What did I do before?

• I have been teaching for nearly 20 years and have revamped my curriculum multiple times. I always thought teaching would get easier as time passed, but I'm not one to sit idle, and each semester I'm changing things up to improve my teaching.

• I have collected resources over the years from colleagues, conferences, professional developments, and of course online. Many times the resources lacked the rigor the NGSS presents, especially when viewing assessment tools.

• I have purchased many resources online as well, some are good, others aren't. This process gets expensive and often needs to be modified and fact-checked.

• I have tried to transition through the years from a less teacher-led classroom to a more student-led classroom. This is quite a challenge to ensure you get all content necessary in with the proper level of rigor all while managing a classroom of varying learning styles and levels.

How was it working?

• My reply is...okay. Students were learning, no doubt. Yet I continued to search for more efficient ways to get students thinking on their own, truly solving problems.

What have you noticed?

• I have seen a shift in their thinking when they walk through my classroom doors. Students may struggle at first to tackle inquiry-based tasks, but as they apply the steps of the engineering process in solving problems, they become more confident and able to persevere through challenges. They become accustomed to effective teams holding each other accountable. Students are excited and don't always realize how much they are learning until they complete the task. It's not based on a paper-pencil test score at the end of a unit anymore, it's based on how well they improved through the process of finding a solution to a problem.

Schwartz, R. (2007). What's in a Word? How Word Choice Can Develop (Mis) conceptions about the Nature of Science. Science Scope, 31(2), 42-47.

Koehler, C., Binns, I. C., & Bloom, M. A. (2015). The emergence of STEM. In STEM road map (pp. 13-22). Routledge.

The readings truly helped to solidify my views of the nature of science. I often inject the stories of scientists into my teaching and at least an overview of the struggles and investigations they went through to provide the knowledge we have now as we navigate through the content of chemistry. At times I've questioned the time I have spent, however, the readings reassured me of the worth of that information. As I read, I was led down a path of looking up the resources quoted and found tidbits I can incorporate right now to strengthen my classroom. For example, adding to my first unit about the Nature of Science with activities for the students to compare and develop explanations of experiment vs investigation, hypothesis, theory vs law, and evidence vs data. (What's in a Word?, R. Schwartz, p. 46-47). Also from that article, the view that students often have that data is correct because it proves the hypothesis is a misconception that overlooks the value of the evidence as a result of data interpretation, not just raw data.

Something else that resonated with me was the push of scientific literacy as opposed to a traditional classroom setting of dispensing knowledge. This very much supports the STEM movement. "The emphasis on conveying factual information at the expense of processes of knowing gives students the impression that scientific knowledge cannot be improved upon, and thus they develop that sense of acceptance in the face of authority, which shortchanges their understanding of science, "(The Nature of Science: Integrating Historical, Philosophical, and Sociological Perspectives, F. Espinoza, p. 8) which goes to support the dialogue in the Koehler article about the desperate need for STEM to compete globally and the development of Project 2061.

"I used to love science . . . and then I went to school - Physics." https://physics.weber.edu/johnston/methods/ladsonbillings.htm.

I was really intrigued by the "I Used to Love Science..." article. I always loved science growing up but really didn't experience it much in school. Lessons were centered on rote memorization - we didn't even have a science fair. We had the standard science lessons about planets in elementary school and progressed into high school chemistry, however, there was never an investigation. It honestly wasn't until I became a teacher and students asked the questions that would lead us to investigate or even more so when I became a mom and my children are always wondering and asking. Unfortunately, even now with K-12 science standards I still see this with my children who are in kindergarten and 5th grade. That's a topic for another day.

The section of the article about "How Science Could Be" focused on how the students' desire to learn increased when the teaching approach included topics close to their hearts and homes that they felt like they could make a difference - a.k.a socio-political consciousness. Many of the middle-class students will more often accept the fact that the curriculum laid before them is necessary, whereas those "who are struggling to engage with school need a curriculum that engages them." I think this is was STEM is all about. At the same time, this can be a challenging endeavor as a teacher to find those types of phenomena and investigations to incorporate into the classroom in our ever-changing world.

