STEM Curricula: Are online courses good enough?

 

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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.

STEM ED for Homeschoolers

Recently my STEM class (offered at a non-profit homeschooling co-op) finished up an interactive multi-lesson unit on alternative energy technology. Each student picked an energy topic, researched it and presented it to the class: we heard about fission, photovoltaic effect, high-speed train function, wind turbines and more. One week students designed paper turbines to see how they could affect rotational speed - see how speedy the "turbines" were in the video! We used a Thames and Kosmos car kit where the car could be powered by solar energy, battery energy, or hydrogen energy. The kit helped us explore electricity including static and current, concepts of voltage and resistance, solar panels and battery circuits. Students were able to tinker with, observe and sketch a one-wheel drive transmission and map how electrons actually move through a circuit, turn a gear, and propel a car. One session had students measuring voltages of batteries with a multimeter and experimenting with how to orient a solar panel to maximize voltage or current.

My favorite part was getting the fuel cell component working - this took a ton of repair on a kit that unfortunately was fragile. Once it was workable, students observed the electrolysis of water using a current to separate water into its component gases oxygen and hydrogen! This separation required electronic current to complete, and we were able to make it work with currents from both batteries OR our solar panel! After the oxygen and hydrogen were formed and stored in small tanks leading to a fuel cell, the students saw how the gases combined back into water, releasing electrons, which powered the car without any other energy source!

Recently, we've spent time each week debriefing service learning group work - what's been accomplished, what goals are coming up, and how best to accomplish those goals. I'm happy to report that all four groups now have meaningful work. The teams and projects are:

• Team 1: Partnering with the non-profit homeschool co-op for a parking lot study, scale model creation, study of people movement through the system, and presentation of findings and graphics to the board. Students have already provided feedback on a short-term solution with a graphic showing new car and pedestrian zones.
• Team 2: Innovation/invention group designing a wind tunnel that models shear forces. Planned use of the tunnel to model a vertical axis wind turbine. Potential for copyright/patent application.
• Team 3: Partnering with Computers 4 Kids to design and teach a short class on Google SketchUp. C4K helps low-income students become technologically literate through project-based lessons and mentoring. Team Hedges may present their course to C4K staff, volunteers, or students.
• Team 4: Partnering with the Culpeper Senior Center to increase technology resources available. Students have already done an assessment of the current computer technology available to seniors. Currently there are no networked computers and only 2 of 4 desktops are functioning. Seniors mostly play games like solitaire, if they use the computers at all. Studying ways to provide internet access to the computers and basic computer skills training to either Senior Center staff or seniors themselves. Training may be in hardware or software.

If anyone else is working in the field of STEM service learning in homeschooling, traditional schools or alterative ed, drop me a line! I'm especially eager to hear how and what other homeschooling co-op classes are doing with STEM.

So much for me blogging consistently all year!

I've now spent the last four months teaching thirty eager homeschoolers introductory principles of engineering. The students range in age with most landing on 14-15 years old. Why am I teaching homeschoolers? In Charlottesville, Virginia, there is a flourishing homeschool community that organizes itself nicely into co-operatives and smaller classes for specialized subjects that parents aren't as comfortable teaching on their own.

For five years I've been a Geometry and Physics instructor, pulling from my Engineering degree at the University of Virginia (thank you, professors). This course is really a work in progress since there's no way to cover all the amazing aspects of the field and this is the first year. I've got five units as guide:

1. Thinking and Learning Like an Engineer
2. Communicating and Collaborating Like an Engineer
3. Knowing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and the Design Cycle Like an Engineer
4. Ethical Dilemmas of Engineering
5. Engineering Careers

My husband Dave, who has a master's in teaching, helped me to create a class format that would achieve learning objectives in a fun and interactive way. I provide a brief lecture on a unit topic, followed by an activity illustrating the topic, ending with a class debrief. Students have as their primary aid a bound notebook for reflective journaling. Each week they record diagrams and drawings from class, thoughts, likes/dislikes, suggestions, and things that surprised them from the activity.

Students also complete a second journal entry on an internet resource that I provide that complements the topic.

As an example - for one of our first classes, I combined a STEM concept with a Collaboration concept for Cantilevered Bridges. The lecture time covered center-of-mass, cantilevers, common cantilevers in society and how a successful cantilever can be designed. For the activity, teams of 3-4 students had about thirty toothpicks and gobs of molding clay. The design goal was to make the longest possible cantilever in a set time. Once time was over, students compared their structures with other groups', then had another round to revise and improve. Finally, we recorded lengths and sketches and discussed what worked and what didn't.

A typical student journal from that class might comment on what he or she knew already vs. what was new, what was unexpected, what it was like to work with others, and what successful cantilever design might entail.

The resource link I sent to students as an application was an article about the Quebec Bridge Collapse over the St. Lawrence River. The Quebec Bridge in 1907 was the most ambitious cantilevered bridge project to date, and it failed catastrophically. Students read the link and make connections between the real-life bridge, our activity, group work, and ethics.

We've now had 15 classes in a similar format, with a focal point, interactive project, and then verbal and written reflection.

There are so many other tie-ins that I'd like to include - visits to engineering firms around town, connections to colleges, helping students get internships - I can't do it all, but I want to!

Well, it's the night before my first Introduction to Engineering class. I'm not studying, mind you, I got my chemical engineering degree back in the 90's. I'm teaching. Homeschoolers, 30 of them. There'll be me, ten different colored dry-erase markers, a whiteboard, and not much else. This year I've spent a lot of time thinking through the curriculum and mostly decided that I have a lot of great ideas and am terrible at paring them down and organizing them. "Murdering my darlings," my husband quotes from some poet. I'm telling my class that they need to journal their reflections, interests, loves/hates, inventions, all for learning. Audience Dialogue gave me a great foundation and a set of questions for them to answer. I might as well take my own advice, so I'll blog this year. Wish me luck.