STEM Curricula: Are online courses good enough?

 

 Photo credit: http://www.freeimages.co.uk/galleries.htm

In my last post, I gave an example of how traditional science classes differ from multi-disciplinary, project based STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) classes.  It's important to consider how to engage your student in STEM programming, with new options popping up all the time. Some homeschooling parents use online curricula for traditional sciences, and these courses have validity and a solid place in education.  Unfortunately, I think online coursework for STEM only hits about half of the target.

It's true that part of what STEM offers could be learned from a textbook.  Its concepts are drawn from any of the physical sciences, technology, or mathematics and are often criss-crossed between two or more of these.  But STEM is much more: it's about learning how to communicate and interact well with peers in brainstorming, design, invention, innovation and collaboration.  These are the "soft" skills needed for the next generation of workers and they may seem obvious but require many hours of practice to master.  These are also the skills that an online course does not address.

I have taught STEM to five separate groups of homeschoolers (about 65 total students) over the past two years.  I have noticed that the skills that my STEM homeschooled students most need practice in are not vertical collaboration (ages above and below) but rather horizontal project collaboration (peer, same aged).  The homeschoolers I teach are wonderful, well-socialized and have good friends.  However, friendships are different from collaboration.  What my experience has shown me (this is not scientific, only observational) is that it takes nearly 30 hours of practice for homeschooled students to become very skilled in brainstorming and completing design projects together under constraints.  Acquiring STEM skills is less like charging through a textbook and more like apprenticing in a trade or growing a garden.  It takes time, mentoring and iteration.

So what is a parent to do?  My next post will have links to real-time (as opposed to virtual, online) STEM resources.  I'd love any and all comments and thoughts.

Graphics by ACTS Geometry Students.  Produced in Google SketchUp

It's time for a conversation about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and homeschoolers, both secular and non-.

Traditional subjects like biology or physics might have homeschoolers using a single subject textbook, digital book, online course or co-op.  STEM is something different - it's an opportunity to combine many scientific, mathematical and technological concepts into an amazing soup.

For example, in my STEM class I begin with a outline of what we'll cover, typically a science concept, technology issue, or description of an engineering career. I lecture - briefly, usually no more than 15-20 minutes - then the fun begins. The students, having received information, immediately split into groups to tackle a challenge based in the lecture concepts. Collaboratively they filter water, separate ingredients, study tsunami waves using a model, devise structures out of crazy supplies, launch marshmallows, and many other things. We debrief the exercise as a class and the students complete a reflective journal entry on what they've experienced.

STEM class ends up being student-driven and highly interactive. The students practice the design cycle, brainstorming techniques, innovation skills, and mostly, how to collaborate well on a group project.  I publish their work on my blog, on YouTube or other digital venues.  Some high schools, like our local public Albemarle High School, have academies or programs that promote STEM. Albemarle has MESA - which stands for Math, Engineering and Science Academy. There are wonderful non-profits around, like Charlottesville's Computers 4 Kids, that mentor low-income students in computing skills while providing them computers at program's end.

The nagging question for me is, what are other homeschoolers doing?  Even better, how can we create a community to help them get involved in collaborative STEM work?  Our county has a large and thriving co-op, but what do you do when that's not an option?  Do you know of homeschool co-ops or home groups that offer STEM classes that I can contact? Many areas also have service learning opportunties, which my older STEM students are doing this year. Is  your local homeschool co-op or family group interested?

 I'd looking to hear and collect knowledge about what homeschoolers do for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education.  In the future I hope to blog more on creative ways to engage homeschoolers in STEM, pre-engineering curricula, collaborative work and service learning.

If you are in the field of STEM ed and work with homeschoolers or a parent looking to find resources, comment or find me on twitter @marycsaville.  I've created the twitter hashtag #stemhomeschool to bring resources together.



Every day STEM programs online offer ways for homeschoolers to get involved even if they are living in remote areas.
Some of the links that I've found to be very helpful are:
National Service Learning Clearinghouse
Tells you everything you need to know about service learning and how to begin a project in this excellent, hands on, service based educational model.
PBS Zoom Science
Colorful, engaging site with how-to experiments, engineering challenges, science inquiry and observation.  Geared toward elementary through middle school students.
Discovery Education
With all the quality that Discovery brings to the table, this site has resources for STEM curricular units and lesson plans.  Discovery is also pioneering digital textbooks called "techbooks" for future learning - techbooks would be interactive digital content that updates, educates and inspires.  Plus you'd save the backache from lugging around a huge textbook.

Use Less by Makedo-ing More, Part 2

Student-made Makedo windmill using plastic cups, styrofoam and connectors - video below

We're continuing to study STEM recycling concepts using Makedo as an activity focus. Last week we studied the life cycle of cardboard and made Makedo creations with reusables, this week we covered glass and made more Makedo-dles.

Teaching this class is like playing one big game of Balderdash. If I had to guess what words like "cullet" and "vitrification" meant I would have guessed, in order, a fish and a wine process. No points for me - want to take a try yourself, just pause before reading on...

Glass is one example of an amorphous solid, which is just a fancypants way of saying it doesn't have structure like a crystal. Glass' primary raw material is sand, or silica (SiO2) which is heated and combined with additives to make different types of glass. (I can't help sharing that when lighting strikes sand the intense heat instantaneously forms lightning glass, or fulgurite - it's like petrified lightning!)

Just like water, when glass turns from a solid into a liquid through heat it's called melting. But glass gets its own awesome word, "vitrification", for the change from liquid back to solid glass. Really, at room temperature glass is as frozen as we would be at -50 Celsius. Next time you look through a pane of glass or at a bottle, see a frozen completely reusable liquid!

Glass can withstand this change back and forth from liquid to solid an unending amount of times, which is why it's so good to recycle. So "cullet" is not a bottom-feeding fish, it's crushed glass that's ready to recycle by adding more raw materials and reheating.

My students' earth-friendly activity was to use Makedo to design an object with recyclable parts that moved on their own in the wind. We ran out of time for all groups to complete a working model, but there was one notable success:

excellent work, Zach and teammates!

If you want to learn more, check out the following links:

Video for how glass is recycled
http://earth911.com/recycling/glass/video-how-glass-gets-recycled/

Listing of everything that is recyclable in the city of Charlottesville, VA
http://www.charlottesville.org/Index.aspx?page=566

Household hazardous waste disposal guide locally
http://rswa.avenue.org/household.htm

Corning Museum of Art's website with tons of fun pictures and explanations:
http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=11886

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