STEM Educators

Table of Contents:

Indicator 6 Narrative

Through the combination of the Common Core and the Alabama standards, our state has implemented a wide-ranging set of educational standards in order to secure that all students are college and career ready. With an ever-changing global economy, incorporating national standards insures a more stable, applicable curriculum for our students.

At BMS, we teach a standard based curriculum, and with the introduction of the new state testing system, ACAP, we finally feel as if state testing will also align with the classroom curriculum. Our STEM curriculum goes above and beyond in adding rigor to all standards across the board. Through PBL, various forms of technology, problem solving, and the utilization of the engineering process, BMS is meeting and exceeding instruction of all standards.

We strive to provide cross-curricular projects that bring students real-world problems to evaluate and solve through inquiry, research, questioning, evaluating, and communication. Students are performing water testing, gathering data to solve pollution issues, and building circuit boards, to only name a few. Daily, students are learning the answer to the the "why do I need to know this?" question they have been asking in classrooms for decades.

MATE Remote Operated Vehicle

MATE ROV uses underwater remotely operated vehicles to solve real word problems including repairing dams, planting artificial reefs, collecting samples from the bottom of the ocean, biomonitoring, and ocean clean up. Students build an ROV and then use that ROV to complete the tasks for that year. These kids have built circuit boards, water proofed wires, built robots, designed basic hydraulic units with syringes and tubing, and are ready to compete against teams from all over the southeast!

Water Testing

In the fall of 2018, Bankhead Robotics team in conjunction with Walker County 4-H attended Alabama Water Watch training at Camp McDowell. Twelve students and one teacher were trained in chemical water testing and bio-monitoring. In May we conducted our first test at the Gardners Gin Water Way site on Cane Creek. We have conducted chemical testing at this site every month since. Our data is collected in the Alabama Water Watch Data Base. We conducted bio-monitoring tests twice. Both times our results showed very few macro-invertebrates. We have discovered low dissolved oxygen levels in the area which results in low levels of animals living in the water.

Breakout Games

Breakout games encourage everything we want our students to learn: problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, risk-taking. As a form of problem-based assessment, these games bring students into an environment in which they encounter real-world dilemmas, choices, and problems. In the video below, students read maps, decode Morse code, and solve various riddles to demonstrate mastery of reading comprehension standards.

Indicator 7 Narrative

At BMS, our staff meets on a regular basis to discuss planning, implementation, needs, strengths, weaknesses, and next steps regarding our STEM curriculum. We meet every Wednesday during "Working Wednesday's," and we meet bi-monthly for cross-curricular planning. During these meetings we discuss what is working as a classroom, cross-curricular, and on student-by-student basis. We discuss upcoming events and plans, and we plan for needs to carry out these plans. We discuss upcoming professional development opportunities, and we design time for turn-around training for those who have attended professional development.

We all have common planning times, so vertical team meetings occur regular, and some weeks, daily. Fortunately, the schedule allows for 7th and 8th grade teachers to all share a common planning time, as well as common STEM EXCEL enrichment period. The results of these meetings are constant planning, collaboration, sharing, and supporting of all staff members.

During the last three years, our staff has worked closely and diligently to transform our school into a STEM school. We not only plan as a team, but we also support one another through consistent walk-through visits, and these visits are followed by feedback, suggestions for improvement, and positive support. The transformation has been a team effort, and we have grown and continue to grow, immensely, through this journey.

Working Wednesdays

Our teachers have duty-free lunch four days a week. Every Wednesday we meet as a team during lunch to collaborate in the planning, reflecting, and improving of STEM implementation, curriculum, pedagogy, and intervention strategies.

Common Planning

All of our grade-level teachers have common planning within their respective grade. They use this 50 minutes to learn from one another and collaborate on projects that will lead to improvements in lesson quality, instructional effectiveness, and student achievement.

Living Wax Museum

For our annual Living Wax Museum, teachers from all disciplines collaborate in leading students to research, plan, and build a museum of famous historical figures. For multiple class periods spanning more than a month, students work on different aspects of the Living Wax Museum. In math class, students are placed in charge of scheduling the walk-throughs for each grade level, keeping in mind scheduled breaks for recess, lunch, and P.E. In their science class, students work on designing how to hang and display their boards. History class is students' designated research time for their historical figure, and in ELA students finalize writing and practicing their oral presentations. Living Wax Museum is also a fundraiser for Toys for Tots. Students are charge $1 admission, and it takes 25 cents to activate a "wax figure". We consistently raise around $800 for Toys for Tots with this interdisciplinary project.

Indicator 8 Narrative

At BMS, our most important goal is to prepare every student to be college and career ready. We realize that in order to achieve this goal, students must be exposed to hands-on learning opportunities that have real-world applications. STEM is more than science and mathematics; STEM is about giving all students the opportunity to become critical thinkers and problem solvers, while supporting them through failures until they reach success.

