Tagged Engineering

STEM Professional Development for Informal Educators: Takeaway Six

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Impact Crater

Impact Crater

This is the sixth in a series of posts on takeaways in facilitating STEM professional development for informal educators.

6.  Many of the informal education programs did not include STEM in their programs for two reasons.  One, as discussed in the second post, was because the educators were not comfortable with teaching STEM.  The second major reason was because the educators were not aware of STEM resources they could easily incorporate into their program with minimal cost.

Since this was a NASA grant funded program, we focused on NASA resources.  NASA has an enormous amount of free on-line resources ranging from lesson plans, videos, educators, programs, games, musicals, songs, pictures, and more.  It was a challenge to not overwhelm the educators with the possibilities. What the educators really liked about these resources, especially the lessons, was that they generally only required household materials!  No expensive equipment was required.

Modeling sunspots and solar flares.

Modeling sunspots and solar flares.

We educated the educators about apps for their mobile devices.  They really had fun exploring those free apps!!  We also assisted the informal educators in discovering potential resources within or near their community and how to integrate them into their program.  These resources included STEM professionals and organizations.

 

STEM Professional Development for Informal Educators: Takeaway Five

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This is the fifth in a series of posts on takeaways in facilitating STEM professional development for informal educators.

5.  Informal educators want and appreciate follow-up support

Building on the importance of long-term professional development, active follow-up support to implementing STEM in their programs is critical to its success.  Just as K-12 educators need guidance and support to implement curriculum into their classroom, so do informal educators need guidance and support to implement curriculum into their program.

Extensive one-on-one support was required and provided.  This support ranged from what to teach, connecting them to local STEM professionals and opportunities, to modifying lessons to meet the needs of their students, to tips in teaching a specific lesson, to resources, to writing grants, and much more.

A resource that was very helpful was the Theme Camp Guides developed by the NASA Summer of Innovation (SoI) Curriculum Specialists. Located on the NASA SoI website, these guides provided suggestions of lessons, in an appropriate learning progression, to include camps that varied from one to five days in length.  It also provided direct links and supporting resources to the lessons.

As can be seen by this t-shirt students received, STEM is a main focus of this summer program

As can be seen by this t-shirt students received, STEM is a main focus of this summer program

Investing the extra time and energy to support the informal education programs led to sustainable programs; programs that continue to thrive and not “die” after the Summer of Innovation grant ended.  STEM is now an integral part of their program.

Informal education programs that had no or minimal STEM education now have quality daily or weekly STEM programs and summer STEM camps.

STEM Professional Development for Informal Educators: Takeaway Four

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This is the fourth in a series of posts on takeaways in facilitating STEM professional development for informal educators.

4.  Informal educators want long-term professional development

NASA Education Specialist

NASA Education Specialist

South Dakota is a very rural and geographically large state, making travel a challenge in both time and expense for both the participants and the facilitators. Recognizing the importance of making that personal connection with the informal educators, we offered face-to-face professional development a variety of times and in multiple regions throughout the state. What we found is that those participating in the face-to-face workshops were hungry for more, and they wanted the staff who were not able to attend, to learn about and experience the wonderful STEM resources.   They wanted more than a “shot-in-the-arm” model of professional development.  Just what we, the facilitators, were hoping would be the result.

To address this, we worked with a NASA curriculum specialist to provide webinars. The webinars were consistently offered and repeated at different times during the day to accommodate schedules.  These webinars were “informal” in their presentation. This resulted in a HIGHLY interactive experience that had many laughs along with the learning. Participants in these webinars developed an awesome STEM support network they continue to access.  Video-conferencing also was utilized.

Offering professional development in a hybrid format provided the informal educators an opportunity to learn and experience STEM in small amounts. This allowed time for reflection and application of what they learned without the feeling of being overwhelmed. This definitely contributed to building their confidence to teach STEM.

STEM Professional Development for Informal Educators: Takeaway Three

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This is the third in a series of posts on takeaways in facilitating STEM professional development for informal educators.

