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A New Year Resolution for STEM from the WHITE House

1/3/2019

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Guest blogger, DeLene Hoffner, is a founding member and lead teacher for eleSTEMary.  She currently is a  4th grade teacher at School in the Woods, Academy District 20 in Colorado Springs, CO.  

​With the start of a new year, we plan our resolutions and cherish a fresh start in a new year. How about in your teaching?  Does STEM instruction have a renewed focus or have you made resolutions to bring more STEM into your classroom? Well, our nation HAS!!  
Yes, despite the tug-of-war in our national administration, there is GOOD news for a “New Year’s resolution.”  On Dec 4, 2018, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released their five year strategic plan for STEM education based on the vision (resolution) that “all Americans have lifelong access to high quality STEM education and the U.S. will be the global leader in STEM literacy, innovation, and employment.”  This is an amazing step to bring more STEM to all… from preschool to the average citizen. eleSTEMary certainly applauds the concept and supports the nationwide movement to bring more effective STEM instruction to all schools.  How will this plan work?
To achieve this vision, the report lays out three goals:
Goal 1: Build Strong Foundations for STEM Literacy
Goal 2: Increase Diversity and Inclusion through Broader Access to STEM
Goal 3: Prepare the STEM Workforce for the Future.
The plan includes strategies for how federal agencies should plan, budget, coordinate, and scale up their programs for STEM over the next five years and includes recommendations that STEM stakeholders in states and districts nationwide can follow and initiate.
Take a look at the White House STEM Strategic Plan yourself. Here is a link to the report….
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/STEM-Education-Strategic-Plan-2018.pdf
My hope is that the White House’s STEM strategic plan will shine a bright spotlight on the importance of STEM education. Just like when movement of STEM initially began, it brought best practices in the integration of science, technology, engineering and math to the forefront.  How will this STEM strategic plan go from “policy to practice”? I believe now more than every… TEACHERS are the key to bridging the “theory of policy” to STEM in practice at the local, state and federal levels. The new Colorado Academic Standards will give us great direction and cutting edge implementation of STEM through the NGSS connections.  The next 5 years will be exciting for STEM educators. Perhaps this year, you will be part of leading the way for STEM to shine in your school!

What do you think of the White House STEM Strategic Plan?  How can you influence your school, district, or state in bringing STEM education into the classroom, especially the elementary classroom?  Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Keeping it eleSTEMary,
​Katie 

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Preservice Teachers Present Science Fair Projects

12/27/2018

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Our guest blogger for this week is Neva Nardone.  She is an eleSTEMary lead team member.  In addition to teaching the Science Methods Course at UNC, she  teaches 4th grade in Colorado Springs.  

The University of Northern Colorado (UNC) Masters of Education program includes a science methods for its students. As part of this program, I teach the Colorado Springs cohort. During the Fall 2017 semester, my class attended the Colorado Science Conference in Denver and thoroughly enjoyed the variety of classes and vendors. This year I took it one step further and scheduled my students to present for one of the sessions. It was a great success! These pre-service teachers developed science fair projects for the grade level they wish to teach. They perused the Colorado Academic Standards and selected an area of focus to investigate a question, determine a hypothesis, conduct an experiment or activity, collect data, and formulate a conclusion. These projects were displayed on a three-fold boards and presented to teachers, administrators, and other visitors at the conference. We realized that science investigations can be conducted successfully by students of all elementary ages from kindergarten to sixth grade using varying degrees of scaffolding and guidance. My UNC students appreciated this assignment and suggested I make it a requirement for future classes.

What science based projects do you with your students?  Let us know in the comments.
​
Keeping it eleSTEMary,
​Katie 
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Building Classroom Community with STEM Team Challenges

11/12/2018

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PictureCup Stacking Team Challenge
The start of the school year is time of new beginnings and an opportunity to create a classroom culture based on positive relationships around effective communication and collaboration. With some classes this happens naturally, and other classes require a more strategic approach.  Based on experiences with classes needing more direct instruction around collaboration and being in a brand new school at a new grade level, I was determined to be very intentional about how I set up the classroom culture to promote collaborative inquiry that will sustain us throughout the school year.
      After spending the first days of school getting to know one another, the first full week of school I set aside the last hour of the day for team challenges.  The focus of each team challenge was to determine the essential agreements for successful collaboration. As each challenge was happening, I asked my students to reflect on what actions helped their team successfully complete the challenge. These have become our “Rules for Collaboration.”
​      All team challenges had a STEM focus that required students to work together in order to be successful. Each day the challenges increased in complexity, and while they all focused around STEM best practices, the challenges were designed without any academic connections in order to promote a focus on inquiry and collaboration. Students participated in a cup stacking challenge, an index card challenge, a bubble wand building challenge, and a cardboard creature challenge.  As I observed my students working collaboratively, I noticed that engagement was high, and students were excitedly working together to brainstorm ideas for solutions. Based on these beginning team challenges, my students began to ask me each day what challenge they would be working on next. From there, I have introduced team challenges in math, reading, writing, science, and social studies, in addition to non-content area challenges on a regular basis. These challenges have created an increased excitement for learning in my class, and individual students who have not felt successful in school are now beginning to take more risks in order to learn more.  
     While I could see the benefit of these team challenges as a teacher, I didn’t realize the extent of their positive influence until I had a fall conferences last month.  As part of conference preparation, I had my 5th graders write letters to their parents explaining what they had been learning for the first quarter and what goals they wanted to set for themselves.  As I read these letters with parents, every student mentioned the team challenges. But the best testament to the success of my implementation of team challenges came with a conference with one particular parent and student.  As I sat with this family, the mom shared with me that school for this student had always been a struggle. Since kindergarten, this student has missed 5-10 days in the first quarter each year. She would cry each night and beg not to go to school the next day.   I was shocked; this student was so engaged and excited to be at school everyday. When I asked both the student and the parent what they think had changed for her this year, they both said it was the team challenges that had made the difference for this student. Based on this alone, I will continue to use team challenges as a basis for creating an engaging classroom environment.  
   How do you create a collaborative and inquiry based classroom environment that promotes student engagement and learning? Please share your successes in the comments. I look forward to hearing what has worked for you.

Keeping it eleSTEMary,
Katie
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    Author

    Katie Poulsen is a founding member of eleSTEMary.  She has a Bachelor's of Science in Elementary Education K-8 with a minor in Early Childhood Education from Montana State University-Bozeman and a Master's in Educational Administration from Argosy University-Denver.  She is an IB PYP workshop leader, site visitor, and consultant.  She currently teaches 5th grade in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

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