The direct flight meant that I've had a full day to rest and prepare for the road trip to Magnolia in Arkansas, about a 4 hour drive from Dallas. The hotel, while close to the airport and hire car facility, is not really close to anything other than a large distributor road. To get out of the room today, I headed over to Fort Worth Stockyards and had some of the local BBQ beef brisket (For those in Orange, think Smoking Brothers ;). I then headed to nearby Meacham International Airport. Here I got to see an F-14 Tomcat up close (I had watched Top Gun on the flight over...!) at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum. Then off next door to the Vintage Flying Museum and saw one of the two airworthy B-29 Superfortresses in the world.

When I arrived, I pulled into Southern Arkansas University and found the STEM Centre. I headed over to the hotel to check in and then returned to meet with Dr Scott White, director of the SAU STEM Centre. Dr White showed me through the spaces that their Mathematics and Science specialists work in with teachers for professional development and some of the resources that they loan to schools for STEM lessons. On Thursday SAU STEM is hosting a district Science Fair, with local schools sending students with projects who have been graded in the top three in their school class.

The STEM Centre building started life as National Guard barracks, then was the home of the SAU Agriculture department. When new Science and Agriculture buildings were built, the space was taken up by SAU STEM and the SAU Police.

Dr White then gave me the 'dime tour' of the SAU campus and its facilities, along with the town of Magnolia and its creature comforts like recommended restaurants. Yes this tour was from the front seat of his Chevy truck...!

As luck would have it the Lady Muleriders - SAU's girls softball side were playing a double header at 4pm, so once I'd finished with the STEM Centre, I headed up and watched a few innings with the students.

Arkansas day two: Camden and Magnolia

Early start today in what best can be described as terrible weather, pouring rain and unseasonably cold. I took the 45 min drive to the South Central Education Cooperative at the suggestion of Dr White. The SCEC is funded by the Arkansas Department of Education to support schools in the local district in a range of areas including STEM. Specialist teachers (like our consultants) work with teachers to build their capacity.

Camden has a similar context to us at Canobolas, notability a major industry and traditional employer of students and their families closing down, in this case a paper mill. STEM is seen as a way to prepare student for employment in alternative future industries. As with the RDA Hunter's ME Program (http://www.meprogram.com.au/), SCEC schools have made links with the new defence industries, here working with Lockheed Martin to build rockets and rocket launching systems (http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/mfc/siteinformation/camden.html). External grants for resources to support teaching and learning play a large part in education here, and Lockheed Martin is one of the supporting partners.

I was shown the robotics programs they facilitate with primary school students, Hot Wheels cars activities and we compared notes over makerspaces and makerspace trolleys! SCEC is hosting a makerspace camp during summer break and JoAnn and I are looking into the possibility of connecting our two spaces via video conference during this time.

Above left: JoAnn Womack - K-12 Technology Specialist, Anna Warriner - K-12 Literacy Specialist, Renee' Bearden - K-12 Science Specialist, myself, Leah Stinnett - K-12 Mathematics Specialist.

Unfortunately I will be travelling back to Dallas on Wednesday, as I was invited to return for the first of a two day teacher professional learning event on virtual reality. Thanks to the Arkansas & Facebook Techstart Partnership, 500 Arkansas schools are being donated Occulus VR equipment. Once we aquire VR capacity at Canobolas, I know who I will be contacting to compare ideas! Hopefully these teachers will be able to take a VR tour of the Canobolas STEM Centre some time soon...!

I'd like to thank JoAnn, Anna, Renee and Leah for their time, and extend a welcome for a return visit anytime.

I returned by car and headed to Magnolia Junior High School. Here I spoke with Brandy Browning who was starting a 9th Grade class, not long after 'testing', the Arkansas version of NAPLAN. Some of her students will be presenting their work at the SAU STEM Science Fair on Thursday. Two projects that caught my attention were an investigation into the impact of energy drinks on school athletes and if horse manure be used to produce energy. It was obvious that both of these projects were successful as they were closely linked to the interests and lives of these students.

I then crashed another 9th Grade Science class to chat with Coach Miller, the school's Basketball coach. School is in the final week of session, with grades due the following day. Coach takes an individual inquiry based approached to science lessons with this group. Students were working collaborative to complete a range of reports from projects through the session for end of term grading. Coach takes advantage of SAU STEM for professional learning and often loans the resources to bring more hands on activities into his classrooms. STEM is taught in silo classes here, not integrated across faculties.

Thanks Brandy and Coach for you time during grading time!

The final visit for the day was with Dr Roger Guevara, the Director of the local Education Renewal Zone for the Arkansas Department of Education. Arkansas is the only state to have a legislated program to support schools that are under performing, with a focus on not only raising student achievement but building teacher capacity and quality. Dr Guevara sees one his main roles as leveraging for the funding to acquire resources and run teacher professional development for programs like South Central Educational Cooperative and SAU STEM.

