We want coworkers to implement STEAM thinking activities in their classrooms to equip students with skills needed for careers in the 21st century. We will measure their progress by taking a poll of what teachers are applying STEAM thinking skills in their classrooms at the beginning, middle and end of our implementation plan and how they have seen their students thinking develop. We will also measure growth by surveying staff about their confidence in applying these skills and activities after we have begun our implementation plan. The Vital behaviors we are trying to change are:
1. Teachers to become confident using STEAM thinking activities by applying these skills in their classrooms at least once a month. 2. Teachers having STEAM buddies to plan together and hold each other accountable. 3. Teachers create, share and explore STEAM thinking activities with other teachers in the building using the STEAM thinking platform we have created. To change these vital behaviors we will need to get help from our organizational influencers. We will need help from 2 different kinds of teachers to help influence others. We will first need teacher that will model our innovation plan. These teachers are our STEAM buddy teacher and the innovative teachers in our building. We will also need teachers that will help to influence other teachers. These are the teacher who collaborate well with others, and are willing to make changes by may need some guidance. When trying to promote change within our district, we used the Six Sources of Influence chart from the book Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson. Kerry says that if you can apply at minimum 4 of the six sources you are more likely to influence change, but it is best to use all 6. Andrea and I have come up with some ideas for all of the 6 sources of influence and have created the chart in bullet format for quick reference. (See chart below or click here to see our matrix in full screen) (2015). Influencer model. [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/133896810@N06/19390580600 Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: The new science of learding change, second edition. McGraw-Hill.
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Why?
We want our students to be passionate, hard working, confident, life long learners, who are prepared for their futures beyond the classroom. How? We will give students the opportunity to engage in STEAM projects that will prepare them for the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century work field. What? We provide students with opportunities to develop 21st century traits and skills while coaching and supporting their learning. Want to help prepare your students for the future? It's true, we don't know all of the job paths that will be available to our current students. New jobs are needed as technology is advancing and our needs are changing in education. Without knowing what specific jobs we are teaching our students for (like we did in the past, industrial model of education), we need to teach our students the skills needed to be successful in ANY career. These are their 21st century/6Cs skills - Our district identifies these as: Collaboration, Communication, Content, Critical Thinking, Creative Innovation and Confidence. At the base of these skills, the key points we are teaching are our State and National Standards as well as our building curriculums. How can we teach these ever-important skills to our students AND teach them how to read, write and do math? STEAM! STEAM integrates Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics into an activity, encouraging student engagement and covering curriculum and standards all while naturally presenting and teaching those important 21st century skills our students need for their futures. Eryn and I are kindergarten teachers in a low-income, Spanish speaking district. Our innovation plan is to incorporate STEAM into our schedule daily. Below you will se the benefits of STEAM in the classroom, what resources we are using to help us with our plan, the research behind this style of teaching/learning as well as our proposal to incorporate this into our district. We plan to post our progress and planning to reflect on our innovative change within our district as well as to help others to make a change in their own organizations. With this plan, we will help our students to be prepared for their futures, have FUN learning and to be engaged with our lessons teaching our district/state/national kindergarten content. STEAM Thinking Block
By Eryn Watson and Andrea Miller Proposal A daily block of time dedicated to STEAM thinking activities. We plan to introduce Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics activities and thinking skills to our kindergarten students while further developing their 21st century (6 Cs) skills. At the end of the year, students will have the chance to decide on a project they would like to create/build/make to share their learning with others. This year – Start STEAM buddies every other week to prepare for following years full implementation.
Fall 2018 – Take part of our day and dedicate that block to introducing STEAM thinking activities.
Winter 2018/2019 – Fully implement STEAM thinking block, giving students choice over activities.
Spring 2019 – Students will plan a project to share learning with other students, staff and parents. Students will host STEAM sharing day.
After looking at some of the examples I have realized that my idea of what I like to look at and what others choose is quite different. I love the idea of an eportfolio but I want it to truly benefit me and others who share common ideas and interests with me. I want it to not only appeal to others so that it may be helpful to them, but I also want it be meaningful to me as well. I want to be able to get input from others on my thoughts and ideas. So I'm trying to figure out how I can create a eportfolio that will make people want to keep interacting with my site and me and actually gain valuable information from a variety of people who share our common ideas and interests. I feel like a teacher eportfolio like the one I am making needs to be really easy to navigate and straight to the point because lets be real honest us teachers do not have a lot of time to be reading eportfolios and trying to find answers to something we may be researching or need answers to. I am thinking about all of these things as I am completing my project and I just hope it does catch the interest of some of my fellow teachers. I will be looking forward to comments you may have or suggestions. I know I need help and I know things are only better when you are willing to listen and take suggestions. We all need others to help us think outside of the box.
