Capstone Component
Capstone Component
Embedded Files
"Engineering a Better Classroom"
Green River Regional Education Cooperative, 2021 STEMFestival
12 In Person attendees & 3 Virtual attendees
5 Administrators, 2 Gift & Talented Coordinators, 1 Director K-12 Partnerships at SKYCTC, 2 Elementary teachers, 4 Middle School Teachers, and 1 High School Teacher
I chose "Engineering a Better Classroom" due to the connections I felt with my NASA Endeavor Engineering Course. The course inspired a transformation in my classroom with a shift from experimental design, which is valid for chemistry, to engineering design with a mindset of solving a real-world problem, which is valid for more than teaching just chemistry but teaching future educated, productive citizens. It's much bigger than just chemistry content. This shift offered my students richer opportunities to connect the content to a large scale community.
Teachers attending our "Engineering at Better Classroom" participated in a pear deck presentation with interactive features as they were introduced to the engineering design process and the value of converting their traditional scientific method teaching to engineering design. Teachers worked together on "The Twist" Puzzle puzzle to reiterate the concept that science is never finished, prototypes are never done, because we are constantly learning new things, receiving new twists and turns, and therefore forced to re-evaluate and redesign. To assess the attendees' understanding of the design process, we concluded our professional development with a "Breakout Box" that evaluated their understanding of the steps of the design process. Teachers left the professional development with a laminated poster of the engineering design with a QR code to our resource website.
In the second project, students were challenged with exploring energy conservation and transformations while applying the engineering design process and coding to create a robotic model of a renewable energy source to use as evidence in an energy debate. There was a twist, however, students were invited to be martian pioneers. For one million dollars, students were given the opportunity to relocate to Mars, taking with them their energy source which they had to adapt to the new martian environment. I first encountered coding during the "Coding, Robotics, and 1:1 Devices" NASA Endeavor course. Students utilized SNAP code, similar to SCRATCH code introduced in the course. The Hummingbird kits were discussed during a live session of the coding course and immediately sparked conversation among myself and my colleagues as we were exploring a Tennessee Valley Authority grant. We were awarded a $5000 grant from TVA to purchase 12 Chromebooks, 12 Hummingbird kits, and rechargeable batteries.
In semesters past in my classroom, students concluded a unit on nuclear chemistry with research about various energy sources that would lead to a class debate about the best source to bring to the local community. After the Endeavor courses, this project was transformed into an engineering challenge to build and code a robot to represent the energy transformations in their energy source. Granted the project timeline increased a great deal, the increased rigor, integration of content areas, and sheer excitement in my students skyrocketed.
The Mars twist allowed for further NASA Endeavor resources to be utilized. Pathfinder 360 and Mars Rover 360 provided students with a close-up view of their new terrain. Also shared in the "Methods of STEM Education" course Gateway to Mars was shared which provided a further platform to begin their research and revision of their prototype.
The professional development highlighted four projects, two of which from my classroom. Teachengineering.org and PBS Design squad resources were used to develop the following project, both acquired during the "E in STEM: Meaningful Content for Engineering" NASA Endeavor course. Multiple engineering design processes are in existence, this project focuses on the "TeachEngineering" method to navigate each step to build the bounciest, bouncy ball. TeachEngineering provided the premise of the "Bears R Us" companies proposal to its engineers, aka the students while using PBS Design squad to reinforce and later assess the engineering design process.
Reflections:
Reflections:
We had a very positive response to our professional development. Over 86% scored us with the highest marks for how efficiently we deliver the content, the opportunities we provided for application and reflection, our effective timing, and relevant materials. Their responses showed us that we accomplished our goals - to introduce them to the engineering design method and its benefits. Specific suggestions included more time for the activities, a break during the long session, and how to adapt for elementary. We are leading additional professional developments at the end of the summer to address elementary, therefore we all seem to be on the same page moving forward.
Attendees
Attendees
Terri Stice, Director STEM-Cs, terri.stice@grrec.org
Dale Goatley, STEM-Cs Coordinator, dale.goatley@grrec.org
Josh Belcher, Butler County Assistant Superintendent, josh.belcher@butler.kyschools.us
Stoye Young, Butler County High School Principal, stoye.young@butler.kyschools.us
Leah Butler, Morgantown Elementary Teacher, leah.butler@butler.kyschools.us
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