A challenge for Dr Guevara is how can they quickly build teacher capacity that can help students learn how to think, rather than teaching to the standardised tests. We spent some time talking at length about STEM and whether it should be taught in isolated subjects as I has seen during the day or in an integrated approach. He hopes Arkansas schools will move towards a more integrated approach and believes a key factor is the vision of leadership in a school and it making sure the structures and support are in place to help teachers make it happen.

Arkansas Day Three: SAU STEM Centre

I returned to the Southern Arkansas University STEM Centre to meet with Susan and Stacey, the Science and Math specialists. We spoke at length about how the SAU STEM Centre supports teachers from local district schools, and was given examples of some of the project based tasks they train teachers with to take back to their classrooms.

Some of the equipment made available to loan schools is a range of the sensors made by Vernier (https://www.vernier.com/) and FOSS active learning science program (http://www.fossweb.com/). These resources are not normally owned by schools, due to not having enough funding or not being able to prioritise spending money on a resource used only a few times each year.

Above left: Susan Johnson (Science Specialist), myself and Stacy Allen (Maths Specialist).

Above right: Myself and Dr Scott White (Director SAU STEM Centre).

Above left: The main teaching and learning space at SAU STEM Centre used when delivering STEM professional learning with teachers.

Above right: Using Inch square graph post-it-note posters, different sized marbles are rolled down ruler ramps to push the modified foam cups. Students can predict the outcome and it is measured in actual inch measurements on paper. Different distances can be substituted, different sized marbles and different masses of foam cups, depending on the focus of the learning task.

Thanks for a great day SAU STEM Team, and Thanks Dr White for lunch!

Returning to Dallas, Texas

The ITEEA Conference - Day One

The following day was the start of the 79th annual International Technology and Engineering Educators Association. Today was a huge day, being part of an international round table on Technology education, a presentation on our STEM program and part of the STEM showcase. The overall message being that it's the Technology and Engineering activities that brings STEM education to life, and I agree with this. It's the making the projects in STEM that gives the opportunities for student to apply Science and Maths skills, and in turn develop deeper understanding.

The keynote for today was Jonathon Gerlach, a STEM Expert for Discovery Education. He spoke at length about in importance of the 4 C's of 21st century education preparing students for an uncertain future workforce. It was although he had borrowed my slides from my upcoming presentation about the Canobolas STEM program, this is the message we have been sharing with anyone who will listen for almost two years now. From my perspective it is reassuring to see that a large, influential organisation like Discovery have come to the same conclusions as us.

Most of the STEM here, be them one off activities or curriculum programs here are conducted in silo classes and reference other learning areas, rather than being truly integrated. This has further reinforced that we are heading in the right direction in our school and in greater New South Wales.

The ITEEA Conference - Day two

With my commitments out of the way, I could sit back and enjoy the second day of the conference as a participant. The day for me started with the general session and the ITEEA Teacher Excellence Awards. I received our equivalent award from our professional association - The Institute of Industrial Arts Technology Education (iiate) in 2014. I was great to see the work and achievements of these 39 teachers being recognised by their colleagues. A large number, but unlike our association, every state in the USA is represented.

Following this was the keynote speaker for the day, Steve Culivan. Steve works for an organisation that provides the STEM education programs for NASA through the John C. Stennis Space Centre in Mississippi (https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/stem-on-station/lessons).

The afternoon was filled with a tour of the Frontiers of Flight museum at Love Field in Dallas. This museum provides a wide range of STEM learning events for local students as well as the usual guided and self-guided tours. It would be great to see more museums in Australia offering these activities, however with many schools now introducing STEM programs, who knows what will happen!

Love Field started life in 1917 as an Army air training base for World War 1. The yellow plane hanging from the ceiling is an original Curtis Jenny that was used for pilot training here. The silver de Havilland Tiger Moth was a nice reminder of home, considering how many were used by the RAAF.

The day was finished with a reception for the International participants, which was a great chance to informally chat with other Technology educators about all things STEM, including what we had seen at the conference and the challenges we have in our schools.

I was also able to chat with both Jared P. Bitting (left) (ITEEA Director and former President) and Ed Reeve (right) (ITEEA President Elect).

The Last Day in Dallas

With a day in Dallas for report writing before heading to San Diego, I headed to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. The level on innovation was Dallas' version of The Powerhouse museum, with the interactivity of Questacon. Other exhibits included Human Biology, Animals and Birds, Geology, Oil and Power Generation (it is Texas after all) and a huge Dinosaur display. Best museum I have ever seen for children, full of STEM activity workshops!

San Diego - Day One

Next to the A-12, is a Convair Sea Dart. Design and tested in San Diego, this was the an attempt to develop a supersonic jet fighter that could take off and land on water (a seaplane). Despite successful trials, and the rise in cruise missiles and aircraft carries, it was never moved into production from the prototyping stage.

