This panel session describes the innovative UTeach mathematics and science undergraduate teacher preparation program at UMass Lowell (UML). To enhance UML’s contribution to the community by producing effective mathematics and science teachers who not only are highly knowledgeable in their disciplines, but also can engage students through scientific inquiry instruction, UTeach employs a series of unique courses and a model of instruction based on the 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate). Our panel presentation will describe the conceptualization of two of the UTeach courses, while showcasing student work to answer the question of whether the program achieves the goal of enhancing course enrollees’ development of pedagogical skills in delivering inquiry-based instruction.
Participants will use problems found in familiar early childhood children’s literature as the basis for hands-on models that promote children’s STEM learning in the preschool and pre-kindergarten childhood setting. Participants will experience opportunities to seamlessly infuse STEM concepts throughout the day with young children. While providing participants with tools and tasks that promote scientific inquiry, the presenters will share the actual work from their integrated public school early childhood center classrooms that allowed all of their 3, 4, and 5 year old students to behave as young scientists.
While engaging in STEM learning experiences participants will pose “What if…?” questions, make predictions, test their models, record their findings, develop solutions, and present their findings. All activities will be carefully linked to the Science, Math, and English Language Arts Curriculum Frameworks, as well as the Social and Emotional Learning, and Approaches to Play and Learning Standards. Focus will also be given to the integration of the eight science and engineering practice standards. Participants will be afforded opportunities to better understand the important roles of team work and problem solving in order to excite their students and provide students with experiences that reinforce feelings of success at the end of a challenge.We all make the assumption that technology is an electronic device with a screen. Our fear of screen time and its effects on our children is a supported concern by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This hands-on workshop will help early childhood educators, directors, providers, and coaches experience different types of technology and use these tools to promote children’s exploration of their learning environments.
Our goal for this workshop is to help educators at the early childhood level recognize that technology is so much more than screens for our students. Participants will have the opportunity to brainstorm technology they already have in their classrooms, what technology is in early childhood, generate vocabulary, concepts and questions related to technology, experience some demonstration areas using technology, and discuss how they can use technology to support student learning. We will explore the Massachusetts Infant/Toddler and Preschool STEM standards and identify the concepts related to technology and encourage attendees to share their experiences and how they would be able to incorporate these concepts into their classroom or learning environment.
A panel of high school teachers/liaisons and university faculty will share their experiences with a partnership program (Project Accelerate) bringing AP® Physics 1 to underserved students in schools that do not offer AP® Physics as part of the school program of study. Project Accelerate blends together supportive formal structures from a student’s home school, a private online course designed specifically with the needs of underserved populations in mind and small group recitation and laboratory experiences. Funding for this program has been increased and Project Accelerate is looking to increase the number of partner sites.
Underserved high school students in many communities don’t have access to Advanced Placement® courses because of low student enrollment and lack of trained teachers. Project Accelerate serves as a model offering a solution to a significant national problem of too few underserved high school students having access to high quality physics education, resulting in these students being ill prepared to enter STEM careers and STEM programs in college.
Boston University is in the second year of piloting this model with four Boston Public Schools (BPS) high schools and three small suburban high schools. The course is structured to work seamlessly with a typical high school schedule with assessments designed to encourage early success. Students receive midterm progress reports, quarterly grades and AP credit on their high school transcript. During the 2015-16 academic year, thirty weeks into the pilot year, we have an 88% retention rate, 90% recitation attendance, and an average course GPA of 3.3.
The primary purpose of exams is to assess student learning and mastery of course content. But, it can be argued that too much emphasis is placed on exams by both students and instructors. This often leads to stress and anxiety on the part of the student and to “teaching to the exam” by the instructor. Additionally, students often prepare for exams by ‘cramming’ last minute or by rote practice of course content. Neither approach leads to long-lasting learning, and knowledge gained by these approaches is rarely retained. This session will explore an alternative to traditional exams that can assess and fortify student learning, but do so in a less stressful way. Student electronic reports (eReports) are completely student-generated and multi-media in nature. Students summarize and condense the most critical content from course units into 20-30 minute stand-alone multi-media presentations/video files. An accurate and effective eReport arguably demonstrates student comprehension of the course material. This session will begin with introducing eReports as an assignment type. It will then move on to provide guidance for assigning and explaining eReports to students. Examples from other students’ eReports will be shared, as will methods and rubrics for eReport grading and assessment. The session will end with the results of a study on the student learning impact of creating eReports. It is expected that session attendees will leave with enough information to decide if eReports are a superior alternative to traditional exams, and, if so, be comfortable adopting eReports for use in their own classes.
In today’s workforce, there are a large number of risks and challenges. These challenges include:
• baby boomers leaving the workforce over the next five to ten years,
• generational diversity,
• budgetary pressures,
• attraction and retention of subject matter experts.
It is critical that business leaders maintain and preserve the knowledge of your products and the history of your designs by having a process in place to retain or transfer your employees’ critical STEM related skills and knowledge, your customer connections, and many other important details.
Join us to explore how to use children’s literature to engage children’s curiosity and extend preschoolers’ understanding of STEM concepts, with a focus on physical sciences and mathematics. You will have the opportunity to work with colleagues and use materials to develop hands-on STEM learning experiences based on wonderful children’s books. We will consider the efficacy of linking STEM and literacy experiences to enhance children’s proficiency in both areas, and review how these experiences align with Massachusetts standards and guidelines. Participants will receive useful handouts and related resources.
