Woodland Forrest Elementary School

Our Story

The onset of the COVID 19 pandemic challenged schools and educational systems in unprecedented ways. Although most other fundamental societal structures were forced to close, schools were mandated to remain operational. Learning was expected to continue virtually during this crisis. Amidst all the confusion, anxiety and the general sense of resignation toward what many thought would be a lost year of education, the teachers and students at Woodland Forrest Elementary shared a feeling of calm confidence. This was actually a test that they had prepared for, having spent the past two years developing a viable STEM program, and through that work cultivating a sense of collective efficacy in the realm of online teaching and learning. Woodland Forrest (WF) teachers had become especially adept practitioners of teaching through technology, effective at delivering robust instruction and designing engaging virtual lessons. Therefore, students had already become accustomed to utilizing digital tools and resources, and they knew how to access online platforms each day, where self-paced and personalized assignments awaited them. The pandemic would certainly bring an onslaught of challenges to WF, but virtual teaching and remote learning would not be among them.

The origins of the WF STEM journey actually began long before COVID 19 highlighted the necessity of a tech savvy school personnel and student body. WF had a reputation of being the “science school” in Tuscaloosa City since 2009, when it became a Discovering Alabama Model School in recognition of its outstanding science curriculum, partnerships and collection of live animals, aquariums, and outdoor classrooms. In order to add an environmental bent to its science program, the school built a vegetable garden, outdoor pond and nature trails, eventually achieving national Green Ribbon status in 2017. The evolution from science to STEM began to occur with a change in school administration the following year. The new principal came from a middle school within the WF student feeder pattern and had been struck by the number of students at that location that viewed computer science basically as a foreign language and were not interested in technology beyond a merely consumer level. They also struggled mightily with math, especially conceptual thinking and problem-solving. The future impact of these issues, apathy toward utilizing technology, and a dearth of higher-level mathematical thinking was made obvious during the principal’s participation in a Tuscaloosa World of Work cohort. During the WOW conference, local industry leaders from Mercedes, BF Goodrich, Pfifer, and Newcore Steel lamented the lack of locally grown talent and implored school administrators to begin consistently producing students equipped with the necessary skill set and attitude to fill their labs and offices and design and run the complex robotics systems at their plants. WF’s new leadership took this task to heart, realizing that the school could be the perfect place to address these gaps in student learning and simultaneously produce suitable future candidates for local businesses. After all, its science program already had the essential components of STEM education in place: student-centered, hands-on learning, real world experiences, a cohesive curricular focus, and a faculty accustomed to interdisciplinary instruction. The administration changeover in 2018 was a perfect opportunity to galvanize these latent elements and make the creation of a fully realized STEM school the next step in WF’s natural evolution. Immediate progress in this endeavor came in the realm of technology, as WF leaned on a small, but highly creative and talented group of teachers to form an in-house “tech team”, a pocket of innovators capable of designing captivating digital lessons, vetting resources, and experimenting with platforms and tools. Most importantly, the team was skilled at providing the turnaround component, effective at delivering professional development and ongoing support to their colleagues. Rather quickly, WF began to forge a new identity, wherein the term science school now began to encompass computer science, as well. The newly coined distinction of being a tech team member quickly became redundant as the entire WF faculty embraced the new instructional opportunities available through digital platforms. Collective teacher efficacy in technology usage and integration became the school’s focus, culminating in a discernible shift in both daily instructional practices and long-term learning objectives for the WF “graduate.” Along the way, the school hosted several large-scale events, including Digital Literacy Night, Week of Code, and DiscoverFest. Stakeholders took notice, and by 2019, the school had fully developed its own “brand” as the incubator school. It became a place where the school district would pilot its learning initiatives, such as computational thinking for teachers, coding in the classroom, and multiple robotics programs. The University of Alabama reached out to partner with WF for a series of ongoing research programs and as a location in which they could mentor their College of Education interns. Most recently, this burgeoning reputation as a forward-thinking institution landed WF a partnership with AMSTI to house the first TIR (Teacher in Residence) math coaches in the state, a project that produced empirical, immediate, positive results, and has now expanded to include other TCS schools.

