Recent Projects

GK-12: EdGrid Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (2001-2005)

The National Science Foundation's Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program supports teaching fellowships for graduate students in the sciences, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) disciplines. This GK-12 Program was a collaboration of three campuses: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Alabama at Birmingham (GK-12 website), and University of Alabama at Huntsville. The fellows collaborated with SMET and Education faculty and K-12 teachers to integrate the use of computer-based modeling and scientific visualization in science and mathematics education. Dr. Abbott was the UAB PI and a Co-PI on the UIUC grant.

 

EdGrid: Moving K-12 teachers into the 21st Century Science with 21st Century Technology (2000-2005)

EdGrid is both the name for the infrastructure technologies and the name for the consortium of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and its partner organizations called the EOT-PACI (Education, Outreach, and Training - Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure). The EOT-PACI leverages the Alliance PACI program, a ten-year NSF-funded program that couples over 50 organizations to create an advanced computational infrastructure for the 21st Century. The EdGrid Program was designed to implement the technology of math modeling and scientific visualization into pre-service education. Dr. Abbott was the PI of the EdGrid project in the School of Education at UAB, which resulted in systemic change in pre-service instruction.
 

Project ACCESS (2001-2004)

Project ACCESS was designed to address the needs of Alabama educators who serve English language learners in their classrooms. The purpose of the project was to provide free graduate level professional development for educators who are committed to ensuring equal access to education for culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. Dr. Abbott was the program evaluator for Project ACCESS.
 

New Teachers for New Students (2001-2004)

The New Teachers for New Students project was designed to provide teacher professional development training to promote high-quality learning environments for K-12 students in the ESL classroom. In this program, Teachers learn “Best Practices” in teaching oral and academic skills so that they will be prepared to deal with their new students, those for whom English is a second language. Successful completion of the New Teachers for New Students program results in an add-on teacher certification in ESL in the state of Alabama. Dr Abbott was the Program Evaluator for NTNS.

 

Alabama Program to Inspire Computational Research in Education (1993-2000)

The purpose of the ASPIRE program is training teachers to use Internet based investigative techniques so they can stimulate their student's interest in science, math and core subjects. Due to the shrinking world resulting form Internet availability, ASPIRE trains teachers to help their students learn how to tap in and be a part of this worldwide expansion of knowledge so they can become more excited, knowledgeable and capable of participating in the technology revolution. ASPIRE is based on uses of mathematical models and scientific visualizations of data to solve real world problems. (http://aspire.cs.uah.edu)

In addition, The ASPIRE program positively demonstrates that, given the proper nurturing and equal access to technology, female students consistently achieve in an area that would be stereotypical described as male and that female students prior biases against scientific technical activities can be overcome. Programs such as ASPIRE have the potential to provide a framework for curricula and teaching strategies that will greatly influence and increase participation of female students in scientific careers.  While program evaluator, she wrote a report that was submitted to the Gender Equity Expert Panel in Math Science and Technology. As a result, ASPIRE was selected as one of five programs across the nation (out of over 100 applicants) designated as a ”Promising Program” for gender equity by the U.S. Department of Education in 2000.

As a result of her work on the ASPIRE program as well as the implementation of EdGrid (the ASPIRE program for pre-service teachers), Dr. Abbott was also selected as the recipient of the RCI “Outstanding Contributor to Supercomputing Education in the State of Alabama in 2001."