STEM

Mission of Southside VA ESTEMCaTE:  The mission of this partnership is to get all students in Southside Virginia excited about math, science, and technical education and provide opportunities for them to become aware of STEM related careers.  Vision:  The Partnership envisions a new learning environment that supports and sustains project-based and inquiry-based learning to all students in math, science, career/technical education classrooms through high quality teacher training, developing a learning community of teachers with a common vision, on-going support to the teachers from higher education, research, and business partners.  As a result of ESTEMCaTE activities, we expect that students of participating teachers in Southside Virginia will be interested and enthusiastic about STEM; the students will understand and appreciate the interconnectedness of various content areas and they will choose to pursue further study and related careers in mathematics, science, and technology.

Program Goals
 

Goals, Activities, and Timeline: Program Goal 1:  Develop and implement high-quality professional development activities through integration of research-based instructional practices through graduate course work and after-school workshops to change the instructional practices of teachers and foster an electronic community of ESTEMCaTE teachers. 

    1.  Develop graduate course on Geospatial Applications Across STEM) (GAAS) including pre- and post-tests to measure content knowledge of the teachers (Spring 2008 by Longwood faculty).
    2. Develop a course centered on real world applications through which we can answer the questions relating to: why do I study this?  Or when do I need this?  The topics of the course should include engineering design, systems, robotics concepts, modeling, and computer animation.  Create pre- and post-tests to measure improvement in content knowledge (Spring 2008 by Longwood faculty).
    3. Develop supplemental online resources and provide anytime anywhere access to training resources using multipoint videoconferencing and asynchronous learning (Spring 2008 by Longwood and ITTIP faculty).
    4. Offer the courses in two locations – Martinsville in June 2008 and Prince George in August 2008 (Summer 2008 by Longwood faculty).
    5. Develop short workshops on research-based instructional practices and integration of 21st century skills and demonstrate inquiry-based instructional strategies in the classrooms; facilitate workshops for teachers to collaborate and develop instructional modules (fall 2008 and spring 2009 by ITTIP).
    6. Provide opportunities for teachers to interact with scientists and museum educators on interdisciplinary topics such as archeology, aerospace, and natural history through a wide range of seminars and virtual discussions (throughout the school year by Museum and other NPOs).

Program Goal 2:  Develop a clearing house of interdisciplinary modules created by teams of teachers incorporating authentic learning tasks using inquiry-based and project-based learning activities that apply rigorous mathematics, science, and career related concepts to realistic technological tasks and real world applications.

    1. Nurture the teachers through supportive environment and stress the importance of collaboration, peer coaching, and modeling. (ITTIP and VMNH)
    2. Assist the teachers when they develop instructional modules; provide feedback on the modules developed by the teams (ITTIP) 
    3. Support professional learning communities of teachers with coordination of interaction with scientists and business experts (ITTIP)
    4. Train teams of teachers to provide feedback to each other and improve the instructional modules with adequate 21st century assessment tools (ITTIP)
    5. Facilitate asynchronous discussions to sustain professional growth of teachers (throughout the project by ITTIP, Longwood, VMNH, NIA).

Program Goal 3:  Increase in student achievement in science and math while increasing the number of students enrolled in higher level math and science courses and in career/technical education courses.

      • Collect data on student enrollment in math, science, and CTE courses prior to training (spring 2008, fall 2008, and fall 2009, school division representatives).
      • For every participating teacher, collect the SOL scores data of their students in math and science subjects (fall 2008 and 2009, school divisions).
      • Assess the student interest in STEM careers prior to training of the teachers as pre- and post-measurement (fall 2008, spring 2009, fall 2009, school divisions).