The article praised those teachers who were unafraid to deviate from their prescribed curriculum. I agree, yet my school is doing walkthroughs weekly with the main focus to observe the standards explicitly being taught. It is a mindset that will have to shift for it all to work together. Obviously, if we are leading valid investigations of the skills of NGSS, students will be experienced regardless of whether the exact content standard is covered.

McKenney, S., & Voogt, J. (2012). Teacher design of technology for emergent literacy: An explorative feasibility study. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 37(1), 4-12.

Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hernandez, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., . . . Kafai, Y. (2009). Scratch: Programming for all. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60-67.

I found it interesting the discussion of today´s youth being ¨digital natives.¨ We often have the misconception that our youth are tech-savvy however through my experience with distance learning it is obvious that many are not. They are indeed experts at text messaging, online games, and browsing youtube but that does not necessarily carry over to educational use of technology, and even further from programming. Therefore, this increases the need for educators to include technology applications in our classrooms. For that reason, I’m excited to work with the Scratch program where my students can ¨learn mathematical and computational concepts, as well as how to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively; all essential skills for the 21st century.¨ I appreciate that the goal of Scratch is not to prepare students to be professional programmers but to provide opportunities to be creative, systematic thinkers who use programming as they express their ideas and improve their problem-solving skills. This allows widespread use across any content area. The ability to upload Scratch projects so that community members can borrow, adapt, and build on existing projects fits quite well with the engineering design process that I am starting to integrate into my chemistry classroom after taking an engineering course this past summer. The process takes a student beyond the scientific method and experimental design to the idea that one continually iterates and continues to improve - no such thing as a final product. That is what science is based on. I’m curious to learn more about the Scratch sensor board and how I could utilize Scratch in my chemistry lab. Our current setting of in-person and digital learning has forced teachers to search for effective technology. As McKenney and Voogt showed in their studies, teachers were more effective when they had the opportunity to work through technology themselves with time allocated by their districts to acquire further support before implementing it in the classroom. We often have short PD´s to show us new technologies but opportunities like this class I feel will prove to be more beneficial and more likely to produce long-term use of the methods in our classrooms.

Franz, G., & Papert, S. (1988). Computer as material: Messing about with time. Teachers College Record, 89(3), 408.

I found it quite interesting that the article was published in 1988. That was around the age that my elementary school introduced computers into the classroom, albeit quite limited. Each classroom received one computer and I was not allowed to use it. It was reserved for those who were receiving extra help in reading, etc. We did have a pull out program, once a week, for “Gifted and Talented” kids, as we were labeled, and that program received 7 or 8 computers. Once a week we were exposed to the technology through playing “Oregon Trail.” As the article stated it was “an exciting activity in and of itself.” As time passed and I entered high school we spent time learning about Microsoft Office and I even had a paying job with the computer teacher assisting with night classes offered to the community about the programs. Adults tended to ask me questions, more so than the teacher, they weren’t as concerned with sounding uneducated with me. I stayed quite busy during those classes. In my senior year, I did sign up for a programming class where our first task was to design a frog that leaped across the screen. I quickly switched out of that class because I didn’t see the value at the time.

I did however find great value in the project by David Hawkins and Eleanor Duckworth introducing children to “messing about” with times and clocks. As I am incorporating engineering into my classroom this project would be a great, meaningful introduction to the concept and need for engineering. Sharing the candle demonstration, removing their timing devices, and having students develop their own timing devices would be a valuable lesson to express the entire concept of engineering and that science can be about “messing about” as part of your brainstorming and research project. That was what, as a high school student, I continually expressed to the adults in the computer night class - “You can’t mess this up!” They were wary to believe me that they couldn’t destroy Microsoft Word or Excel. NGSS is all about an emphasis on skills such as inquiry as the timing project showed. As the project progresses and they reached phase 2, that would directly tie to unit conversions in chemistry and even accuracy and precision in measurements. These would spawn great discussions of those concepts, to specifically use a Scratch time could be effective when doing acid-base titrations or observing speeds of reactions, perhaps.

