Engineering+2009

[] - a new digital magazine for students the broadens engineering's appeal. Lots of examples of how engineers can "save the world."

Twitter hashtag: #STEM2009

Engineering Group Attendees: Richard Abbondanzio - Hockaday School Barb Fishel - Hockaday School

Andrea Perry - Garrison Forest Lisa Rein - Garrison Forest

Melissa Wert - Harpeth Hall

Licia Kovach - Laurel School

Kristyn Rylander - The Girls' Middle School

plus a couple of others who were in and out.

We know that we want more interdisciplinary and experiential learning...
Conversation about Baltimore Polytechnic - a public school employing STEM best practices Stanford Online high school These schools compete directly with independent schools and, in many cases, are doing a better job in STEM.
 * What are the areas where we want that interfacing to happen? (Science/math, for example)
 * How do we get that to happen?

How can our schools/departments be in the best position to anticipate changes, prepare for them, and adapt to them?
Richard Abbondanzio mentioned the book Meaning by Michael Polyani

Pedagogy changes happening in our schools?
Garrison Forest Biology teacher team spent summer revamping Bio curriculum; moving to more inquiry based approach. Students have labs before lecture - they are supposed to get wrong answers as part of the learning process. Challenge balancing content and inquiry. Madeira -- setting up labs that combine both, allow students to see equations come to life in labs; not completely open-ended Hockaday -- Seimens Challenge in grades 6-8; grade 7 coming up with own research on how to save energy, help environment; used problem-solving model to give them a starting point -- airbags and danger of chemicals in in, solving that gave them a way to begin solving questions of their own

Aside: Microsoft.com has a "digital literacy text" which is self administered and takes about 30 minutes. Questions on applications, networking, ethical aspects of digital literacy and Web 2.0 tools. Recommended for students and faculty alike.

Getting back to "Inquiry labs" - this method works well for some concepts, such as Momentum, but not for others.

Hockaday participates in the Siemens challenge for grades 6-8.

Changes in Engineering courses, approaches?
Laurel - Licia Kovach aiming to add a fourth E course, using design (Sketchup, possibly Solidworks) Importance of being able to articulate for colleges what the course is about E courses are the "miniSTEM" in high schools, where it is all combined. Licia is seeing the E courses more accepted by colleges. Laurel trying to serve both pre-Es -- they need programming and circuitry work; also trying to serve girls who want to be good at problem-solving but won't be going into E, All E students take the Intro semester course then 2 second semester E courses are offered, one focuses on ethical case studies, alternative energy (building fuel cell cars) and the other second semester course on circuitry on programming. These courses are aimed at juniors and seniors no pre-reqs required, have done bio and chem already At Laurel, AP Chem and AP Physics offered every year, AP Bio and AP Envir. alternate Laurel has 240 students in upper school What are they NOT taking instead? Always offered selective electives in sciences, not offered every year (like Paleobiology) -- interdisciplinary, go do a dig in southern Ohio, E courses are always offered each year

Problems for everyone in making it all fit Is it possible to double up in more than one subject? At Laurel, junior or senior can double up in science. If the student chooses to do so, she cannot double up in another discipline

Harpeth Hall - Melissa Wert the E is woven into the curriculum, not as a free-standing course Did the brain training via Lisa Damour from Laurel Gave teachers in 5-8th grade develop the curricular content that preps for engineering Melissa has been trying to identify places in the MS curriculum where engineering projects could be introduced. 5th graders used Alice 2.0 to animate Miracle Worker, which they were reading in English

Girls Middle School - Kristyn Rylander no specific E course have had an 8th grade class called Science and Engineering, built rollercoasters, did E drawings, lots of communication between classes so in computer they're looking at 3D modeling, interdisciplinary, learn html, use it to create poetry web page, cross the curriculum robotics in 6th grade science have an intersession, getting E courses in there some electives on fridays where they ticker with building solar cars, etc. build outfit with circuitry, led lights have electives

Hutchison - Donna Lenaghan have done Scratch, Alice, Intel gaming precursors to getting it into other curriculum girls come and ask, want it on computers now projects in other classes are being done with Scratch and Alice

Hockaday - Richard Abbondanzio Museum of Science in Boston interactive displays, Salina in India, turtle, water awesome speaker from Tufts who helped set this up

Licia -- MS tend to do a better job, more team oriented, team teaching really promotes this, they do STEM and more, bringing in English etc.


 * Can you have a STEM Department? **

What structural changes need to happen for learning objectives to be realized?
Licia -- we are going to see a day when classrooms are not in a room with paper and pencil -- that's where we are headed; webcasts, Skype, no physical boundary; tech is going to be a huge piece I think technology has a way to grab students

What if more than one teacher was online with a white board? Would be much easier than moving the students, could do a lot virtually The technology is there, core is the planning, having the teachers interact and plan

Garrison Forest: the Humanities (English and history) are "sacrosanct" --- do students really need 4 years of each? Is any of it redundant? If a student is geared more towards math and/or science, the graduation requirements already lock her out of the ability to double up in more than one discipline. Could there be some flexibility in graduation requirements?