WF’s core values and beliefs, as they pertain to STEM, are derived from the school vision statement: A Woodland Forrest student is an innovator who applies and adapts learning to solve “their-world” and real-world problems in a collaborative, inquiry based community. We believe these attributes and skills open doors for future careers that impact their personal and societal goals. At WF we believe that all students deserve to be taught foundational skills in all disciplines and that they should learn skills at an early age that translate to, and propel them toward, the best possible individual and societal outcomes. We believe that any version of an optimal future necessitates instilling in our students STEM-centric educational attitudes, priorities, and capabilities, including legitimate 21st century skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. At our core, we value equity and opportunity primarily because WF is a Title I school. Our student population is majority African American and on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. This is a group that has historically been woefully underrepresented in STEM fields. Inherent in our school’s mission and STEM vision is an obligation to rectify this issue through two main tenets. First, we need to open doors for our students that direct them toward fulfilling academic and career opportunities. Additionally, we want students to not only understand the world around them but to have a sense of agency in changing and contributing to society in a meaningful way; thus, our focus is on real and their world issues. We also serve a large group of English-language learner (ELL) and special education (SPE) students. We believe that typical STEM education practices, such as hands-on, collaborative, and experiential learning, are perfectly tailored to provide differentiated methods of accessing content and allow these students alternate avenues of demonstrating their learning. The vision statement also serves as a collective philosophy of intent and as a blueprint for the teaching and administrative processes necessary to engender the desired outcomes. We realize that although every student will not be a programmer, scientist, or engineer when they grow up, WF has the obligation to not only keep that door open, as opportunity is only part of the equation, but more specifically, that we need to build the beginnings of the tract upon which our students move in that direction. Developing strong computer science and technology skills are obviously paramount when planning for future student outcomes, yet so is ensuring that our students are solid mathematicians and have a well-developed sense of curiosity and connectedness to the scientific world.

Institutional practices at WF are a natural outcome of collectively working in concert with, and toward, the goals outlined in our vision statement. All of our school-wide level planning, from large scale projects such as developing the yearly ACIP all the way down to smaller, albeit equally, important processes such as daily teacher lesson plans are developed through the STEM vision lens. Our goal is not simply receiving STEM certification. We are interested in long-term achievement in the form of establishing a learning system that is truly embedded and sustainable. We are not chasing a banner, award, or designation. Instead, we are in pursuit of solidifying an identity, a way of doing things, a culture. We understand the significance of each letter in the STEM education acronym. Moreover, when STEM is enacted at the elementary school level, we are essentially referring to instructional best practices: cross-curricular instruction, technology content integration, project-based learning, collaboration, and inquiry-based teaching strategies. To become a STEM school we have worked diligently to ensure that these best practices have become truly embedded in not just our philosophy of education but in the actual day-to-day methodology. Foundational instruction and planning processes are routinely constructed with STEM learning experiences and outcomes intentionally built in. For this purpose, we hired a full-time STEM Coordinator dedicated to designing thematic units, lessons, and activities that are interdisciplinary, experiential, and connect our students to the world around them. Our STEM culture percolates through our collective teacher efficacy mindset, wherein individual and group growth occur organically by allowing our teachers to innovate, collaborate, and professionally develop one another. As a faculty, we are not afraid to fail or make mistakes, and much of our progress has come from revisions to plans and processes that we’ve implemented along the way. One of the processes that we’ve established as an institutional practice is our “badging” system, an accreditation process whereby teachers earn specific badges of merit when they demonstrate effective use of various technology tools or have completed a peer-observed STEM lesson. We celebrate the awarding of these badges at faculty meetings, and teachers display them on their classroom doors. Our culture is further sustained, and improved, through purposeful recruitment and vetting of new teachers. We are always seeking to bolster and reinvigorate our faculty with educators who are on the cutting edge of instructional practices based on the latest research. Each year we have been able to infuse our culture with new ideas and energy when the next crop of teachers arrive on campus.

Continuous improvement comes in many forms, and we have actually used the certification process as a continuous improvement tool. Using the Cognia STEM framework has helped us discern areas of strength and areas for improvement. Most importantly, the framework pushed us to expand our idea of what a true STEM community should entail. In the past, we sought out partnerships to service specific priorities identified through gaps in our data and involved stakeholders mostly for mandatory school-wide processes and events. This approach, thinking in terms of individual lanes of involvement rather than a connected system of support, kept us from reaching the level of synergy necessary to stake claim to being a STEM school. To rectify this situation, we have changed the way we plan. Everything from academic initiatives to teacher development and parental involvement are designed with a focus on collaboration. Now we are routinely bringing together educators, professionals, academics, and parents to meet with our teachers and work alongside our students. Together these teams have created a series of cohesive, realistic, and engaging STEM projects that align with our instructional standards. This shift toward an all-inclusive approach to educating our students has proven to be easier and more beneficial than we envisioned, due in large part to the fact that these disparate groups all intersect in their aspiration toward the same goals and outcomes for our students. Over the past few years we have been intentional in our efforts to form a community of diverse stakeholders that can help push the needle in academic growth, provide resources and real-world application opportunities, and routinely expose our students to professionals in the STEM fields.

