Over the last three years, I have attended any and all STEM related workshops and professional development to increase my own awareness. This is always the first step in educating others. As I have done this, I started with my own classroom and then moved to educating my grade level. I am in charge of writing the science plans for our grade level and designing the program, so this means that I write STEM units and then educate them on how to implement them in their classrooms. At first they really objected, but then when they started to experience the excitement from their students they were invigorated.
The second step is to educate my school. I have brought my principal onboard with the integration of STEM in all elementary classrooms. After seeing what my students have completed and the integration of math, writing, science, reading, and technology into the process, she was excited about other classrooms following suit. The next step was to design a professional development session in which the faculty participated in their own STEM lessons based on a concept that they taught. Let's say it opened a lot of eyes and I heard many OOOHHHH's.
At the district level this becomes a little more tricky. We have a director of math and science instruction, and her specialty is math. She has little interest in science and therefore asks me to attend many science and STEM workshops in her place. I have applied to be a presenter for the Fall 2013 professional development sessions. I am hoping to gain an interest in the elementary level that will get teachers up and moving with the STEM initiative, so that as the students reach the middle school and high school level they already have a greater interest in the STEM career paths.
No comments:
Post a Comment