The video, “Tracking Digital Integration” shares glimpses of projects advancing since the 2010-2014 NH DOE STEM Literacy Community of Practice.  Initially the goal was to engage teachers with digital programs and introduce digital  tools to advance interest in emerging STEM topics. 

The diverse locations of teachers produced unique projects, enhanced by the innovation of encouraging them to develop individual interests to cohort teams.   Impacts in communities expand from varied grade level to beyond the school and engaging local and online community.  They range from Maker to outdoors classrooms and include ELA extensions.  As we continue, students of these teachers are developing Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO’s) further advancing programs and projects.

We invite viewers to discuss the challenges and opportunities of evaluation and monitoring as change occurs from evaluation of teachers introducing digital systems to their students using them. Some projects like the Solar Car Sprint program have clear numerical expansion (from 8 teams to 27 this June) and products from their programs.  Others that integrate digital tools to monitor form a broader community of shared reports and team efforts like integrating digital tools in existing programs challenge evaluation.  We invite your questions and suggestions that help us expand our views from your perspectives.  

Please go back here:  http://stemforall2016.videohall.com/presentations/788

Hello everyone,

I am the Academic Director of the College of Exploration in Virginia and have conducted educational research and program evaluation for over 20 years, primarily in the area of science. 

I worked with Betsy on this NH STEM project as an evaluator and I look forward to hearing you perspectives about this project.  I also hope to learn about similar projects that you may be doing and to hear innovative techniques for evaluation that you may have incorporated in your work.

Welcome to all!

If you would like to learn more about the developmental evaluation method that was used for this NH DOE STEM project, here is a link to a video introduction to the topic.https://vimeo.com/217594587 Developmental Evaluation

Thank you, Tina for this video!  The MSP was set up initially to be evaluated on line, video and teacher interviews however the constant quarterly monitoring between the College of Exploration and the project manage on the extensions of the teacher projects indicated that there might be an opportunity to interject new processes into the progress.  The MSP goas were to involve 50 teachers however it was to the advantage of the rural application to invite in more district representatives and, in the end over 100 participated.    

The still pictures with the dates in the video are part of the visual "capture" to enable more sharing of key elements.  I am curious as to how other projects are dealing with the steady spread of STEM into new applications and projects.  

There seem to be a number of projects that the teachers are implementing in the video. Are teachers all involved in the same digital projects or are the projects unique to teachers?

Jennie, 

Thanks for asking this question.  The teachers all had the same program as professional development from our partner, JASON Learning (jason.org) and also access to USGreen Building Council’s online Green Educator course.  From that exposure teachers developed projects to explore digital tools that varied from data loggers to IPads and developing full programs as a district!  Creating cohorts to teach others on their experiences at state level conferences  built further teacher engagement with the digital tools and also a great segway to the new  NH concept of Extended Learning Opportunities, (ELO’s) where students develop projects.

Could you say more about the professional development that teachers experience? How many hours of professional development are involved? Face-to-face? Online? What types of activities do teachers engage in and what supports are in place to help teachers transfer what they're learning into their classrooms? Thanks!

Ben, Good to continue to probe this area.   The professional development design is a question that all of us should be thinking more about when it comes to digital tools.  There's a difference between learning how the product is designed and how it integrates into use.

  The project began with an award from an online program for face-to-face PD for their materials and specific trainers that integrated the online and hands on materials into the classroom at the lead location.  While this interaction taught the materials, the hard work begins with integration and adding further  digital tools.  The best innovation  was the further developed design,  sharing between teachers beyond how tools work to how they engage their students to perform beyond their current practices. This conversation evolved from a summer,
“tool event” that focused on specific questions of integration and called upon CTE, private boarding school teachers and also individuals that could practice with the tools and debug or at least identify challenging areas.  We created short case studies of challenges within the project, then modeled the situation.  Lastly we added that  new tools were tested internally by one individual who would shake out the quirks to save the teachers time. 

