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Professional Relationships and Professional Growth
Professional Relationships and Professional Growth
"Connecting with Educators Internally and Across Districts"
"Connecting with Educators Internally and Across Districts"
As a result of the STEM-Cs opportunity, I have not only met with teachers across our region exploring STEM but specifically teachers across my district. I am a parent member of Morgantown Elementary School and Butler County Middle School, however, I am also an experienced science teacher. This has provided opportunities for me to share with the administration at various schools the benefits of STEM in the classroom and therefore have forged opportunities to collaborate with their teachers. I have worked with the specials teachers at MES providing professional development, resources, and advice as they began a STEM class twice a month for students K-5.
I also worked with the 4th-grade science teacher Leah Butler. We met several times throughout the school year. She attended some of the professional developments I led and we attended one together as well. I have worked to provide her with resources and lab supplies and even brought my dual credit students to perform a chemistry magic show for the 4th and 5th graders at MES and K-4 at North Butler Elementary School. In turn, we included her in our Super Saturday event to let her experience what we do in the classroom and find ways to incorporate more STEM into her classroom as well.
I have organized over ten Super Saturday events for local 2nd-8th graders hosted by our STEM club. This year's theme was Save the Oceans. We collaborated with NOAA and Dr. Steve Husky from Western Kentucky University. The goal is to plan the logistics, order supplies, teach the STEM club members, so that they can then lead and teach the participants.
Chemistry Magic Show : This began as a love passed to me by former department head Dr. Lowell Shank at Western Kentucky University. He took me along several of his magic shows as an assistant and passed down ideas, tools, and the passion to continue his legacy. I used it as a motivator in my dual credit chemistry classes - the light at the end of a challenging course was to spend the day performing magic shows for children. They develop a theme, costumes, and dialogue as they share their passion for science too.
I worked with MES specials teachers to develop ideas and share resources to kick start their STEM classes. We also collaborated on a grant through TVA to gain more resources as well. It's just the beginning but a great start.
Continuous Improvement
Continuous Improvement
"Increase Content Knowledge Self/Others"
"Increase Content Knowledge Self/Others"
Thanks to the STEM-Cs grant I have had multiple opportunities for professional development over the past few years. I gained a great deal of knowledge and resources about STEM through my NASA Endeavor courses: Methods of STEM Education, The E in STEM: Meaningful Content for Engineering, and Coding, Robotics, and 1:1 Devices. I continue to work with the chemistry department at Western Kentucky University with my partnership through the dual-credit program of which I teach inorganic and organic chemistry and will continue my journey with GRREC. I am also a member of KSTA and NSTA with plans to attend the NSTA conference with my department this coming school year. I will also be attending the NEED Energy Conference in Albuquerque, NM at the end of July 2022.
So far this project has been at least a year in the making and we continue to advance. The debut of the STEAM trailer was at the Green River Catfish Festival with plans to outfit a bus to take to community events and schools.
As I worked on the ART/Raku pottery project not only did I increase my content knowledge but together as colleagues we grew each other.
To this point, I have led PD at STEMfest, Hardin County Schools, and Butler County Schools. I hope to continue leading more in the future.
National Park Mammoth Cave PD June 2021
Countless PDs provided by GRREC since the beginning of the STEM-Cs grant: STEMCs Curriculum Redesign, Powerful Task Design, Instructional/Leadership Coaches Training, Ruby Payne Poverty Training, Achievement Teams Training, Phenomena Based Instruction, Transformational Coaching, Distance Learning Playbook, STEMfest 2021 to name a few since 2020.
Day 1.MOVDay 1 - Hardin County Schools Ignite PD that we led.
Continuous Improvement
Continuous Improvement
"Peer Support and Growth"
"Peer Support and Growth"
As I have developed and delivered professional developments, we have developed a google site to share at events and with colleagues. We are continuing to build this site as we discover new resources as well. We have stayed in communication with some of the participants and especially our local teachers as they tap into the resources and have questions. My goal is still to establish a STEAM network within my district to provide a firm foundation for us to build upon.
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