"(PDF) Innovative Educational Practice: Using Virtual Labs in ...." 15 Aug. 2020, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26499877_Innovative_Educational_Practice_Using_Virtual_Labs_in_the_Secondary_Classroom. Accessed 11 Oct. 2020.

It is fascinating that one tool could offer so many advantages. We do not have a designated class or club for coding at my school, however, we do have an enrichment course students can take if they have met benchmarks on their MAPP testing, which is a STEM course. Students move into the class throughout the semester as they reach their benchmarks, therefore this would be a perfect tool to let students dive into the curriculum at any point of the semester. I would have to dig into the concept more to see how I could specifically apply it in my chemistry classroom. I think it would be difficult to devote a large chunk of time to students acquiring robotics skills. At the same time, if we were to do a small unit on robotics in our freshman course, another in Biology, and continue developing those skills it might be possible to include in my course. We are already trying to do that with engineering skills.

Studies featured in ¨Innovative Educational Practice: Using Virtual Labs in the Secondary Classroom” showed that students learn science effectively online. Students were taught with hands-on chemistry labs, as well as eLabs. Not only did schools benefit from cost savings for consumables and chemical waste management, but students also gained valuable technology skills they would need later for our current state of online learning, college, and in the workplace. Therefore the value of utilizing this tool is definitely there.

The financial benefits of using Robot Virtual Worlds as opposed to physical robots is definitely appealing. My department wrote and received a grant with TVA to get Hummingbird kits and supporting technology to use first with our STEM club and STEM enrichment class, then introduced them into our regular curriculum once we were more familiar with robotics.

Wetzel, K., & Marshall, S. (2012). TPACK goes to sixth grade: Lessons from a middle school teacher in a high-technology-access classroom.

Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(2), 73-81. doi:10.1080/21532974.2011.10784683

The article recommends beginning with learning goals and activities in a content area, then selecting and using digital tools to help students meet the learning goals. This is the prime benefit of the Endeavor program. Many tools have been presented to us in isolation of our content areas. It has also been a huge opportunity in that the courses I have taken so far do not have chemistry examples and therefore has challenged me to dig deeper into my content and envision the best approach that will help my students and which technologies will support the process demonstrating the PCK - Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

In our current climate of distance learning and in person learning, I try to reserve my in person days for hands on learning as opposed to direct delivery of information. Evidence of TPK, Technological Pedagogical Knowledge is shown when I share with my students my ¨Week at a glance.” It is with my daily bell work, posted weekly to my google classroom, and my teacher website. Students have a heads up to which technology tools they will be using daily in person or on their own. I try to work through examples with any new technology tools before itś time for my students to perform the task. I am honest, however, when itś the first time I've used the tool in class and that we will learn together.

My hope is that my classroom reflects technology being used to enhance my students learning both of the content and also the technology skills so that they can be independent, effective learners. That is more important now than ever.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). In Cole M., John-Steiner V., Scribner S. and Souberman E. (Eds.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

It's ironic to be taking this course during such a time of increased online learning. I'm constantly looking for valuable virtual chemistry labs and it is difficult to find ones that are user friendly and effective. As I test out labs, I look at them differently now by thinking through what type of coding went into producing the lab. When there are errors I'm reminded of the debugging process with our scratch projects. I always urge my students to realize that chemistry surrounds them everywhere, and now it seems that coding does as well.

After looking through the Vidcode website, I was concerned about the $600 per year fee for the high school content and therefore moved to the free content. The Snapchat filter challenge sparked my interest but looking through I don't know that students would be able to work through it without background lessons on coding unless they simply depended on trial and error. It seems this would work well as a stand-alone class or enrichment class. Honestly, I think it would be difficult to place aside enough time for students to work through the coding curriculum in a core content class. I will definitely pass this along to my technology teacher and keep in mind for an enrichment class or Super Saturday event.

