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.
Funded by a grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Council, we have developed a physics curriculum taught through the lens of clean energy applications, specifically photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind energy applications. The curriculum was delivered during the 2015-2016 academic year to senior physics students at Boston Green Academy (BGA). To create a bridge to workforce and higher education, juniors and seniors from BGA were hired during the summer of 2016 to design, assemble, test, and market demonstration stations for educational use to teach science and engineering knowledge and skills associated with photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind energy. Long-term goals are to sustain this small company, run by and for students, throughout the academic year to support authentic learning and workforce development. This session will report on the results of the first year and engage the audience in discussion about this and similar efforts.
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.
As mathematics takes an increasing role in work and life, creativity must become central to its mission because: 1) creativity and creative problem solving are essential 21st century skills, 2) creativity drives engagement and enjoyment, and 3) creativity builds understanding. Over the past three years we have been discovering and developing math lessons using spreadsheets to enable students to ask the central creative question, “What if…” We have over 100 lessons for students of all ages that you can use as problems of the week, as project or problem-based-learning opportunities, or as challenges for those students who may need them. These What if Math Labs are open-source and available for free. They work in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or on iPads in Numbers. You can sign up to receive our Problems of the Week, or you can assign students a “Course” to work through. You are welcome to bring your computer or your tablet to the session. And we look forward to your suggestions for new lessons that we create or that you add to our growing curriculum.
