4 examples of engaging vision-impaired students in STEM

STEM learning is a cornerstone of education in today’s K-12 schools, but STEM classrooms often aren’t all that inspiring to students who are blind or have low vision.

So much of science is based on sight and observations, and when students who have vision challenges are forced to stand off to the side and listen to classmates’ observations about experiments or data, they lose some of the excitement that goes along with scientific discovery.

But students who are blind or have low vision don’t have to miss out on STEM’s engaging aspects. Science companies are creating tools that accommodate different needs, and some groups have created science experienced geared toward students with vision challenges.…Read More

Science for all: How to reach English learners

Nationally, English learners (ELs) make up nearly 10 percent of PK-12 classrooms and almost 15 percent of urban classrooms, and these numbers are on the rise. Many supports are available for ELs (bilingual programs, SIOP, SEI), but the elementary science materials available are disproportionately directed toward grade-level readers.

In our work in local districts with high EL populations, we regularly see upper elementary students using K-1 science texts. While this might be acceptable for building language proficiency, content becomes a major issue. For example, a fifth-grader reading grade-one content is learning that during the day the sun crosses our sky. Fifth graders should be learning more abstract and complex concepts like how a star’s apparent brightness is related to its distance from Earth. Developmentally inappropriate content puts ELs behind in science from the start! Over multiple years, below grade-level content learning limits ELs’ science knowledge as well as access to secondary and post-secondary STEM programs and careers.

How can we make access to science more equitable? Here are three actions you can take in your own classroom to build science literacy, setting your ELs on a path toward success.…Read More

8 reasons why we should combine art + math

With declining U.S. student math scores, our schools would be wise to adopt a new formula that is sure to paint a prettier picture for the country’s STEM rankings. Combining math and art classes may in fact draw better math performance for American youth, starting as early as elementary school.

Here are eight reasons why schools would benefit from merging math and art classes.

1. Improved comprehension. Both science and art are about converting the invisible to the visible, so they’re a natural fit. Taking numbers off of paper and onto something students can touch and feel makes math significantly more relatable and understandable. It’s about taking an integrative approach and mixing the tangible with the abstract to help students better grasp complex formulas.…Read More

Is STEM getting ‘IT’ right for female students?

March 8th was memorable for many reasons. Not only was it International Women’s Day, but Meghan Markle made one of her first official public appearances with her future husband, Prince Harry, at an event in Birmingham, England. Significantly, the event was organized by the STEMettes, an award-winning social enterprise working across the U.K. and Ireland to inspire young women to pursue STEM careers. The STEMettes were founded in 2013 by a math and science prodigy who had been motivated by the fact that only three of the 70 students in her math and computer science class in college were female. In its first five years, the organization has worked with nearly 40,000 girls, 95 percent of whom have expressed an increased interest in STEM.

Organizations all over the world, such as EngineerGirl in the U.S., are working hard to encourage more women to seek careers in STEM fields, and it is clear that these bodies and their events are having an impact. However, my feeling is that we can and must do more in our schools to increase the number of women represented in STEM careers, not just because of the drive for equality but because we are potentially missing out on a massive pool of talent. It is widely recognized that a career in STEM is more than technical knowledge; increasingly, it requires soft skills such as flexibility, creativity, and judgement. We need to look above and beyond people who rate highly in cognitive ability as it would typically be defined, and create an intentional plan to acquire talent from diverse sources.

One great example is that set by the Haysfield Girls’ School in the U.K. The school has won awards for its efforts in promoting STEM, including specialist days, a science fair, visits to science attractions and from female science role models, and encouraging STEM scholarship programs. The school’s STEM initiatives have been supported by corporations, including Dyson, and The James Dyson Foundation has developed brilliant resources and activities to teach STEM in fun and dynamic ways. Thirty percent of Dyson’s engineers are female, five times the percentage of the overall engineering workforce in the U.K. and almost three times the percentage in the US. When an effort is made to engage girls in STEM, great things will result.…Read More

3 ways districts can use AR and AI

Artificial intelligence (AI), mixed reality, and cognitive science research sound like science fiction for today’s classrooms, but this technology is available today. Innovation and technology are as integral to education today as chalkboards were in the past. And with the introduction of emerging, new, and proven technology-enhanced innovations, teachers are creating new ways of teaching and improving student learning, leading to a shift in pedagogy.

