STEM Professional Development at Whitesville CSD 

At Whitesville CSD on Tuesday, May 10, teachers were exposed to various STEM related products and activities.   Teachers explored, Little Bits, Coding Apps on the I pad, online resources through their SNAP account and a Global Design Squad activity entitled; Seismic Shake-Up with staff specialists from CABOCES.  Over the past several years, STEM/STEAM has become increasingly important within the school curriculum.   Research has stated, that STEM education is important for our students to be competitive in the workforce.  According to the National Department of Education:
 
The United States has developed as a global leader, in large part, through the genius and hard work of its scientists, engineers, and innovators. In a world that’s becoming increasingly complex, where success is driven not only by what you know, but by what you can do with what you know, it’s more important than ever for our youth to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to solve tough problems, gather and evaluate evidence, and make sense of information. These are the types of skills that students learn by studying science, technology, engineering, and math—subjects collectively known as STEM.

One activity explored with Karen Insley of CABOCES  was the Seismic Shake-Up!  In this activity, students/teachers think about the need for earthquake resistant structures around the world, and determine what it takes to make a structure that is strong enough to withstand an earthquake.  Through collaboration, design, problem solving, testing and researching; students learn and explore what it takes a to design and build a structure that can  withstand an earthquake.

A second activity the teachers dove into was Coding with Clay Nolan from Learning Resources at CABOCES.  Coding is one of the hot phrases of today and is important for ALL students to be exposed to programming as early as kindergarten.   According to Eric Missio of the National Parent/Teacher organization states: 
 
Coding (also called programming or developing) is telling a computer, app, phone or website what you want it to do. Some educators and experts are calling it the ‘new literacy’--a subject so important that every child needs to know the basics to excel in our rapidly changing world. Four- and five-year-olds can learn the foundations of coding and computer commands before they can even write and spell words. Older kids can learn to code through classes, mentors and online tutorials (see below for learn-to-code resources for all ages).

Learning to code prepares kids for the world we live in today. There are tons of jobs and occupations that use code directly, like web designers, software developers and robotics engineers, and even more where knowing how to code is a huge asset—jobs in manufacturing, nanotechnology or information sciences. However, for most kid-coding advocates, reasons for learning to code run much deeper than career prep.
 
Clay’s session started with the basics of human coding and advanced to applying this basic knowledge to a coding app or coding program on the ipad.  The teachers began to make a code for other teams to follow in order to build a tower out of cups.  The basic concepts of human code allows teachers and students to practice and understand the language of a coding program better.  After the towers were built by following the developed codes, teachers explored two coding apps: Hopscotch and Code.org.

By: Tessa Levitt, CA BOCES Professional Development