3.  Informal educators understand the importance of STEM standards.

Informal educators understand and appreciate their role in extending science learning beyond the classroom. During our workshops, we often talked about standards and how they can guide STEM programming in the informal setting. Standards for all content areas were usually discussed.  There was much discussion about the Next Generation Science Standards and the framework on which they were built.

Many informal educators are making efforts to align their STEM teaching to what is happening in the classroom, thus reinforcing the standards. They are willing to work with the classroom teacher to extend the scientific concepts and practices introduced during the school day.  They view this extension as a means to help students more deeply realize how STEM permeates nearly everything in their lives, now and in the future.

STEM Professional Development for Informal Educators: Takeaway Two

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This is the second in a series of posts on takeaways in facilitating STEM professional development for informal educators.

2. Informal educators are eager to learn content and methodology

As discussed in the previous post, most informal educators (and classroom teachers I might add) experience anxiety when it comes to teaching STEM. In addition to their personal STEM learning experiences, much of this anxiety comes from two sources: fear of not knowing the content and not understanding how to effectively teach STEM. This means they are facing two challenges simultaneously: Subject matter and content-based teaching methodology.

Most of the informal educators participating in the NASA SD Summer of Innovation program do not have a strong background in STEM. Right or wrong, the initial focus was simply doing activities with some content support. Once the educators were comfortable “doing” science, more background and in-depth content was added along with methodology. They moved from a “show me an activity to do” thought process to “help me to more deeply understand what I am doing” thought process. They wanted a meaningful learning experience in STEM.

Rovers

Rovers

Gaining confidence in STEM content knowledge, they were ready to learn content-based teaching knowledge. They want their students to have meaningful experiences in STEM. Generally speaking, informal educators participating in the NASA SD Summer of Innovation program do not have education degrees. As confidence grew among the educators, they asked questions related to content-specific methodology. Although we modeled effective teaching strategies from the start using the 5-E Model as our foundation, we became more deliberate in explaining STEM teaching strategies.

What an experience it is to watch the educators move from simply “doing” activities to completing design challenges. They are now deliberately implementing the engineering design process into their programs. The educators, and their students, produced some awesome products!

STEM Professional Development for Informal Educators: Takeaway One

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This is the first in a series of posts on takeaways in facilitating STEM professional development for informal educators.

  1. Informal educators are up to the challenge of learning STEM

For many of the informal educators, STEM was not something they were comfortable teaching. Consequently, STEM was not regularly included in their programs. One of the reasons for their anxiety was due to their personal experiences when learning STEM during their K-12 school years. Understanding the importance of STEM in today’s work world and the need to regularly include it in their program, they came ready to address their anxiety of teaching STEM. They became active learners as they accepted the challenge of learning STEM by doing and thinking STEM; learning from their failures and their successes. They laughed at themselves, challenged each other, and had many “aha” moments. It was awesome to see their excitement – and their confidence – grow as they experienced STEM.

Next: Just doing or learning?

Designing and Developing STEM Professional Development for Informal Educators

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In May of 2011 I received a call from Kristie Maher, Ex. Dir., SD Discovery Center, asking if I would be interested in managing their Summer of Innovation (SoI) program, a four year NASA grant they were just awarded. With STEM education being one of my passions, I naturally said yes to this wonderful opportunity.

The Summer of Innovation program is NASA’s response to a national need for improvement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education. This NASA project is designed to improve the skills and enhance the engagement of American students in STEM with a focus on informal education. After piloting the program in 2010, NASA put out a call for proposals to expand the program. The SD Discovery Center, located in Pierre, SD, was one of only eight grants that were awarded nationwide.

Having many years of experience in working with pre-service and in-service educators, this was the first time in which I worked with informal educators on an extensive basis. It has been a great journey of growth for me and the educators. In the next several posts I will share some takeaways in designing and developing STEM professional development for informal educators, particularly in a rural setting.