Here are three of the latest innovations our district is using.

Lumilo…Read More

What motivates girls to pursue STEM?

It’s a persistent and troubling problem: Why are girls so underrepresented in STEM clubs and subjects in K-12 through college, and why are there so many more men than women in STEM fields?

The call for equal representation is becoming louder, and society is striving to solve glaring gender gaps in STEM graduates and STEM fields across the country. The numbers tell an alarming story about female representation in STEM education and fields.

According to Girls Who Code, fewer than 20 percent of computer science graduates are women. Today, only 24 percent of computer scientists are women, and by 2027, just 22 percent of women will be represented in the field.…Read More

The changing role of literacy today, part 2

We know we must teach children to read proficiently, yet the age-old challenge of getting a child to read on grade level still persists. Fortunately, science and technology are providing a roadmap.

Science tells us that when we are born, we house all of the tools to learn to speak. On the other hand, we must learn the skill of reading. There is no corresponding “reading center” to the language center in our brains. Instead, every child must go through the meticulous task of learning to read; through the amazing adaptive abilities of the brain we can acquire a skill that was invented only a few thousand years ago.

According to Professor Maryanne Wolf, John DiBiaggio professor of citizenship and public service, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, and professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University, “It took our species roughly 2,000 years to make the cognitive breakthroughs necessary to learn to read with an alphabet … our children have to reach those same insights about print in roughly 2,000 days.” Those 2,000 days are roughly from birth to about first grade—in other words, at a fairly fast pace.…Read More

3 ways to help students think and act as scientists

I enjoy challenging students to engage in hands-on scientific inquiry. In fact, I’m always telling my students and colleagues that I don’t want our students to think and act like scientists. I want them to think and act as scientists.

Here are three things we can do to make that happen.

1. Create an environment that helps students take ownership of their learning.
To effectively teach science, it’s vital to create an environment where students can ask questions and make discoveries, rather than simply being told what they need to know to do well on a test. Creating this environment requires teachers giving up some control, which can be scary. The rewards, however, are worth the risk.…Read More

3 winning characteristics of a school STEAM program

I started my career at The Shipley School, an independent K-12 school located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, at an innovative and exciting juncture. In 2014, Shipley was starting an engineering course from scratch, and having spent several years in the industry as an engineer and several more as a math and science teacher in Philadelphia-area schools, I jumped at the opportunity to pioneer a new program as an Upper School (grades 9-12) teacher.

At the same time, Shipley was making great strides to build out its STEAM program, which is similar to a STEM program. It includes science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses, but also has an added focus on the arts. A STEAM program offers a more holistic approach to education than STEM, marrying subjects that traditionally have been separate–like arts and engineering.

From formalizing plans to create a “MakerSpace” outfitted with 3-D printers to incorporating STEAM projects in classrooms across disciplines, these initiatives underscored Shipley’s mission of developing a love of learning in each student and preparing them for whatever may come beyond the confines of the classroom after high school and college.…Read More

5 AR & VR tools for social skills

Virtual and augmented reality, once far-off on the classroom horizon, have moved with relative speed into the realm of possible classroom technologies.

In fact, recent data indicates that while few teachers are using augmented and virtual reality, it does show some promise. Speak Up Survey data shows that 5 percent of teachers say they are using virtual or augmented reality in their classroom. Higher percentages of high school computer science and technology teachers (11 percent) and science teachers (9 percent) are using augmented or virtual reality.

Twenty-five percent of district administrators in small districts would like to see augmented reality apps in their schools, and 43 percent want virtual reality experiences and hardware in their schools.…Read More

DuPont Pioneer Excellence in Agricultural Science Education Award

A partnership with DuPont Pioneer and the National Science Teachers Association, this award is to recognize excellence and innovation in the field of agricultural science education. Two awards, one middle level and one high school level, will be awarded annually. The awardee will receive a $2,500 grant for their classroom/program, up to $1,000 paid travel expenses to attend the NSTA national conference on science education, mentoring with a DuPont Pioneer scientist, classroom resources from DuPont Pioneer, and access to a DuPont Pioneer product plant or research facility. The awardees will be presented the award at the Teacher Awards Banquet at the National Conference.

 

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