After reading all of the articles this week I realize we at some schools do not give the students a lot of things to take true ownership in. As we continue in our classes I realize how important it is that we are using things that the students can take with them and not have to leave behind. The students take a lot of time on some assignments or projects and why not find away to allow them to keep their things forever and show their projects or assignments off. Also sometimes I see a lot of assignments or projects with a direction you must take or a list of things that need to be included. Why not let the students take ownership in their projects and just tell them the goal that needs to be reached and let them reach it the way that makes sense to them. When things make sense to the students then the outcome will be a lot greater than them just creating something that has been made over and over again just using different words. I truly, hope that more schools get on the ban wagon and start allowing the students to create their own personal domain which would allow them to always take their own work with them and not lose it every school year, when they move, or when they graduate. The students need to have something that they can take pride in and know that they will always have these amazing accomplishments with them throughout their life that they could possibly use to help them land their dream job. The COVA approach this School takes pride in I feel is a great and amazing approach. It allows us to be us and not try to be like others that have come through this school. It strides on making sure each and every project is unique based on our interests not the interests of others.
Who owns the eportfolio http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050 Do I Own My Domain If You Grade It? https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-10-do-i-own-my-domain-if-you-grade-it The Web We Need to Give Students. https://medium.com/bright/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713 Campbell, G. (2009). A Personal Cyberinfrastructure-ERM0957.pdf Well as I was reading all of the posts and articles the biggest reason to use or create an eportfolio is to show the meaningful connections you make throughout your learning experiences. It allows you to reflect on ideas you have or new information you have learned about. It allows you to express yourself to others and let them into your world of thinking and understand what you believe in. Its a never ending page that can continue with you throughout your life if you chose to keep it going and updating it. It can be very beneficial for school if you keep updating it with pd information or any other conferences you go to that are interesting. That however, is going to be very hard for me. I have a hard enough time as it is keeping my classroom webpage up to date let alone another page. I will try very hard though because the more I read the more I realize how beneficial having my own eportfolio is especially if I make sure to reflect on the ideas I express and papers I put on the page. Blogging will also be an important part and that is something very new for me. I have never blogged before and so I am excited to get that started on my page. I have followed other bloggers but I have never done one myself. Why use an eportfolio http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6063 Reflection4Learning - https://sites.google.com/site/reflection4learning/why-reflect 41 Benefits of an eportfolio https://kbarnstable.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/41-benefits-of-an-eportfolio/ After reading all about eportfolios, I guess I never realized how important they can be. I can truly say that when I was in high school no one ever brought up the word eportfolio nor did I even know anything about what it was. I think that it would have been a great assignment for seniors to do or to start at least. It would be even better, like mentioned in the meaningful connections reading that the students continued on with their eportfolio and kept it updated all though their college career. I every program you go into there are huge assignments that are worth sharing and expressing ideas about. Having a eportfolio with all of that information in it would be so beneficial for everyone not just you. It would truly show future bosses how much you have learned in your field and how much you have grown. It would also show your efforts in your work and what type of person you are and how your work habits would be.
I currently am a kindergarten teacher and never thought about having an eportfolio, but after reading all of theses articles and realizing how useful an eportfolio can be, I plan on trying hard to keep my digital learning page updated. I plan on working hard to grow as a continued learner and using my eportfolio to post my assignments I feel are important and can bring good conversations. Every teacher can benefit from a shared site where ideas are bounced off each other through blogs or other means. I also like that you can always continue to add new ideas that you like and have learned about. Its your very own cite to do with what you want and its only about you and your interest. These portfolios represent you and what you like, what you have learned about, how you learn, your interests, and so much more. It opens the door to so many possibilities that I truly don't even know exist yet. I'm still learning the ins and outs of the eoprtfolio so I am very eager to keep going on through this program and learn all that I can to create a great eportfolio. This was an amazing and insightful video to watch. While watching this video it made me think of my own class and how I have my students during breakfast or snack ask 3 before me. I do this so that the students are not always coming up to me for help and instead talk to their peers. I think this ideas makes them talk to each other and get to know each other. It also works on their communication skills. I think its good that they learn to depend on others beside just me or other adults. Somethimes I do get the "super duck," student that once I tell them to ask 3 before me they will be stubborn and refuse to ask others and instead figure out a way to do it themselves so that they don't have to be shown up if you will. However though evetually these students do come along and eventually do start asking others for help. They do enjoy being the helper for other students though. Another example I see that proves this right is when my students participate in free choice. The creations that the students create is amazing. I love watching how they evovle from one thing to another as other students join in the play and add their ideas and thoughts to the table. I see this even in pretend play. Their language and vocabualry just builds off eachother and it helps them so much and they don't even realize it. I truly agree with this philosophy and I believe it is the best preactice to put in place at any business or organization. I love the idea also of the coffee only being at the coffee area so that people talk and get to know each other. |
AuthorMy name is Andrea Miller. I am a Kindergarten teacher in the greater Grand Rapids area. I love getting feedback and learning new ways to teach material to my students. I love getting them excited about learning and gaining a love for school. Archives
May 2019
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