Did someone mention aircraft carriers? There is no way I would be able to visit San Diego and not visit the USS Midway. This is a decommissioned US Navy aircraft carrier that is now a floating museum. I took a self guided tour of the musuem and spoke with a retired F-4 Phantom / F-14 Tomcat pilot. This museum takes advantage of its unique location to offer STEM programs for students around Newton's laws of motion in aircraft carrier take off and landings, the use of light to assist in landings and thermal energy to generate power and drive the launch catapults.

High Tech High - Day One

My day started off with a guided tour of High Tech High and High Tech Middle with a very articulate senior student called Blake. As with all students, Blake gained a spot at one of the seven High Tech schools in the High Tech Village through a lottery system for San Diego locals.

Flexible learning is at the heart of everything that the High Tech schools do, and this is reflected in the purpose designed faculties. All bar one of the seven High Tech schools are housed in former Navy training buildings and have been fitted out to feature interconnecting classrooms and common learning spaces. There are a lot of windows into classrooms, allowing working students and teachers to be easily seen.

When students are doing independent work, Blake explained how students like himself were able to pretty much work where ever they are comfortable, providing they are being productive. Students understand their teacher's expectations and realise the consequences for wasting time. Being the last week of the session before spring break, many students were completing work due from the term or participating in week long interest electives. This meant that there were more than the usual amount of students in non-structured lessons. One thing that stuck with me in the senior school was the 100% student engagement, and 0% behaviour issues (on the surface anyway).

Next was a lunch with educators from High Tech High, in Mike Strong's 'fishbowl' classroom made iconic from the movie. This was a great opportunity to informally chat about our two education systems and school contexts. One thing I wanted to get mt head around was how the content and projects for each semester class was determined. According to these teachers, it was basically random ideas pulled from the air - of course as a result of the inspiration from the teachers. Co-teachers will throw around their ideas until they have settled on something they think the students will be motivated to work on, and that the staff will be inspired to manage well. Two things we have in common is, we have to know our students and how they learn, and that students won't engage with anything that they can't buy into.

High Tech High - Day two

I returned to the High Tech Village for a second day of discussion and exploration. Today started as yesterday did, with a tour of High Tech Elementary with a senior student, lead by four well prepared 4th Grade students. These students took turns explaining how their school days works and how the purpose build school building works. Christina, my senior guide, was just as excited to be on the Elementary tour as she had never been through the High Tech Elementary program. Here the collaborative, project based learning approached from the original High Tech High is being applied to Elementary students from Kinder to 5th Grade.

As with the other High Tech Village locations, rooms have been designed so that they can be opened up for class collaboration with the students from the class next door. To support teaching and learning, there are shared specialist rooms for subjects like music and a makerspace. This makerspace looks like a timber / mixed materials technology room you would see in many New South Wales secondary schools.

A feature of every High Tech Village building is the display of student work everywhere you go. It really gives a vibe of student engagement and value in their work. With each display, there is a poster/s explaining the project and celebrating the successes of the students involved.

Final thoughts on High Tech High? I think integrated PBL comes easy when you have students nominating the be there, and staff given the freedom to follow what inspires them. They see how into the learning that their teachers are and most are willing to follow them on the journey. Reassuringly students are still students, and no one project engages everyone. Even the staff here acknowledge there is isn't a magic bullet for student engagement.

It doesn't seem like there is the level of direct student supervision requirements that we have in New South Wales schools. Students are working everywhere and coming and going as they please, treated as young adults rather than school students. It's nice to know even here these privileges get revoked from time to time! Outdoor education plays a huge roll here, and they are not required to complete the amount of WHS compliance paperwork to do so, leaving staff more inclined to take this option.

Interestingly, you don't see STEM jumping out at you like you do in other places, as everything here is integrated. Its all part of what happens here.

I've really enjoyed this immersion experience, seen a lot of awesome things and met with some very dedicated teachers and administrators. However, at the end of the day other than some project ideas I haven't really seen anything here that I will take back to our STEM program within our system. Now this would not be the case if we were just starting our integrated STEM journey, I think it is just a reflection of where we are at with the model we have developed over the last few years.

Deeper Learning at High Tech High - Day 1

After a break over the weekend, I returned to High Tech High for their 5th Deeper Learning conference. This has grown from 250 five years ago, to 1100 attendees this year. It is held in the High Tech Village and the majority of the sessions are run by HTH staff, supported by many of the HTH students ambassadors. This point alone is a great example of the culture and atmosphere here at High Tech High. With 1100 like-minded, enthusiastic educators in one place it gave the conference a very evangelical feel from the very first moment.

