Welcome! My name is Karen Woodruff. I represent U.S. Satellite Laboratory and Endeavor STEM Teaching Certificate Project, the STEM coursework partner on the STEM-CS grant.  Working collaboratively, with the Green River Regional Education Cooperative, we offered a program of study for teachers to advance their STEM content and practices. The outcomes are remarkable. Educators were able to think deeply about integrating STEM in a community of practice that provided support and guidance along the way. 

As you watch the video, we encourage you to consider the following ideas and respond in the discussion space below: 

1) Who is engaged in STEM professional learning that meets educators need and how can you network with them to create meaningful programs?

2) Do you know what teachers in your local region value as "high quality PD?"

3) How are teachers connecting STEM learning to local cultural assets in your community? 

4) What did you see teachers doing in the video that might prompt you to ask more questions about this program?  We'd love to talk more about their work with you.

  

Hello, STEM-CS! Thank you for sharing your engaging video. I really enjoyed the creativity in your video that included interview excerpts, short clips of students doing activities, and even a bit of animation. The focus on resources to help teachers think deeply about integrated STEM topics in a community of practice appears to be an impactful approach, as expressed by the teachers themselves in the video.

My questions are related to impact, as I think it is always wonderful to have as many different kinds of information about impact as possible to help us both understand our programs and to use for revision and improvement of programs.

My questions are these:

What kinds of data or information are you collecting to determine the impact of these courses? Are you gathering both self-report and implementation information information, (in other words information at multiple points to determine both intention/self-reflection and evidence of practices or activities enacted that are manifestations of the ideas in the courses)?

Thanks for sharing!

Hello and welcome STEM friends! My name is Dale Goatley. I represent the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative (GRREC). GRREC is a regional educational service agency that provides professional learning services to 45 school districts in southcentral Kentucky. GRREC is one of the eight cooperatives serving educators in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In October of 2019, GRREC was awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program for "Project STEM-Computer Science". I serve as the STEM-CS Coordinator. STEM-CS is a five-year project serving 50 educators across 12 rural districts with high student poverty rates. We intend to increase participating educator's expertise in STEM education and instate more opportunities and access to STEM learning experiences for ALL students. The work of STEM-CS is to support teachers as they redesign a rigorous STEM curriculum, create/sponsor student clubs related to STEM such as robotics, Lego Leagues, coding, etc., and empower grant participants to collaborate and share STEM learning with their colleagues across their respective schools. STEM learning can take place in ANY setting, not only in science and mathematics classrooms! In addition to educators of STEM disciplines, STEM-CS proudly includes educators of Reading/Language Arts and Library Media in our program!

One of our essential partners in this project is the U.S. Satellite Laboratory and Endeavor STEM Teaching Certificate Project. All STEM-CS grant participants complete Endeavor's STEM Leadership Certificate Program as professional learning to build their expertise in STEM education. The STEM-CS Project covers tuition and fees for each Endeavor course and additional professional development. My role as the STEM-CS Coordinator is supporting teachers with implementing STEM learning in their classrooms and providing on-going coaching to sustain the work of the STEM-CS project. STEM-CS has founded several professional networks including Digital Design Lab and STELLAR (STEM Teachers Engaging in Learning, Leadership, and Action Research). Both networks support ANY educator across the Commonwealth of Kentucky! Please reference Karen Woodruff’s guiding questions above and comment below; we would love to take your questions and read your feedback!

I really like the focus on helping teachers learn how to engage students in analyzing authentic datasets. Could you say more about the types of data being analyzed?  I am also wondering about the decision to begin with secondary school teachers, and then add middle school teachers later. Could you share your reasoning about that?  Thanks 

Hi David, thank you for your questions. See my responses below:

 

Could you say more about the types of data being analyzed?  

For measuring programmatic impact (summative): 

CEPR at Indiana University will conduct an independent evaluation of STEMCS that addresses key research questions about the impact of the project on students’ academic proficiency in mathematics and science, and evaluates the quality and fidelity of program implementation. The CEPR research team has extensive experience conducting field tests of innovative educational interventions (e.g., Race to the Top initiatives), as well as conducting randomized controlled trial studies (RCT), and quasi-experimental design (QED) studies that produce rigorous evidence of the effectiveness and impact of education interventions. CEPR will compare the science and mathematics proficiency of students in rural HS and MS that are implementing STEMCS with a carefully matched sample of similar rural schools.

RQ1. What is the impact of STEMCS on student academic proficiency in science and mathematics?

RQ2. To what extent, if any, does impact vary by student gender, race/ethnicity, and socio-economic status?

Matches will be determined using propensity score-matching techniques, and CEPR will identify four comparison schools for each school in the treatment group. In the event that the propensity score matching does not result in baseline equivalence on predictor variables, propensity weighting will be used to ensure baseline equivalence. CEPR will use a Comparative Interrupted Time Series (CITS) analyses to examine changes in treatment schools’ performance using student-level outcomes, and when STEMCS is implemented in each treatment school. These changes in treatment schools will be statistically compared against observed changes for the carefully matched comparison set of schools. CITS takes advantage of having multiple years of achievement data before and after the implementation of STEMCS. Design replication studies have demonstrated that CITS perform well in replicating impact estimates from randomized controlled trials.

 

For programmatic fidelity measures, formative assessment, and programmatic outputs:

Sources include: a survey of certifications, content-specific STEMCS PD they have received since they began teaching (if any), and an assessment of individual teacher effectiveness in STEMCS, personal teacher surveys regarding self-efficacy to teach STEM, student surveys, and fellow-educator/building leader surveys.

 

I am also wondering about the decision to begin with secondary school teachers, and then add middle school teachers later. Could you share your reasoning about that?

GRREC wished to include the high school cohort first so we could provide the longest stint of STEM/Computer Science professional learning support to this demographic of teachers. Upper secondary professional learning isn't offered as frequently in comparison to professional learning for middle, elementary, and early childhood settings (speaking for my local region only).

I hope this addresses your questions!

Thanks Dale, very helpful. I was actually wondering about the datasets students would be analyzing, but your response was very helpful in understanding your research approach. Your rationale for beginning with secondary school teachers dmakes sense given the professional developmental issues. 

Very helpful, Dale; thanks. No apologies needed, your response helped me understand more fully the focus of your research!

Thanks so much STEM-CS for sharing this video about how you are supporting STEM effectiveness for rural KY teachers. Since you are only halfway through your project so far, I was wondering if you could share any preliminary findings related to your project, potentially a success you have experienced and also a challenge as well. Thanks!

Thanks so much for sharing your preliminary findings! I appreciate it. You have great baseline data and I hope that your cohorts and the project can gather momentum after going through so much with COVID-19. Best of luck!

Love the dynamics of your project and how it seems that you are working with teachers not just in science but through various avenues. Love the real world applications you are providing.  It sounds like the high school version of our EIR grant. My question is how are you connecting your students/teachers with the younger students in your division that will feed into your high school?