveraged this product into some successful opportunities.”
