- Deanna Privette
- i3 STEM Grant Coordinator
- Career Connections: Bridging the gaps through STEM Explorations and Community Partnerships
- http://tiny.cc/i3stem
- Metro Nashville Public Schools
- Jeannie Whitlock
- i3 STEM Lead Instructional Coach
- Career Connections: Bridging the gaps through STEM Explorations and Community Partnerships
- http://tiny.cc/i3stem
- Metro Nashville Public Schools
Public Discussion
Continue the discussion of this presentation on the Multiplex. Go to Multiplex
Jeannie Whitlock
i3 STEM Lead Instructional Coach
Thank you for viewing our video! We are excited to share our project with you.
The 2017/2018 school year activities enabled students to gain hands-on experiences, applying critical thinking skills, while making college and career connections during the after-school clubs, Saturday sessions, and summer camp.
We are beginning the fourth year of our grant working with underserved and underrepresented students within 7 middle schools in the Metro Nashville Public School System. This past year, we worked with 572 students, 17 teachers along with support from community partners and parents.
We are especially interested in effective strategies used to entice students to choose an academic after school activity over sports or non-academic social clubs.
The i3 Leadership team is available to share their project experiences as well as preliminary findings from our Executive Summary and look forward to any questions/comments about our program.
Deanna Privette & Jeannie Whitlock
Susan Simpson
This is a wonderful program. Brava to Deanna and Jeannie!!
Deanna Privette
i3 STEM Grant Coordinator
Thanks for viewing and for the compliment! We are both excited and encouraged by our research findings thus far.
Sara Lacy
Senior Scientist
This does look like a wonderful program. I'm eager to learn more about your research agenda. What questions areyou asking, what data are you collecting, and what are your preliminary findings?
Deanna Privette
i3 STEM Grant Coordinator
Thanks for the questions! Here’s a summary of some of the main data points for which we are researching/collecting data.
We've had positive results!!!
Christine Cunningham
preK-12 Science and Engineering Educator
Your video mentioned working with community partners—this caught my attention. Can you describe how they have been involved in the project? I was also interested in how the activities for the afterschool, Saturday, and summer camp components were decided or developed. Do these connect to the school science curriculum?
Jeannie Whitlock
i3 STEM Lead Instructional Coach
Christine,
Thank you for your interest.
We have had great results with our community partners. Most often, we use our community partners on our Saturday sessions. We take students to colleges or businesses that have STEM career connections. They generally prepare stations for our students to rotate through. A few examples include biomedical engineering activities at Vanderbilt, rocketry activities at Fisk, agriculture activities at Tennessee State, and Audio Engineering at Belmont.
Our after school curriculum is primarily Engineering Everywhere, by the Museum of Science. We have found that the easiest access point to STEM is through engineering. We supplement the EE curriculum with additional materials to assist the students in creating a STEM Expo project. Saturdays, as I said earlier, are usually "field trip" based where we get students out into the community. We create our own summer curriculum based around a theme. Our partners assist during the summer, as well. This summer, our theme is Adventures in Aero where students will investigate everything about aero from kites to drones to flight simulations.
The activities do not directly connect to the standards they are learning in class at the time. EE units are not designed to “cover” or teach standards. The goal of each EE unit is to help kids develop their engineering skills. In doing this, many units link to science or engineering content standards. We have all activities include 21st century skills of creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.
Eoghan Casey
What a wonderful program you have developed to motivate middle school students! How do you decide which subjects and activities are most effective for middle school students? How do you create college and career connections for these students?
Jeannie Whitlock
i3 STEM Lead Instructional Coach
We use the after school curriculum Engineering Everywhere to guide our instruction. We have found that the best integration of stem comes through the engineering lens. We use current research topics and student interest to assist in developing additional activities.
We have created some of the best college and career connections by getting the kids out into the community so they are able to experience some of the things they would in those careers. For example, at Belmont University, we studied sound engineering. They prepared activities that would be of interest to the students. They had students record sound in a variety of locations to hear differences (classroom, stairway, anechoic chamber). They also showed students a video clip from a TV show and had them sync the sounds and dialogue to the video.
Kenneth Huff
Teacher of Science
The student testimonials in the video were wonderful and conveyed the difference your i3 STEM program has had with children. How are students selected to participate in the Summer Camp? Is the Summer Camp only open to students in the Metro Nashville Public Schools? Are there plans to expand this summer opportunity for children in other areas? Thank you.
Deanna Privette
i3 STEM Grant Coordinator
Thanks for viewing the video!
Our summer camp is only open to Metro Nashville Public School students, specifically 7 middle schools (included in the grant). Students who are currently in our after school program receive the first opportunity to participate in the Summer Camp. In addition, we also leave space for incoming 5th graders as a motivational strategy for them to join our after school sessions the next school year. To date, there aren't plans to expand this opportunity. Perhaps, when the funds from the grant expire, local funds will be dedicated to running a similar summer camp. Metro schools does offer several other camps throughout the summer.
Ashmi Sinha
This program does an incredible job of bringing enriching experiences to the students; these students are constantly learning about our community and how they can contribute to its well being when they grow up. Great job inspiring the young minds!!
Jeannie Whitlock
i3 STEM Lead Instructional Coach
Ashmi~
Thank you for your response. We feel that the students' experiences have been enriched as well. Furthermore, it has been great seeing teachers take the activities they have tried and seen success with in the after school program take those same activities into their classroom. They have had time to test out the strategies in a less test driven setting.
Mohamed Trabia
Hi Deanna
Great work! Did you monitor change of the grades of participants in STEM courses?
Deanna Privette
i3 STEM Grant Coordinator
Throughout the year, we monitor the students' science and math scores. Each student has projection scores for science and math and we monitor to make certain students are at or above projection. We have quarterly data discussions with kids in our program for preparation for state assessments.
Jonathan Lewis
Very exciting program. Thanks for sharing it. I'm curious about your partners so I have a few questions:
1. You seem to be leveraging local talent in STEM to bring professionals and academics in for after-school programs and other hands-on activities. Is that a formal process or has it developed organically?
2. Also, how broad is your STEM network? I'm in the geosciences and historically we fail to fully capitalize on the excitement young people have about dinosaurs, fossils, rocks and natural disasters as they make decisions about their college majors. Are you working with local geoscientists to showcase local, relevant and lucrative career paths?
Deanna Privette
i3 STEM Grant Coordinator
Jonathan - thanks for viewing!
1.) Our after school program focuses on the engineering design process. Our Saturday sessions have been developed organically connecting community partners with investigations in our after school sessions. For example, after investigating viruses, we contacted a local university (Vanderbilt) and the school of biomedical engineering. The graduate students connected with i3 students and were able to not only help students make college connections but career connections as well.
2.) We have yet to study geosciences in our after school program and therefore, have not worked with any local geoscientists. If and when we do, would you have any suggestions of who/where we could reach out?
Jonathan Lewis
Jonathan Lewis
Thanks Deanna
If you head in the geoscience direction I'd be happy to reach out to folks if helpful. You can reach me as needed.
I wish you continued success in this important work. Please point your STEM-interested, college-bound students to the STEMSEAS project. It can be a powerful experience (https://stemseas.wordpress.com/blog/).
Marcia Quackenbush
Thanks for sharing the inspiration and power of your student participants. What an uplifting video!
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