Resources from STEM Smart Workshops

The STeLLA professional development program engages fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade teachers in using two powerful and often neglected lenses to analyze videocases of science teaching: the Student Thinking Lens and the Science Content Storyline Lens. Focusing on deep analysis of these two lenses and associated teaching strategies, teachers learn to be more analytical in planning, enacting, and reflecting on their practice. Through this analysis work, they deepen their science content knowledge, develop as analytical practitioners with rich pedagogical content knowledge about the subjects they are teaching, and improve their planning and teaching practices. Most importantly, the one-year intensive program improves their students’ science learning. In short, this is a professional development (PD) program that makes a difference in terms of <em>student</em> learning.

To address the need for outdoor environments that are intentionally designed to elicit STEM learning while inspiring free play, the University of Cincinnati’s Arlitt Child and Family Research and Education Center and Cincinnati Nature Center partnered to create the Cincinnati Nature PlayScape Initiative. The premises and practices embraced by the initiative were derived from existing research and practice in the fields of early education, biological sciences, and environmental psychology. Subsequently, two playscapes designed to kindle free play, environmental awareness, and learning for young children in the Greater Cincinnati area were built to emulate the natural environment using plants and spaces indigenous to the locale. In both the 10,000 square foot urban playscape on the university campus and the 1.6-acre rural playscape at the Cincinnati Nature Center, affordances for exploration were key experiential goals. The Cincinnati Nature PlayScape Initiative is studying where preschool children play within these two respective playscapes, what materials they use, with whom they are playing, if science learning occurs through their play, and teachers’ perceptions of their experiences.

Industry is increasingly looking to high schools, community colleges, and four-year universities to graduate problem solvers—individuals who skillfully communicate and apply their knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and other disciplines to solve real-world problems. Yet instructor-centered pedagogical methods paired with text-based exercises often do not address the interdisciplinary, ill-defined, and ambiguous problems graduates will face when entering the 21st century workforce. Since 2006, the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) has been funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program to develop a series of curriculum and professional development projects using PBL in collaboration with industry.

Standards-based reform holds great promise for increasing the rigor and quality of mathematics education for students with disabilities. The recently released Common Core Standards in Mathematics (2010) and those of the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (2000) clearly recognize that all students, including those with disabilities, “must have the opportunity to learn and meet the same high standards if they are to access the knowledge and skills necessary in their post-school lives.” (CCSSI, 2010). To date, however, this promise has not been readily fulfilled. Research shows that, while teacher quality is the single most powerful influence on student learning, teachers often are not well prepared to implement standards-based mathematics education with heterogeneous groups of students that include students with disabilities and students with different capabilities, needs, and learning styles.

Administrators and leaders of professional development have, in recent years,developed professional learning communities (PLCs)—one of the most common professional development strategies in use today across education at large. And leaders in STEM education have universally advocated their use—the Successful K–12 STEM Education report specifically urges considering “factors that strengthen and sustain learning communities.” There are exciting rationales for PLCs, such as the desire to morph teaching from solo artisan instruction to a synergy of great teaching.

Mathematics INstruction using Decision Science and Engineering Tools (MINDSET), a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project (DRL-0733137), is a collaboration between educators, engineers and mathematicians at three universities to achieve the following goals: (1) Enhancement of students’ mathematical ability, especially their ability to formulate and solve multi-step problems and interpret results; (2) Improvement in students’ attitude toward mathematics; and (3) Adoption of the curriculum in two states

The Ramps and Pathways project reflects an approach to engaging young children with physical science and engineering that is both developmentally appropriate and intellectually rigorous. It capitalizes on young children’s intrinsic desire to make something interesting happen; specifically, it engages children in designing, building, and using increasingly more complex ramp structures on which to move spheres and other objects. In doing so, it engages children in the design process: ask a question or identify a problem, plan, create, test, improve, and evaluate. Most engineering curricula for older children include linear models of the design process that consist of variations of these steps. However, such linear models fail to capture the realities of young children’s exploratory play and investigation of physical phenomena. The Ramps and Pathways project subscribes to a model of the design process in PreK-2nd grade classrooms that does not reveal itself as steps, but rather as non-sequential components that are often enacted simultaneously (sometimes within a few seconds). The Ramps and Pathways’ process emphasizes the iterative nature of the design process which is sometimes quite messy.

Real World Externships were developed as a solution to the often heard question of students, "When am I ever going to use this?" Teachers of secondary mathematics, science, and technology may not experience or become knowledgeable about the applications of their disciplines in industry through the course of standard teacher preparation. A bridge is needed to connect educators to the private sector. That is the impetus behind this program. Real World Externships provide educators with the experience to steer students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related careers. This is accomplished by teachers working side-by-side with local businesses and organizations in or near the community they serve. What all Real World Externships business partners have in common are commitments to STEM education in their communities and the capacity to provide a teacher with inspiring, meaningful projects working in consultation with academic mentors through the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council.

The Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing (RCNGM) is a National Science Foundation-funded Advanced Technological Education (NSF ATE) Center of Excellence developed by the Connecticut College of Technology (COT) in 2004 to develop a response to workforce needs for all 12 community colleges in Connecticut. The goals of the RCNGM are the creation of articulation pathways, student recruitment and retention, curriculum development, and professional development. Through open meetings of the Site Coordinator Council, input is received from community college and university faculty, government representatives, business and industry partners, and educational program partners.

This program of research, funded by the NSF, has shown that individual differences in early spatial skills are important factors, both in students’ early acquisition of arithmetic and their later math reasoning skills. Spatial skills consist of the ability to use mental pictures for solutions to problems—such as interpreting graphs, charts, and maps, and understanding geometry and measurement problems. It is particularly important to study the relation between spatial skills and math performance in girls, because on average, males tend to do better than females on key types of spatial tasks even in children as young as ages 3 and 4. In older students, higher spatial skills have also been shown to predict math achievement and choice of STEM majors and careers, particularly in fields where women are underrepresented. Research has clearly shown that spatial skills can be improved through training. This research has focused on understanding individual differences in early acquisition of spatial skills and the supportive strategies and methods that can be employed to scaffold these skills by teachers and parents.