"STEM Teachers in Professional Learning Communities: From Good ...."

https://www.wested.org/resources/stem-teachers-in-professional-learning-communities-from-good-teachers-to-great-teaching/.

"How Boomers Can Contribute to Student Success - ERIC." https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED512649.pdf.

This article reiterates my thoughts on PLCs across a district. Many school systems do this I know but I’ve never experienced it successfully in my small district. It has been attempted a few times but never content-focused. I just think about how beneficial “could it be to put math and science teachers together K-12 for meaningful discussion. As a result of our current experiences with technology may be an online platform would work best. Of course, the key is the shared values and goals, “STEM learning teams must address key features: shared goals and values, leadership support, issues of time and pacing, focus on student data and work products, collective responsibility for student achievement, good facilitation, and building trust” and time set aside to accomplish this. I truly feel one positive that will come out of this pandemic, for my school district at least, is that some of these things will finally happen. The benefits from having one virtual day a week, of course, are usually loading down with meetings, but time is set aside for teachers to collaborate.

A part of the article that really excites me is referencing STEM professionals integrating into these groups. Honestly, it sounds like a perfect scenario but the cynic in me thinks it’s a difficult goal to achieve. For example, in my further findings, I read about two case studies. One focused on George Auchampaugh, a 40-year retired scientist for the US Department of Energy who worked with the Santa Fe Alliance for Science in New Mexico as a high school math and physics tutor. Volunteer scientists served as tutors, mentors, science fair judges, made classroom visits, and presided over discussions during a recurring “Science Cafe’s for Young Thinkers.” How amazing to offer something even close to that to our students. In the second case study, Isaac Levy, a 30-year engineer for Intel, joined the Adjunct Teaching Initiative in Arizona. The adjunct teachers received three 12 hour pieces of training in “adolescent development; high school culture; classroom management; district/school law and policies; cultural proficiency; learning environment strategies; and instructional planning.” They are then paired with an effective veteran teacher and collaboration begins. Levy worked 2 hours a day, four days a week throughout the year. He helped fill in the gaps for teachers and students, provided support for the teacher, was the regular substitute to provide continuity. He expressed that his work helped demonstrate to teachers many different ways to teach the same materials and bring in a critical real-world context. He helps to prepare students for work in high-tech jobs and extra academic support and remediation as needed. Sounds like an amazing collaboration.

Berry (2019). Preparing to Lead an Effective Classroom: The Role of Teacher Training and Professional Development Programs https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED509718.pdf

I would like to talk about the study from Miami-Dade Public Schools which "found that teachers improve their practice at greater rates when they work in schools with better quality collaboration." My current department is a tight group, however that has not always been the case. We are finally on board with weekly PLC's that have a true purpose and thanks to NTI days we have time to collaborate weekly. Now we can discuss our assessments, even if we are all teaching different classes, strategies for improvement, etc. I feel like we finally have the support to work together to strengthen our schools, instead of offering an idea, told to run with it, but no support to help accomplish the goal. I found it interesting the opportunity mentioned in the charter sector, for "teachers to carry a reduced teaching load, giving them time to observe and provide feedback to a group of their peers at least once a week." I don't feel I'm an expert to go and observe and critique other teachers however the prospect of having an opportunity to develop quality science curriculum and tasks for myself and others and still remain in the classroom with a manageable workload would be a dream come true. It's refreshing to see the research that shows teachers and administrators working together to strengthen their schools by letting teachers lead from within.

Harris, A., & Michelle, J. (2019) Teacher leadership and educational change, School Leadership & Management, 39(2), 123-126, DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2019.1574964

"Teacher leadership and educational change." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13632434.2019.1574964. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

"Micropolitics in the School: Teacher Leaders' Use of Political Skill ...." https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ972880. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Upon reading the article, I thought about the “flip the system” in the sense that currently many decisions of how our schools are run, how our students are assessed, and how we are held accountable are made by legislators and not teachers. Yes, we have teachers' unions and organizations to attempt to speak on behalf of teachers and students but often the union organizations are so tied to politics and lobbyists that I question the motive sometimes. The article states, “ Much policymaking still tends to factor out the teacher’s voice, preferring instead to take a steer from international organizations or think thanks that often have cursory knowledge about the contexts where the work of teaching and learning is taking place.” When I became a teacher, I had no idea how politically driven my profession and how what I would be teaching in my classroom would be affected.

