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The 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. These attributes and skills provide opportunities for future careers that impact their personal and societal goals.
The 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. These attributes and skills provide opportunities for future careers that impact their personal and societal goals.
These attributes and skills provide opportunities for future careers that impact their personal and societal goals.” While this statement describes a Woodland Forrest STEM student, it also describes the culture to which we aspire. It serves as a blueprint for our overall STEM mission, for individual student outcomes should collectively contribute to the overall success and sustainability of the program. This statement was organically developed over time as we built the STEM program, and our vision revealed itself through ongoing needs analysis, daily practices, and student feedback. This final version is a culmination of a series of collaborative sessions in which the Woodland Forrest faculty deliberated upon these data points to codify the appropriate attributes, characteristics, and skill sets that are representative of a student who is a product of our mission and culture.
It is one thing to have a vision statement. However, it is another thing to adhere to those principles, practices, and priorities on a daily basis without the proper leadership structures in place. Adherence and implementation comes through teachers knowing what to do, how to do it, and having support for what they do not yet know. To ensure that teachers receive this support, Woodland Forrest’s leadership team seeks out professional development to fit the needs of teachers and students. Aside from outside professional development, we hired a dedicated, full-time STEM coordinator to collaborate and plan with teachers on interdisciplinary units and individual lessons. Woodland Forrest also has an in-house tech team consisting of a group of teachers who have the skill set and interest in technology sufficient to vet resources, practice with tools, and conduct turnaround professional development. At a district level, we are also supported by Keith Summerford, our instructional technology specialist. Keith works alongside teachers as a coach, collaborator, and provides them with new resources and materials every week. Successful implementation is also derived from continuous involvement and “buy-in” from all stakeholders. Parents, teachers, students, and the community at-large are involved in all stages of developing and sustaining the STEM program. We need their input and “buy-in” as we create our yearly school improvement plan (ACIP), develop thematic units, and coordinate special events, such as STEM Night and DiscoverFest. As we bring new teachers, families, and partnerships to Woodland Forrest, the challenge is in acclimating them to our STEM philosophy so that we can utilize their individual talents and skills to further bolster our program.
Implementation Structures
Implementation Structures
WFES takes a shared leadership approach to educating its students. The entire faculty helped create the school’s vision statement for STEM, and is consistently involved in implementing the necessary processes and tasks necessary to carry out that vision. At the heart of this approach is our professional development turnaround cycle. As teachers become trained in a STEM-specific skill, or teaching practice, or learn how to use a new tool, they are charged with professionally developing their colleagues in that function or domain. Sometimes this process is as simple as teacher demonstrations on how to utilize new digital platforms or faculty members publicly vetting online resources. Other in-house PD is more formal, and serves as a permanent structure that ensures implementation of various STEM initiatives each year. The Engineering Design Process, Writing in Science, Basics of Coding, and delivering meaningful Number Talks are all examples of teacher-led training sessions that take place on the WFES campus on a regular basis. Part of the budget each year is set aside to send teacher-leaders to conferences, seminars and training sessions as a means to build collective teacher efficacy. After attending these STEM events, our veteran teachers have the necessary level of expertise to train and mentor incoming colleagues every fall.
WFES teachers also work in collaboration with a technology coach and a math coach to ensure that they are fully supported in their STEM instructional efforts. The technology coach provides training, resources and on-site assistance to help teachers navigate the digital world. The math coach develops lessons in concert with teachers to ensure that best instructional practices are being utilized and that teachers are taking advantage of opportunities to connect classroom math content to real life scenarios.
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