Friday, June 20, 2008
STEM Grant Experiences
It is with a certain sense of nostalgia that I read the introduction I wrote for my teaching website almost two years ago. I have since completed 33 credits of graduate school, learned much, and have two more years' life experience including working for NYIT to coach teachers directly in a Title IIB STEM Grant, Phase II of the Digital Immigration Project.
This has been an exciting time and I have had such great experiences and successes doing this teacher training. I've met dozens of new people, been in numerous schools in the Bronx, created and delivered science and technology workshops, taught kindergarten and 4th grade classes, and had class discussions with students in grades K - 5 as I worked with their teachers on integrating science and technology throughout the curriculum.
This time has been very rewarding and satisfying. I was warmly received and appreciated by many - both teachers and students - and shared some of the joys of teaching and learning that are so dear to education professionals.
In some kindergarten classes, I worked with teachers to deliver a wheel-and-axle experience by building wooden models of cars, covered wagons, bulldozers and bi-planes with the students. In another kindergarten class, we got out the laptops and went online to hear the sounds of animals and label the parts of animals. The kids dragged and dropped boxes and jumped with delight when they got them all in place. 4th grade students "oohed" and "aahed" watching a video of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon in a lesson about life cycles, or as they found the iron in their ground-up cereal.
Teachers of all grades and subjects participated in science workshops, and brought some of those resources into their classrooms. It was wonderful to hear of their successes. And to think I hadn’t taken a science class in over 20 years - I presented earthquakes and plate tectonics, hurricanes, simple machines, Newton's laws, the scientific method, and our planetary neighborhood, with videos, podcasts, online interactives, hands-on experiments and added some computer software training. My ratings were excellent and I am very pleased with these accomplishments.
I now live in Rutherford, New Jersey in a house I purchased with two of my friends. I still do the budgeting, coordinating and business work of the FunMasters entertainment company, and occasionally get to perform myself, face painting or doing temporary air brush tattoos. As I near completion of my degree, and have been immersed in elementary school environments and a couple of middle schools as well, I am a better-rounded educator, more seasoned and even more prepared to tackle new challenges.
To teach again would be great, as a cluster teacher in elementary school, even a science cluster teacher, seems a reasonable aspiration, or to get back into a high school and facilitate learning about, and how to use technology to bring new life to students projects. But beyond that, I strive to have a greater influence on bringing technology to a learning community, to collaborate with other educators on making their classrooms more in-tune to the 21st century.
Who knows what challenges await our students? This increasingly complex world needs well-educated students who can think critically, use technology without a second thought as part of their toolbox, collaborate well with others, and navigate a world whose resources are being stretched and whose boundaries are being constantly challenged.
With world population approaching 7 billion people, it is, as Aldous Huxley penned, A Brave New World. Educating our children is an urgent endeavor, and I am anxious to continue my part in it.
I'll be cross-posting to http://bronxdip.edublogs.org/
to all you other educators out there.. keep faith ...
all the best,
Lynne
This has been an exciting time and I have had such great experiences and successes doing this teacher training. I've met dozens of new people, been in numerous schools in the Bronx, created and delivered science and technology workshops, taught kindergarten and 4th grade classes, and had class discussions with students in grades K - 5 as I worked with their teachers on integrating science and technology throughout the curriculum.
This time has been very rewarding and satisfying. I was warmly received and appreciated by many - both teachers and students - and shared some of the joys of teaching and learning that are so dear to education professionals.
In some kindergarten classes, I worked with teachers to deliver a wheel-and-axle experience by building wooden models of cars, covered wagons, bulldozers and bi-planes with the students. In another kindergarten class, we got out the laptops and went online to hear the sounds of animals and label the parts of animals. The kids dragged and dropped boxes and jumped with delight when they got them all in place. 4th grade students "oohed" and "aahed" watching a video of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon in a lesson about life cycles, or as they found the iron in their ground-up cereal.
Teachers of all grades and subjects participated in science workshops, and brought some of those resources into their classrooms. It was wonderful to hear of their successes. And to think I hadn’t taken a science class in over 20 years - I presented earthquakes and plate tectonics, hurricanes, simple machines, Newton's laws, the scientific method, and our planetary neighborhood, with videos, podcasts, online interactives, hands-on experiments and added some computer software training. My ratings were excellent and I am very pleased with these accomplishments.
I now live in Rutherford, New Jersey in a house I purchased with two of my friends. I still do the budgeting, coordinating and business work of the FunMasters entertainment company, and occasionally get to perform myself, face painting or doing temporary air brush tattoos. As I near completion of my degree, and have been immersed in elementary school environments and a couple of middle schools as well, I am a better-rounded educator, more seasoned and even more prepared to tackle new challenges.
To teach again would be great, as a cluster teacher in elementary school, even a science cluster teacher, seems a reasonable aspiration, or to get back into a high school and facilitate learning about, and how to use technology to bring new life to students projects. But beyond that, I strive to have a greater influence on bringing technology to a learning community, to collaborate with other educators on making their classrooms more in-tune to the 21st century.
Who knows what challenges await our students? This increasingly complex world needs well-educated students who can think critically, use technology without a second thought as part of their toolbox, collaborate well with others, and navigate a world whose resources are being stretched and whose boundaries are being constantly challenged.
With world population approaching 7 billion people, it is, as Aldous Huxley penned, A Brave New World. Educating our children is an urgent endeavor, and I am anxious to continue my part in it.
I'll be cross-posting to http://bronxdip.edublogs.org/
to all you other educators out there.. keep faith ...
all the best,
Lynne
Labels: aspirations, education, educational technology, instructional technology, stem grant, teacher pd, teacher training, teaching