Interestingly enough I found a study focused on teachers not as “passive actors in the politics of schools, but also use political strategies to increase their bargaining power through the deployment of influence tactics.” So this study zooms into the school setting as opposed to the nation at large, yet I found it intriguing the connections to skills that politicians use in their profession. The study referred to aspects of teaching such as “While performance, effectiveness, and career success are determined in part by hard work and intelligence, other factors such as social astuteness, networking, positioning, and savvy also have important roles in organizations.” True that leaders are born out of more than knowledge but the skills to share that perspective with others. Something not taught in teacher prep programs, especially my experience. I went through an alternative program in its second year. My science methods training was 2 sessions, classroom management 2 sessions, and lots of time on reading the teacher standards, then off to your classroom. The real purpose of the study was not to highlight political skills but to focus on teacher leadership as the ability to influence and engage their colleagues to move to improved practice, to change and do things they wouldn’t ordinarily consider without top-down direction to better their classroom. It found that next to students’ influence, strong relationships with colleagues are the key to leading others in their teaching practices. This supports the idea of flipping the system to truly make changes in our classrooms. Changes not driven by legislative decisions about assessment, the newest trend introduced by an administration or education commissioner, but meaningful changes to improve how we teach our students.

Check out some of our participants engaging in the activities and our evaluation survey results!

We were quite anxious to present at our first professional development, however as we got started we quickly found our groove and had a great time! So much so that it led to 3 more days of leading PD the following summer with hopes to do more. Our survey showed that participants responded positively to our content delivery effectiveness, opportunities to apply and reflect on learned content, time usage, and effectiveness and usefulness of materials. 93% of participants indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed that they learned something significant and useful during the professional development that they would share with others in their school district. Knowing such a large percentage felt compelled to take this back to our schools was quite rewarding. Big hits from the resources shared were the breakout room activity, Mars Helicopter activity, and Canva. They seemed to enjoyed seeing how Canva can be used to make their own videos quite easily. The prize of the engineering design posters as a result of breaking out seemed to be quite appreciated by the teachers in the room.

STEM is transforming my classroom

Currently, I teach Chemistry, dual credit Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry, and dual credit Introduction to Organic Chemistry. I have been able to integrate STEM into each of these courses, primarily through modifying the use of experimental design to be more solution-based. All courses now have an engineering project at the beginning of the course with the addition of coding into Chemistry and Intro to Inorganic. Moving forward, my department is going to collaborate to develop three semester-long engineering projects that all science classes will participate in. Our students are required to have three years of science, therefore they will experience each engineering task during their high school career. We are going to utilize these tasks to also address NGSS standards and skills that we are not able to prepare our students thoroughly in the required courses.

What are your most valuable takeaways from the GRREC ED experience?

• I am more familiar now with research-based practices.

• It has changed my mindset as I plan my lessons. I have been teaching for 19 years and have acquired a multitude of resources, however, each year I find I am constantly revamping, and my time with NASA Endeavor has led me to evaluate my day-to-day these past few school years and transform them even more, specifically the engineering and STEM careers integration.

• I was given the opportunity to not only attend engaging professional developments but present them as well. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience and I hope to be able to continue to do so in the future.

• I had opportunities for deep conversations with experts, brainstorming sessions with colleagues and mentors, and formed meaningful connections that will continue for years to come.

