This year two of our science teachers have been collaborating on ways to help our underclassmen be even more successful, both inside and outside of the classroom. Mrs. Talbert and Dr. Thompson are teaming up to have the juniors in the chemistry classes and the freshmen in the biology classes be paired and mentors and mentees. The freshmen students will have a friend, a guide to help them navigate the first couple of years of high school, and the juniors will have an opportunity to reinforce what they've learned through mentoring an underclassman. This Big Brother/Big Sister program will continue through the years, and when this year's freshman are juniors, they will themselves become mentors to underclassmen.
This year, biology students will be studying ecology (biomes, symbiotic relationships, food chains/webs, and endangered species). Concurrently, AP Human Geography will be studying the world's developing countries. To tie these concepts together, Mrs. Talbert and Mr. Freenor will be working together on a collaborative project with the biology and AP Human Geography classes that requires the students to develop presentations that integrate the ecological aspects of their assigned country with the cultural, social, and physical aspects of the country.
Students will create, through the help of Mrs. Stallings and Mrs. Howard, multimedia presentations to highlight their findings and understanding of how these two disciplines are interconnected. Lorelei Howard, with the Introduction to Digital Technology classes, goes outside of the traditional IDT curriculum to teach and reinforce the concepts that Rose Talbert teaches in her biology classes with the ninth grade SOE students. In IDT, students learn how to key biology outlines, how to apply APA format for Science Fair projects, and other concepts as needed such as spreadsheets.
Mrs. Howard also collaborates with Mr. Freenor's AP Human Geography class to create digital population pyramids for the projects in the class. This cross-curricular approach helps students to reinforce and apply the knowledge they've learned in their classes in a real-life and practical way. One of the greatest achievements of our School of Engineering in the past year has been the increased collaboration among all of our stakeholders that has catapulted the reach and success of our program. Our teachers have increased collaboration through bi-weekly STEM meetings, the creation and implementation of Fabrication Fridays, and fulfilling the vision of delivering a true and effective cross-curricular STEM curriculum to our students. Teachers have started to think more globally and to integrate elements from other disciplines into lesson plans. We have also continued to grow our support from parents by offering information sessions and encouraging parent participation in the educational experience of their children. Our partnerships with businesses and universities in the community has grown tremendously as well over the past year, and it has allowed us to afford our students opportunities to participate in enlightening events such as Viva Technology’s STEM Day (which was sponsored by Kinder Morgan) and Mountainfilm, the Telluride Film Festival (which was sponsored by DIRTT). Being able to see a program grow because of teamwork, collaboration, and a shared vision for the School of Engineering has been rewarding, and we are so proud to be able to join together with our business partners, local post-secondary institutions, educators, and parents to create an opportunity for our students to use their education to effect change in the Coastal Region.
Our collaboration is tantamount because we share the same goals: equipping students with 21st Century skills, reaching non-traditional students, and growing a workforce for the Coastal Region that can help our community and break the cycle of poverty that many of our students face. To achieve our shared goals, STEM teachers meet bi-weekly to plan, reflect, and share ideas. These meetings are invaluable to our process, and we not only build camaraderie, but we reinforce the notion that teachers do not exist on islands, that instead we are part of a larger community with purpose. Science, Math, and Technology teachers have a common lunch and collaborate while they eat lunch. The Jenkins School of Engineering teachers (Math, Technology, Engineering and Science) officially began collaborating in the Fall of 2013, five years after the establishment of the School of Engineering program. The need to meet on a regular basis became evident as they became more involved with researching the GA DOE STEM Program Certification criteria. They realized that they needed to work on specific ways that they could collaborate on STEM projects, integration of subject-matter, and connecting the work in the academic courses with the PLTW courses. The teachers met on Saturdays and teacher workdays on the following dates to determine just how they could collaborate given the fact that they do not have a common planning period. Below is a list of the dates and times they met.
Over the course of nine months, the teachers have established a culture of collaboration that they have never experienced before. At the first meeting, it was evident that they taught pretty much without synchronization, except for the two PLTW teachers working together and the academic teachers working within their respective subject areas. As the work continued, it became evident that the group of teachers needed to be expanded to include the Social Studies and English teachers. The addition of these subject area teachers has increased the scope of the STEM focus and provided additional avenues for integration. Debra Howell, business partner from Georgia Power, stated at the meeting in July “I can’t believe these are the same teachers we began working with in November of last year!” They were discussing the professional development, specifically those who attended the STEM Summer Conference together in Atlanta, and how they so much enjoyed learning together. They now have a desire to collaborate that they never had before. At the July 31st workshop all the STEM teachers agreed to do the following in their classes so that students in the Engineering program at Jenkins could connect their learning from one academic subject to another and to their PLTW courses. Policies & Procedures Agreed Upon by the STEM Teachers 1. Need for Common Language A. Stressing organization and completion of work through the use of: a. Engineering notebook in PLTW courses b. Lab notebook in science courses c. Journals in English/Language Arts (ELA) courses d. Learning logs computer course B. Connecting methods and processes used to teach concepts in STEM courses a. 12 Step Engineering Design Process in PLTW courses b. Scientific Method in science courses c. Writing for English in ELA courses d. Programming Top-Down Design in computer courses e. Problem-Solving Process in math courses C. Using the same process in the above stated methods when teaching students how to “define the problem” a. Underline “active” verbs b. Circle modifiers of the verbs c. Box in key terms and phrases d. Annotate relevant details D. Using the same terminology in all STEM classes for: a. Inputs (homework, studying, note-taking, classwork) b. Outputs (tests, projects, grades) 2. Need for an integrity code for the School of Engineering A. Key issues to address are plagiarism, cheating, forgery of signatures B. Looking at the integrity code from another high school and adapting it for the School of Engineering |
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