With students, writing in science is a means to deepen students’ understanding of concepts and apply the science and engineering practices from Next Generation Science Standards. Research also shows that as students write in the content areas achievement improves as students are asked to clarify and organize their thinking.
Participants will review several examples to span grades K-8 of how writing in science can be used to improve student outcomes using science notebooks and different entry types. Students use their notebooks to begin a science investigation or engineering challenge by asking questions when given a specific focus of inquiry. Students also make observations of the focus of inquiry. From their questions, students generate an inquiry question and design an investigation or create a plan for their design to an engineering challenge. As students implement their investigation, they make prediction, observations, and collect data in their notebooks. Analysis of their data and observations will lead students to draw conclusions. Writing is also integrated into science project based learning as students research to complete a real world task.
Specifically, the session will outline efforts to strengthen students’ writing of conclusions in science using the framework of claims, evidence, and reasoning. Focus will be given to grades 5 and 8 MCAS achievement on open response writing. Resources including rubrics, professional development materials, and lesson ideas for supporting writing of conclusions will be discussed. Finally, participants consider how they will apply the strategies to their own classroom settings.
The human-animal bond is a unique and powerfully motivating force. Empirical evidence is mounting for the effectiveness of animal-based pedagogy in many different topic areas. In this session faculty from Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University will demonstrate the use of an animal-based curricular unit as a tool for integrating science and engineering education within an active learning, problem-based model. The unit will be a hands-on interactive project to design a solution for a failure in a major body system in an animal. In this case the development of a prosthesis for a dog whose leg had to be amputated due to a malignant bone cancer (osteosarcoma). We will explore the idea that animal-based education approaches can be used within a school setting to both achieve science benchmarks and to foster long term interest in STEM careers in middle school children.
Partners HealthCare and its founding hospitals - Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) - recognize the universal lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity in the medical and science fields. The Student Success Jobs Program at BWH and the Youth Scholars Program at MGH provide innovative STEM programming and comprehensive educational and workforce preparedness services to Boston’s underrepresented youth. Specifically, these programs support educational attainment through STEM-focused activities, provide academic assistance, and offer paid internships and career exposure opportunities to young people interested in pursuing a career in health, science or medicine. Through the Partners Scholarship Initiative launched in 2012, these successful programs were expanded to include college bound youth, creating additional opportunities and extending the pathway to a more diverse healthcare workforce.
An urgency exists in the nation to increase the number of graduates with an undergraduate degree within science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, armed with the skills necessary to tackle emergent employment opportunities. Simply exposing students to opportunities that are available within STEM is not sufficient to motivate those students to pursue STEM education. External factors, such as just exposure to STEM opportunities, may not be enough to keep students engaged in these rigorous fields of study. Rotter (1966) noted that motivation must be intrinsic in order for individuals to make changes within their lives. While the notion of identity formation is not novel, considering the development of a STEM identity, the concept of developing a STEM identity within students is an emerging trend of discussion within the STEM literature. Those students need to have tangible experiences, engage in leadership activities, and have positive mentoring, which allow them to develop a sense of self-efficacy, a necessary cultivation in identity formation. Using Waterman’s (1990, 2004) model of identity formation as a foundation, this talk will explore a model of STEM identity formation for community college students. This model will highlight the diversity of factors that can contribute to the development of a STEM identity, using the lived experiences of actual community college students to illustrate key factors in this model. Core to this presentation will also be an exploration of how STEM identity development is critical for female community college students.
Attendees will explore hands-on learning opportunities used in elementary and high school classrooms. Students have learned to use Makey Makey Kits, Hot Wheels, Snap Circuits, Sphero robots, Google Cardboard virtual reality, and 3D doodlers to support the STEM curriculum. These tools not only help students access and model the engineer design process but also afford them opportunities to delve into deep scientific thinking around STEM principles. Students are then able to relate their work to future careers. The STEM instruction has completely changed the way these two classrooms operate.
K-12 classroom teachers in any of them STEM disciplines could adapt these tools into their own classrooms. Examples of how to assess and reflect on these activities will be provided. Teachers will learn how to implement hands on strategies using these tools to teach concepts such as circuits, virtual reality, coding, 3D modeling, and design process thinking. Teachers will also see how using different ways to teach concepts promotes 21st century learning and teaching such as: problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills.
How do we provide hands-on projects, real world applications and engaging STEAM programming to students with serious disabilities? What are the positive outcomes from supporting these students as STEAM learners?
Many students with serious disabilities have large gaps in their education that manifest as unevenly developed skill sets. This can be the result of frequent changes in school placement, the inability to master the material within the time period it is presented, and/or teaching practices and materials presented in ways that are difficult for the students to understand. Some students have disabilities that require a placement outside of their home school district. This constellation of personal and systemic factors increase the likelihood that such students will be further marginalized due to a lack of the hard (knowledge- and experience-based skills) and soft (interpersonal and temperamental skills) needed to secure employment as they exit the traditional educational system.
It is our intent to demonstrate the essence of STEAM education by combining a traditional presentation with small group work, so that participants will understand how disabilities can affect learning and will gain insights into ways to support student learning. We will examine the benefits to these students of solving real world problems through practical applications of knowledge and hands-on projects. Experiential learning increases the acquired knowledge and understanding of students (hard skills) as it develops the needed skills in problem solving, collaboration, and planning (soft skills).
Audience participation and discussion are encouraged so all can learn from each other’s experiences in a process that will mirror the classroom expectations that are the focus of this session.