How have you become a better STEM educator as a result of participating in GRREC ED and the STEM-CS grant? I have always wanted to create a more student-centered classroom, and finally, with my experiences from NASA Endeavor and the STEM-Cs grant, I have been able to transform my classroom into just that. I have spent less time talking than ever and students are having richer conversations and controlling their own learning. Even lessons I have used before are responded to differently as students have more confidence and different expectations of themselves. In the past few years, as chaotic as they have been, I have enjoyed teaching more than ever! I have felt revitalized back to the first years of teaching when my passion was still new and exciting. I truly feel a greater connection with my students and although we may have not "covered as much content" they have a deeper understanding and improved problem-solving skills than when they first walked into my classroom this school year. I think I am a better problem solver as well after teaching them in this different way.

Summarize your efforts for applying professional learning and redesigning your curriculum to enhance STEM learning for ALL students.

• The integration of bringing science, technology, engineering, art, and math into my classroom has moved the focus onto logical thought processes and problem-solving that allows students to develop mental habits that will help them succeed in any field. They now have the tools to think more critically and come up with their own solutions as opposed to just following the steps I model for them.

• The engineering process is now a way of life in my classroom. We use it often because it applies to anytime you are trying to solve a problem, whether it is building a model, coding a robot, or simply working through a paper-pencil stoichiometry problem. The engineering process is a way of thinking through the steps to solve a problem.

• My students will now leave high school more employable because of the skills they have acquired from my science department, largely in part to the STEM methods we have implemented.

• Upon completing the achievement team trainer certification course, I applied the ideology to how my students and I evaluated mastery of concepts. It shed new light and moved away from just evaluating their score on the unit assessment to a true continuous learning process throughout the course. This has resulted in me becoming more data-driven with my students, which is a great example of what STEM is all about.

Were there factors that limited your ability to implement what you described above as intended? Were there factors outside of your control that may have impacted the results?

• Pure and simple...time: Not only were we limited with time after covid with our students and had to pick and choose what we could do with them, but the best practices often take time, time to plan and implement. My department and I had the luxury of all working through the STEM program and we had some great ideas, but time to plan and collaborate is limited. 2020-2021 proved to give us the most time to work together and we were able to get some things off the ground on the Wednesdays we didn't have students. During the 2021-2022 school year, more G days were added to our calendar but quickly filled with training and meetings. My hope is this year after implementing many things we learned over the course of the program we will be able to tweak them and build upon them together as a department.

• STEM projects require funds. This has been an interesting challenge. We have received resources from the GRREC team and we are getting quite experienced at writing grants. So far since the beginning of our participation in the program, we have received $5000 from TVA to buy Chromebooks and hummingbird robotics kits, $2000 for an outdoor classroom (still waiting on the district to install), and $15,000 from NOAA for our Marine Biology course. However, our district has big ideas for us to promote STEM across the community and honestly provide positive PR for the district. GRREC has even agreed to partner on the project, but our district has failed to move forward on the project. They were adamant that we set up at our local county fair with a STEM bus. We designed stations, developed supply lists, and made it happen only to be left with a small enclosed trailer and the chore of setting up tents and tables daily in the heat and rain. It has been a bit frustrating and disheartening, to say the least. The community responded very positively to the experience at the festival and we achieved our goal of creating a space and guidance to promote deeper conversations between children and parents with STEM activities. Nonetheless, not one person from our school board or school administrators visited our site, Terri Stice did though and that's why we are so thankful for our continued partnership with GRREC and STEM-Cs. We are not giving up though and still have plans to one day have a STEAM bus to share with our community and beyond.

What are the implications to your work?

• I love teaching more now than ever and I'm getting ready to start my 20th year in the classroom!!

• Students are leaving my classroom with greater problem-solving and critical thinking skills making them more employable for society.

• I now have a greater professional influence within my district and beyond.

What are some specific next steps for continuing or building upon your work?

• Continue to use more research-based practices in my classroom.

• Spearhead the STEAM bus project and see it through to completion and implementation.

• Develop, get approved, and implement a STEM career pathway at Butler County High School.

• Continue as a STEAM consultant for my district and beyond.

• Locate other opportunities to lead STEAM-related professional development.