Rationale
Growing up I was a struggling reader. I found it difficult to comprehend text, I was not a confident reader and therefore developed a negative perspective towards reading. As I ventured through my undergrad courses, I quickly developed my passion. I knew that within my future career in education, I never wanted to witness a student leave my classroom at the end of the school year without an engaging passion for reading.
As I entered my educational career three years ago, I became a staff member at an elementary school in Raleigh where our students derive from varying cultures which make up an extremely diverse population. My school is considered one of the Renaissance schools in the Wake County Public School System. Fortunately, we have been supplied with numerous technological tools in order to enhance our learning and student performance on a daily basis. We are also one of the original STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) schools in the system. At the start of my career, I was extremely unfamiliar with the idea behind STEM integration. I was learning the curriculum, bridging the gap between myself and my students as well as embracing STEM integration within my classroom.
After a year of teaching, I chose to apply to North Carolina State University to further my education. I began exploring my program options at NCSU. I came across the New Literacies and Global Learning program. I immediately gravitated toward the focus of the program and how it related to my current curiosities. I was at a crossroads in my career where I wanted to improve myself while bettering the education I was providing to my students. As I chose to focus on Reading k-12, I knew the New Literacies and Global Learning program would allow me to explore numerous literacy based topics by discovering the common core using various forms of technology all while closing the global gap between my students and their surroundings.
When I began my adventure at North Carolina State University, I was introduce to the New Literacies and Global Learning Design Studio and the Project Based Inquiry Approach to Learning(Pictured centered above). I quickly formed a connection to the Engineering Design Process that our students implement during STEM integration at Brentwood Magnet Elementary School of Engineering. Above on the left, you see the primary design process that is kid friendly for the use of kindergarten through second grade. On the right, is the secondary design process which displays more real world based illustrations and is used for third through fifth grade. As I compared and contrasted the models it was apparent to me that they each ask the same of an individual student by probing a student to devise a question, discover how to process the question, follow a plan of action, analyze and evaluate results and in the end presenting their findings.
After discovering this inspirational comparison, I confirmed my primary focus for compelling question during my graduate course work. Being a struggling reader growing up my goal was to never witness a student that had a negative perception of reading. Witnessing my current population of students, majority consisting of ESL (English as a Second Language), I was determined to discover how to engage these students in texts and assist them in comprehending the literature in an innovative way. By exploring STEM and a literacy integration, I came to uncover the passion that lay within children when asked to utilize literature in a creative and exploratory way. Throughout my journey at North Carolina State University, with an open mind, I embraced the evolution of technology, the theories of education, the motivation behind reading and the TPACK framework ultimately developing an integrated STEM and literacy based unit of study for my students.
Pose Compelling Question: During this initial step students are introduced to a new piece of literature. Together, we explore various versions of the text and we "ask" ourselves what is the problem in the book?
Gather & Analyze Information: Throughout this step we dive deeper into the meaning behind the problem in the text by gathering and analyzing events in the story. Then within our engaging environment we begin to "imagine" how we can help the characters in the book solve their problem.We then devise a "plan" where in collaborative teams we use our STEM notebooks to illustrate and label our plan of action along with writing the steps we will take to carry out of plan.
Creatively Synthesize Information: After the students have formed a plan and creatively synthesized the information they have taken from the text, with their team they begin to "create" their engineering project which in the end will help solve the problem that the characters face within the story.
Critically Evaluate & Revise: Once they have created their solution to the problem in the story, the students test their design. Through observation the students evaluate how their creation performed and discuss how they can improve their design. They spend the following day revising their creation and "improve" their design.
Share Public Act: Sharing our work occurs throughout the entire engineering process. We utilize various forms of technology to share our plan of action. We hold a testing day where students "test" their creations and discover what worked well and what they can improve on in the future.
As I entered my educational career three years ago, I became a staff member at an elementary school in Raleigh where our students derive from varying cultures which make up an extremely diverse population. My school is considered one of the Renaissance schools in the Wake County Public School System. Fortunately, we have been supplied with numerous technological tools in order to enhance our learning and student performance on a daily basis. We are also one of the original STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) schools in the system. At the start of my career, I was extremely unfamiliar with the idea behind STEM integration. I was learning the curriculum, bridging the gap between myself and my students as well as embracing STEM integration within my classroom.
After a year of teaching, I chose to apply to North Carolina State University to further my education. I began exploring my program options at NCSU. I came across the New Literacies and Global Learning program. I immediately gravitated toward the focus of the program and how it related to my current curiosities. I was at a crossroads in my career where I wanted to improve myself while bettering the education I was providing to my students. As I chose to focus on Reading k-12, I knew the New Literacies and Global Learning program would allow me to explore numerous literacy based topics by discovering the common core using various forms of technology all while closing the global gap between my students and their surroundings.
When I began my adventure at North Carolina State University, I was introduce to the New Literacies and Global Learning Design Studio and the Project Based Inquiry Approach to Learning(Pictured centered above). I quickly formed a connection to the Engineering Design Process that our students implement during STEM integration at Brentwood Magnet Elementary School of Engineering. Above on the left, you see the primary design process that is kid friendly for the use of kindergarten through second grade. On the right, is the secondary design process which displays more real world based illustrations and is used for third through fifth grade. As I compared and contrasted the models it was apparent to me that they each ask the same of an individual student by probing a student to devise a question, discover how to process the question, follow a plan of action, analyze and evaluate results and in the end presenting their findings.
After discovering this inspirational comparison, I confirmed my primary focus for compelling question during my graduate course work. Being a struggling reader growing up my goal was to never witness a student that had a negative perception of reading. Witnessing my current population of students, majority consisting of ESL (English as a Second Language), I was determined to discover how to engage these students in texts and assist them in comprehending the literature in an innovative way. By exploring STEM and a literacy integration, I came to uncover the passion that lay within children when asked to utilize literature in a creative and exploratory way. Throughout my journey at North Carolina State University, with an open mind, I embraced the evolution of technology, the theories of education, the motivation behind reading and the TPACK framework ultimately developing an integrated STEM and literacy based unit of study for my students.
Pose Compelling Question: During this initial step students are introduced to a new piece of literature. Together, we explore various versions of the text and we "ask" ourselves what is the problem in the book?
Gather & Analyze Information: Throughout this step we dive deeper into the meaning behind the problem in the text by gathering and analyzing events in the story. Then within our engaging environment we begin to "imagine" how we can help the characters in the book solve their problem.We then devise a "plan" where in collaborative teams we use our STEM notebooks to illustrate and label our plan of action along with writing the steps we will take to carry out of plan.
Creatively Synthesize Information: After the students have formed a plan and creatively synthesized the information they have taken from the text, with their team they begin to "create" their engineering project which in the end will help solve the problem that the characters face within the story.
Critically Evaluate & Revise: Once they have created their solution to the problem in the story, the students test their design. Through observation the students evaluate how their creation performed and discuss how they can improve their design. They spend the following day revising their creation and "improve" their design.
Share Public Act: Sharing our work occurs throughout the entire engineering process. We utilize various forms of technology to share our plan of action. We hold a testing day where students "test" their creations and discover what worked well and what they can improve on in the future.