A pre-session for all was next, in the form of a reflective session, facilitated HTH teaching staff. Called In-Deeper Views this was a one-on-one interview sessions in pre determined groups, allowing us time to connect with others on a personal level, sharing stories of our own deeper learning and equity.

I ended up interviewing (and being interviewed by) Kevin a local teacher from a low-socio economic school in California. Interestingly we both shared similar experiences growing up and working as teachers from a equity point of view.

The second session I attended was on how virtual reality had been used for project based leaning at High Tech High. It was led by Don Mackay a Year 11 Engineering teacher at High Tech High International. His digital portfolio can be found here: http://energineering.weebly.com/

Don showed us how VR has been used in a term one project, and we were able to break into three groups to make our own Google Cardboard VR viewer (to use with a smartphone), create 3D video using a 360 camera and also try dedicated VR equipment including Occulus Rift. There were many HTHI students on hand to help us out with the activities and share their experiences during what was obviously a very engaging project. Students would pitch ideas for a VR project to parents, and the best 12 ideas were chosen. The successful 12 students became producers and had to hire (and fire...) classmates based on their skills, experience and productivity to get the project done on time. If you have access to VR gear like a Google Cardboard, examples of student work can be viewed from links on Don's digital portfolio.

Don also talked us through how his class were able to participate in the Presidio project. The Presidio is a historic site in San Diego that has been buried for 150 years. Don's class has been working with a local business to create a virtual reality model an tour of this site.

I found this session incredibly useful, as I am working towards using VR immersion and virtual excursions to help establish the context of the STEM units of work we have at Canobolas RTHS.

Deeper Learning at High Tech High - Day Two

The focus of today was different to the previous day, a day for "Deep Dives". It featured full-day sessions to allow participants enough time to really get into things. The session I chose was building catapults, facilitated by HT Middle Media Arts teacher Law Ortiguerra (Science and Maths). Essentially today was a whole term project condensed into one day.

Once introduced to the concept of the project and where it fits in the school, year, we were given some examples of desktop siege machines and a range of makerspace resources. Individually we constructed our own catapults and tested them for distance and accuracy by firing jellybeans. We then paired off and compared notes about our designs. Then our pairs split, one exhibiting both designs and the other checking out the class's designs. We had to know our partners design well enough to share their evaluation. Following this each partner traded places and repeated the exhibition process.

We took a break for lunch and then returned to our Deep Dive session, this time working in groups to design and build a much larger scale catapult using what we had learned during the small scale tests an exhibition. Once completed, we had to exhibit our work as the HTH students would, and had the opportunity to wander around the High Tech Village and see the other exhibitions from other sessions.

Deeper Learning at High Tech High - Day Three

This turned out to be a most valuable experience, as it is exactly what I have been doing with the same clientele, but taken to scale. And a great way to finish the tour where it started, back with High School STEM projects linked closely to and supported by a University.

See some of our Canobolas STEM work in our filmpond: http://canobolasrths.filmpond.com/ and flick back through our tweets at: https://twitter.com/canobolasrths

Fleet Science Centre

Many of the locals suggested that one of the best STEM education facilities in Sand Diego is the Fleet Science Centre, located in Balboa Park along with the world famous San Diego Zoo and Natural History museum (http://www.rhfleet.org/). I went along to investigate the exhibits and STEM learning that they provide. While it was a good centre, It didn't stack up against the wonderful Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas for quality and breath of content.

The San Diego Natural History Museum

Located across the fountain from the Fleet Science Centre is the world famous Natural History Museum. I hadn't originally planned to visit this museum, until I saw a banner for the exhibition on water use in California. This is right on topic for a water use STEM unit my current Year 7 STEM class have been completing back at school.

Re-entry to the San Diego Air and Space Museum

With a day to fill in after checking out of the hotel and not flying out of San Diego until 8.30pm, I decided to head back to the Air and Space museum to check out their special space mission exhibit - Be The Astronaut (see what I did with the title there...?). Despite being spring break there was a school tour group making the most of the time to visit as well. Along with driving a Mars rover and piloting a lunar lander, the mission brief includes learning the STEM subjects required to become a space explorer.

These tasks include a training activity for your mission, like picking the correct launch trajectory to leave the earths orbit or driving a Mars rover in 2D and negotiating the terrain in limited gravity. The second interactive is around the equipment astronauts require to complete their mission and survive the harsh conditions of space. The final activity is piloting the vehicle for your chosen mission in a simulator. This may be controlling a robotic arm to collect orbiting refueling pods for the long mission to Jupiter or driving a Lunar rover between the Moon landing site and a resources mine gathering fuel for long distance space mission. A very immersive and engaging experience.

All content has been scientifically verified by experts at NASA for authenticity and the training and requirement activities feature digital virtual content experts linking the knowledge to practice. The exhibit fits in wonderfully with the wide range of existing Space materials including an Apollo space mission re-entry module.