Our state mandated test, ACAP, is only one way we assess our students for growth and achievement. Our classrooms run on continuous teacher-conducted formative assessments, periodic assessments such as SCANTRON and STAR, CLASSWORKS reports, and summative assessments, like final projects produced through project-based learning activities. Through these types of assessments, grades 5-8 are evaluated through an on-going process to more efficiently guide the growth and achievement in all students. While quantitative assessments are important, we place our highest value on qualitative assessment. At BMS, we provide STEM opportunities to all of our students. Obviously, STEM is the basis of our daily classroom curriculum, but we provide additional opportunities to gather qualitative information about our students through our EXCEL classes and our monthly STEM days. These two puzzle pieces are valuable to our success because they exist during regular school hours in order to equally expose all students to STEM opportunities. EXCEL and STEM day are two ways we are striving to close the gaps for students, minorities and females, often underrepresented in STEM professions. Through rotation schedules, all students are exposed to coding, robotics, art, and numerous other learning opportunities. Hence, educators are able to gather qualitative information from students during these STEM activities, as well.

Through interaction, clarification, questioning, and design, our students solve real-world problems in environments conducive to learning. Teachers support students throughout the process and evaluate growth and achievement along the way. BMS teachers strive to be facilitators of learning, and this approach to teaching is reflected in our state report card, assessment data, and classroom observations.

Creating A Budget

Students in this Home Economics class use sales papers to create a shopping list in Google Docs and living expenses in Google Sheets. During the course of 4 weeks, students learn to create a household budget. Students are given this real-world scenario: "You are 22 years old and just graduated from college. You must rent a house in Walker County, buy a car (and car insurance!), and set up a grocery budget." The students search online to locate a house. They are permitted to split the rent and utilities with 1 roommate. After they secure a house they get to buy a used vehicle with a specific number of miles and year. The then get a free quote on Geico.com for an accurate car insurance rate based on their chosen vehicle, age, and residence. Once the house, vehicle, and insurance are taken care of, students do a grocery budget. The parents send in current sales papers for local grocery stores and the students create 4 home cooked meals, 2 prepackaged or frozen meals, and 1 night a week they can eat out.

VEX Implementation

VEX IQ is a national robotics competition centered around building, programming, and driving a robot. In 2017 and 2018 we had one team of three students compete in two competitions. In 2019 we were chosen to be a part of Mission 200 which allowed us to add an elementary level team for our fifth graders and another middle school. The purchase of a class kit allowed us to provide robotics as an elective in fifth, seventh, and eighth grade. With the addition of the class kit, every student at Bankhead Middle School will have experience with VEX IQ robots.

Hydraulic Arm

Students in this class use a hydraulic robot arm to build a block tower. Students learn how hydraulic systems can use liquids, which aren't as compressible as gas, to transmit force. Hydraulic systems are used on construction sites, elevators, garbage trucks, and many other real-life and post-secondary scenarios. They help users perform tasks that involve large amounts of mass with seemingly little effort.

Indicator 9 Narrative:

At BMS, our professional development is centered around our STEM curriculum. Our administration envisioned STEM as the foundation of our school from the beginning, and they have worked diligently over the past seven years to make our school the 1:1 school it is today. We have been way ahead of the curve in regards to training connected with STEM curriculum. Technology in Motion and Google Classroom are two, specific PD opportunities our entire staff have been trained in, even before we decided to strive to become a STEM certified school. A few additional STEM PD opportunities our staff has taken advantage of includes Mission 200, AMSTI training, AETC, Makey Makey, Technology in Motion, Mountains to the Gulf, Outdoor Classroom Planning, Jr. Master Gardener, Project Wild and HudsonAlpha Genetics and Biotechnology.

While all staff members are not able to attend every PD session, our administration always provides time for those who do attend to provide turn-around training to the entire staff. As with every other aspect of our curriculum, collaboration and communication are key to the success to our STEM curriculum.

From the Mountains to the Gulf

Leading scientific experts guided some of the BMS faculty through the state of Alabama, sharing their collective knowledge of the Waters, Geology, Flora, and Fauna to show how all things are connected! Their training included an excursion at Camp McDowell Environmental Center, a hike to Alabama's highest point in Cheaha State Park, a kayaking trip down the Tallapoosa River, a visit to the Solon Dixon Forestry Education Center, a search for fossils in south Alabama streams, and experiments at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

A+ Training

Our very own Amber Parsons completing A+ College Ready: Train the Trainer professional development. She is now able to train other educators who wish to become certified to teach AP classes.

AMSTI Training

Bankhead is very involved with AMSTI implementation across all of our math and science classes, with several of our teachers leading as trainers or in pilot programs. AMSTI is designed to "better align classroom practices with national and statewide teaching standards, and ultimately to improve student achievement. The core beliefs on which AMSTI was built are that effective teachers clearly understand the standards they are to teach, have strong content knowledge of their subject, know how to engage students and scaffold their learning with age and grade appropriate activities, and revise instruction based on feedback from formative assessment."

Makey Makey Training

Several of our teachers have been trained to use the Makey Makey invention kit. It is an electronic invention tool and toy that allows the user to connect everyday objects to computer programs. Using a circuit board, alligator clips, and a USB cable, the toy uses closed loop electrical signals to send the computer either a keystroke or mouse click signal. The video attached shows Mrs. Gilliland demonstrating a method to teach place value using Makey Makey. Students then worked to design and play instruments from everyday materials using the Makey Makey.