Laurel --
 * Every teacher has to evaluate what is important to keep in her/his curriculum that will serve students in the 21st century. Every school must also ask the question "what is important?" **

What are some ways to assess the development of 21st C skills in students?
Laurel School and Girls' Middle School are doing it (read below).

Hockaday, we have a brother school, comparisons are always made, boys school is always on top Dallas Morning News St. Marks (boys school) one of six best places to work intransigence of certain assumptions, always pushing to get more science

Is it a marketing piece? The 21st Century skills don't mention disciplines. Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving. Edward DeBono

Science does address 21st C skills really well -- collaborative etc., it's a natural match -- we should talk about that more

Laurel -- interim assessments used to be grade and commentary, now interim assessment focuses on SKILLS, goes out prior to interim, looks to ask how often a student demonstrates skills like synthesis, critical thinking -- give that feedback without grades, parents were very thankful about this, Laurel wanted to give this feedback without connecting it to a grade (grades do follow at every interim/semester). Laurel worked on this all summer, was a task group appears to be a check list but it's not. Mastery of Course Skills and Content. Has an area for a comment. Exceed Expectations, Meets Expectations, etc... are the check boxes. Assessment of 21st C skills focuses on Class Participation, Assessment, Approach to Learning, Critical Thinking, Communication Skills. Their quarterly comments are brief because the skills assessment is so specific. Three weeks after the check list goes out, students get their grades. Twice a year it goes out.

The Laurel Skills Assessment supports the school's Curricular Philosophy of Experiential Learning, Interdisciplinary Learning, and Service Learning.

Hockaday, we do that in Lower School -- is more of an elementary model

Do this at Girls Middle School -- Learning Habits and Skills, Learning Competency progress reports broken into learning process skills and how prepared they are for class (sometimes, often etc) Skills Content Summary (Exemplary, Competent etc) have list of what they are assessed on.

**Day 1: Afternoon Session**
Guiding Questions:

What should the learning environment be in the 21st century?

Hands on? Global world? Creating great classroom experiences. Online classes and girls schools? Blended educations (online and classroom based)

Laurel –Experiential learning (hands on, for example, environmental labs outside), service learning and interdisciplinary are valued. These are the key things on which they focus. What do you value? Service learning is embedded in their learning. Example: engineering case study “Chicken coop”

Garrison Forest – Has objectives. People have not looked at them in years.

Harpath Hall – long mission state long, but they came up with a key statement. Our core purpose is to nurture a sense of wonder; to instill a will and facility for learning; and to promote cultural understanding, environmental stewardship, and service to others. The pursuit of these goals will inspire students and faculty to combine knowledge with goodness, and reflection with action.

Garrison – how do you account for something new? Does having the statement preclued you from engage in the next …?

Laurel – curriculum committee discusses and looks upon new ideas and decide whether it meets the goals and philosophy of the school. Do your schools have a curriculum committee?

Garrison – yes

Hockaday – both committee and one person. Program Committee not just curriculum people but all aspects of the school geared to the mission. Head of School announced that STEM as a one of her main initiative.

Laurel and Hockaday: The word STEM is being used a lot. What do we mean? Do we mean integrated or just we have Science, Technology, Math and some Engineering?

Hockaday and Laurel: integrated is what they mean by STEM. It is hard even at this conference when we separate into groups.

Hockaday – Engineering components integrated into existing Math and Sciences instead of creating stand alone Engineering classes. Other people choose to developed free standing courses.

Harpath Hall – It depends on the school’s culture

Laurel – We do offer the stand-alone courses and also integrating it in existing classes works too

Lincoln - Offering more electives would be hard scheduling. Integrating it in to existing courses would be the way she would see it. Or offering at a younger age like The Girls' Middle School who has robotics in 6th grade.

Laurel – definition for technology – how to design computer based solutions predominately through computer science including programming, robotics, web design, databases etc.

Hockaday – definition of technology - application of science and math core principles through tools. Technology – taking hormones from a patch or Lasik surgery. It is a tool not necessary computer based

Harparth Hall – sat in on technology meeting once and they focused on computer science. Engineering more broad and integrated.

Garrison – we have a freestanding robotics course and art design using the tablet. Art and computer science dept work together

Technology definition - in school it is teaching and using the computer tools, but outside of the school it is more like the Hockaday definition. Technology in the work force is the tools ie oscilloscope. How do we teach that to our students?

Hockaday – teach about systems and how do you handle system failures

Laurel – if we do expand into a bigger definition it can have less meaning and no longer be beneficial, but if we focus in on technology as computer-based then it is feasible to think of specific approaches for middle school and upper school level.

Moving on to action and away from just discussion. Leaving here something that we want to do next?

