Your video tells an important story about how change can be sparked through partnerships and with a focus on professional learning.  What challenges did you encounter in the journey from professional development to classroom implementation?  What supports did teachers need and receive to enact STEAM practices in their classrooms?  Where there curriculum areas where implementation was more difficult than others?

My questions, too. Actually, as I watched the video, I thought about how, for many teachers, there are several kinds of learning that might be needed.  the "STEAM ideology,"for sure.  but also "making" and project-based learning, which makes its own demands on teachers who are not practiced at it.   Which teachers participated in this rich program? Was there some process set up by whch they could collaborate on curriculum or activity ideas, and provide peer support — especially after all the workshops were over?

Before embarking on our STEAM Initiative, our teachers had been implementing PBL for over 8 years.  The year prior to implementation, we also completed a system-wide study about growth mindset, focusing on how to apply the work of Carol Dweck in our K-12 schools.  Because of our focus on PBL, teachers were accustomed to cross-curricular planning and collaboration with colleagues.  The transition to take our learning to another level was seamless.   Over the course of three years, over 70 teachers participated in the STEAM professional learning opportunities (online book studies, hands-on learning, site visits, etc.)  These teacher leaders were charged with mentoring others in their schools.  This model was extremely effective.  Teachers who were not participants in the cohort had 3-4 teacher leaders in their school to support them.  All cohort members were encouraged to use Twitter to showcase and share their learning as well as the learning of their students.  This proved to be an effective resource for teacher collaboration and learning throughout the process.

That's great that teachers were already experienced with PBL and accustomed to cross-curricular planning and collaboration. Have you seen continued collaboration between these teacher leaders following the initial professional development experiences? For example, you mentioned that the teachers were encouraged to use Twitter to share their learning -- are they still using Twitter as a means of collaborating with one another? I'm always interested in ways to sustain that collaboration that teachers often practice during professional development experiences.

Thank you for sharing your story about innovation in STEAM education!  I was glad to hear about the district-wide scope of your project...in many cases, the pathway to STEAM education in schools is one classroom/teacher at a time! I have several questions about your work:

1) do you have a good sense about how the new practices are being adopted in individual schools? The video mentions that there are STEAM learning activities every day for students...are these practices evenly distributed across teachers and classrooms in the district? How do you track progress?

2) Did you target a particular group of teachers (e.g. math? art? science?) to lead the initiative in individual schools? What was your theory of action to get people involved?

3) How is the initiative being received by the community? Are parents excited about the new approaches? Are other organizations, such as libraries and local tech-design companies involved as partners/collaborators?

Good luck on this ambitious and much-needed work!

- Erica 

I love the idea of using a STEAMposium to raise awareness and get kids (and their parents) excited about integrating STEAM into their classes! I see many clearly STEM activities, so I'm curious about how you work the "A" into the experience for participants. I'm also curious about how the specific activities are selected...your team, the teachers, the students, ...? The kids look like they are really enjoying what they're doing, which is such an important element to attracting them to STEM/STEAM and keeping their interests.

Thanks for sharing your video about the implementation of STEAM in your school district and the collaboration! Loved seeing some of the projects! Do you have any references that you found useful about how adding art makes STEM more accessible? As part of the program, were teachers provided funding to purchase 3d printers, EV3s and the like? Thank you! 

I think STEAM is becoming very relevant inside of schools today! I love the idea of incorporating STEAM inside the entire curriculum. That way these students are more than ready to face the real world. Do you have any way to make a list of each project you where doing in this video, they all seem so interesting and I would like to try them with my own class one day!