Our biggest successes to date are directly attributable to the relationships we have built during our drive to form a STEM community at WF. Our partnership with The University of Alabama has been especially rewarding for our students and teachers, particularly in terms of student outcomes. UA has provided training for our entire faculty in computer science, robotics, and coding. As a result, we now have a team of fifth-grade students in the state semifinals for the Governor’s App Challenge. Our after school STEM program, which runs in concert with UA Engineers and is tied to the Million Girls Moonshot initiative, recently won an award and a $55,000 grant to ensure its future sustainability. We connected the UA Writing Department with science instructors and are in the process of developing a writing-in-science curriculum for next fall. As stated previously, AMSTI chose WF as the sole school to pilot its math Teacher in Residency (TIR) program last year after witnessing the potential of our teachers during professional development sessions. As a result, not only have our math scores improved dramatically, but we’ve also managed to connect AMSTI with our UA partners to host a community STEM Night this spring. These are specific examples of ways in which STEM learning has impacted our school, but more significant has been the total paradigm shift in our teachers, students, and parents. On the instructional level, the mindset has shifted to planning interdisciplinary units and lessons. For example, it is customary to see our music teacher support an activity on fractions by relating them to notes and familiar beats. Our art teacher intentionally chooses projects containing 3-dimensional, engineering and construction elements, and our library has entire sections of books dedicated to STEM. We have permanently altered our system of collaboration, no longer teaching subjects in silos. For our students, the monumental change has manifested in their capacity to be technology content producers rather than mere consumers. They have become accustomed to demonstrating their learning and showcasing their talent through online platforms, and we are proud of the fact that one-hundred percent of our students, even those in Pre-K, are able to code. We have not only changed our teacher mindset, but there is a noticeable difference in student attitudes as well. Our students have come to expect hands-on, engaging, cross-curricular lessons that are applicable and relevant to their lives.

Our Impact Diagnostic was introduced by highlighting our readiness and response to the pandemic. However, the past two years have also presented a host of serious obstacles. When initially challenged we were able to rise to the occasion, in terms of virtual teaching and technology integration, but COVID also forced us to close our campus, which created large gaps in student learning. The loss of face-to-face instruction for foundational reading processes and hands-on math experiences have impacted all data points. We found that even the best digital tools are unable to replace some of the essential components of primary-grade teaching strategies. And although we are slowly bringing reticent or adrift parents and community stakeholders back on campus, their absence has had a discernable impact on our ability to support teachers and participate in our STEM activities and events at the same high pre-pandemic level. Only during the past few months have we been able to completely reengage with our community in the types of in-person experiences that are so crucial to our program. More subtle, but slightly more pernicious is the pressure to scale back the teaching and learning cycle to simply the “essentials” of reading and math as schools recover from COVID-related issues. This pressure is not entirely new. Throughout our journey toward becoming a STEM school, one of the challenges we have consistently faced is the notion that the primary responsibility of elementary educators is to provide foundational instruction in reading and math, period. Throughout this process, we have faced district mandates that these two subjects were to be “protected” in blocks of isolated time each day, and instruction in science, social studies and any other subject should randomly occur in the remaining spaces. Since all accountability measures are geared toward reading and math data, the impetus to put a hard focus on these subjects is understandable. This is especially true in relation to the learning gaps that have arisen from many students’ responses to virtual learning. Thus, the challenge is staying the course, even when faced with the current difficulties. It would be easy at this juncture to eliminate “extra” activities or curricular requirements and return to teaching disciplines in protected silos. Fortunately, we understand that STEM is not an “extra” but an “essential.” It is not part of a learning system….it is the learning system. WF is too far along in its STEM journey to revert to anachronistic practices, or flinch at the number of students whom the pandemic has unmoored from their academic growth trajectories. We are up to the challenge. We have worked hard to establish a culture, forge an identity, build a brand, and employ a faculty capable of reconnecting those students to our vision and to their deserved educational and career outcomes.

Our Story.mp4