Garrison – While Rick Oliver was talking, what little we do to give students the context of what they are doing. Could we figure out some way to give them context of what they are doing? Because what they are doing in biology is what is going to be what they face in the work force

Hockaday – many engineering programs offer co-ops to give college students work force experience

Garrision – in humanities classes students may be able to give an explanation to why they are doing something, but questions if they can do this in the STEM fields

Laurel – bringing people from the work force into the classroom and talk about the subject. Blending the real world and class room

Are you where you want to be at your school and what are some areas that we want to change?

Opportunities for interdisciplinary

Laurel – brought their STEM brochure that summarizes STEM at their school

Hockaday – talking about everyone doing the intersession (in between Fall and Spring semester)

Garrison – talked about doing a STEM trip. They have lots of school trips.

Girls Middle School – we have all lot of ideas for adding STEM to places outside of our core classes, so we want to continue to re-evaluate our core classes and make sure that we are integrating STEM into our core classes.

Laurel – they realized that they are doing a lot of STEM work and writing it down and making it known as to what they do. Public schools near us have the money and doing very well at incorporating STEM. Private may not be leading.

Hockaday – what are we offering other than the all girl experience?

Garrison – we need to do all of these things to keep up with the public schools, but people are choosing independent schools for the smaller class sizes or single gender.

Looking for a community as well

Laurel – we want to know each girl and get her to where she where she wants to go in Science as well as in other disciplines.

Harpath Hall – What would non-traditional (brick and mortar) engineering classes look like?

Garrison – government report arguing for radical transformation of secondary education to model Europe where people specialized at a younger age. How do we preserve what it means to be in a secondary school, but offer the opportunities to specialize. They are ready developmentally they are ready for more, but we keep them at the school.

Hockaday – Magnet schools are getting them ready rather than the renaissance.

Laurel – it would be dangerous to specialize at this secondary school. We do favor general knowledge, so they can experience it all. It is important that they can experience it all. Engineering courses don’t mean that you are trying to get specialist. You are offering every student as a junior or senior the opportunities to experience this type of course.

Hockaday – Not specializing until graduate school puts them behind those entering the work force earlier. assign students a topic in first grade and they specialized on that topic all they way through school. Website “Learning in Depth.” Who checks on the kid? Learning how to know what you are learning is correct.

Laurel – to ask students to make the decision of whether they want to be a doctor, engineering, etc. at high school is not necessarily realistic.

Harpeth – let them dive into their passion can be frustrating for the kid. Giving the breadth is important. Are we doing them a disservice to make the sit in a class were they are going to turn off?

Hockaday – too many choices can

Garrison – we present it as open choice, but really we are humanities biased. Creating specializations that exclude STEM. Faculty meeting will bemoan the fact that they can’t write.

Hockaday – is it a girls school thing? Hockaday it is visible.

Garrision – Hopkins requires math course beyond multivariable calculus. Look at the website for Howard county schools allows them to choose math paths that allow them to take higher level courses. Some students now don’t know what their major is even in their second year of college. They need to at some point choose something. They may change later.

Hockaday – people are going to have more careers and change directions. They become more well rounded

Garrison – People choose courses and paths based on ease instead of other reasons. People can choose humanities because they feel that they can manipulate they grades. This is a bias that is there but may not be true.

Harpeth – can’t let go of the whole 4 English class requirement and only 3 math class requirement. A student who would have taken more math if she had more freedom to take less English and more math.

Hockaday – tracking in high school verses not tracking. Choosing a path between applied vs. theoretical sciences, or honors vs. not honors

Garrison – would like to have honors in science. They have honors in languages. Many of the top students choose not to do the WISE programming because they want to do other courses. They don’t offer honors except for the students who go into the WISE program. Some of the topics she has to make a choice to teach or slow down to make sure all the students understand.

Laurel School – they track science from freshman year (honors Bio/ college prep bio). Though there is tracking, flexibility is available for the late bloomers.

Harpeth Hall – does have tracking in the upper school

Hockaday – offer online dissection

Barbara from Hockaday – offers an online book. They use a text that contains interactive components. The class does not have another textbook, but they use other resources. At the beginning they loved the text and the interactive material. As the concepts became more difficult, the students did not want to do the reading necessary to do the interactive materials.

Kinetic Books - Principles of Physics CD Hockaday uses this for Freshman Physics all the way through AP Physics Laurel uses Kinetic Books for all Physics classes Harpeth Hall uses it for AP Physics only

Day 2: Session
We need to summarize our discussions into a few key points to share with the full group. Thoughts from Melissa: Skills assessment to map growth/development of 21st C learning skills (Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, etc). Examine graduation requirements - do they "lock out" girls with math/science talent/bent? "STEM" definition - is a school a STEM school simply because they teach science, math, engineering, technology? Interdisciplinary programs? Definition of technology Ideas for interdisciplinary collaboration (art and engineering/technology, etc).