The span of time for this project was one of continual summer "blasts" of new technology and systems in NH.  In the first year, the IPad initiative arrived and by 2012 the Google wave entered. Both brought individual district advances that enriched the project.  

I'm curious what kinds of data have been collected and what findings have emerged.

Ben, 

 The data types differ vastly.  

 Very great that you are following the image thread  in the video....and thinking about the multiple types of data that string along with this project!   I realized from your request that I’d not referred to last year’s video.

Please go back here:  http://stemforall2016.videohall.com/presentations/788

Last year summarizes the end of the project, however the formal summary was more innovative.  In the last two years we have continued to expand from the teacher data to student evidence and also digital collections.   I’ll be glad to explain those levels here or you can email me at bastefany@gmail.com if this conference ends before you have time to think of the teacher to student to project and all with digital tools in place implications!

Reading comments from other projects, I notice that data capture/use and evaluation is one continual question.  Since our project goal was to incorporate digital technology the question continually turned to how to also apply digital tools into a system of ongoing formative evaluation.  Attendance at professional development sessions was only one aspect as the expense and timing were challenges that digitization was intended in part to relieve. 

The data from the data loggers shown in this visual are being used in multiple applications and the teachers have tailored them to the grade level over time. Their engagement with these particular items were not their choice.    The loggers collect info on light and temperature and produce a dual data graph and were selected from the initial results of the MOSART tests required by the NH MSP in 2010.  The tests indicated that teachers need practice with understanding light, heat transfer applications and dual variable graphing.  

With the varied tools involved we challenged the teachers to demonstrate student evidence of their PD and developed a rubric that enabled them to move through the three years ratcheting up expectations.

As teachers scaled up their  projects for classroom applications they met district needs to adjust to new standards. A demonstration of that positive teacher engagement is   The Solar Sprint event which has from 8 teams to 27, each with at least 3-4 students per team.  Teachers presented to their board ensuring that the event and class time continues. Another is the summer program and still another is a rebuilt outdoor learning boardwalk.

The ELA element shown has both a science entry with a signout and group (physical discussion) and an ELA educator in another district using online systems.   These varied examples are captured as "student evidence" of educator's PD.  Teachers proudly invites the project manager to their classes when the digital tools are in use or after materials were produced by the tools which is why the video has still pictures with date and time stamps.    

What we find from these multiple forms of digital data types  is that form builds the potential of sustainability both in program and in interest development.   Teachers develop the digital skills to record what they see as positive results and actions. These positive images become valued communication elements for the community and also the student.    Programs like Donors Choose and crowd sourcing depend more on the visual data than the statistical and for rural locations the stats often fail to show the full value of digital tool integration and change.  

I find your project's reach incredible, especially the inclusion of the ELA professionals as I feel strongly that literacy skills are foundational to STEM. I am just curious as to how you address the challenges that may arise from having such a broad and varied approach with allowing teachers to work on unique projects. You talked about cohort teams. Are there elements of competition? 

Kip, 

Thank you for noticing that we ventured to be broad to enable projects that would extend from the initial support to anticipate STEM future directions back to the basics of ELA and further to where STEM would lead teaching with NGSS as a structure of support.

The challenge that you describe of being broad IS met by extending the geographic focus by loaning the data logger out to contrasting sites.  By  continually building new applications with the digital tools that were NOT requested by the participants but are ones in areas where they need support moves the content forward in science and industrial applications where STEM is designed to lead.    knowledge of light applications is a topic that has slid by education but not industry.  By moving into the  concept of Community of Practice as a solution to what you notice as further challenges from the broad and varied approach we ease into the area of need.  

At this point referring to the term Community of Practice seems to visually ease administrators from the concerns in the past of asking for a MOU from them or expecting them to require teachers in need to join the project.  Also relaxes the teachers to move into student evidence from their interests in what they teach.  

The question of cohort development  is somewhat the area where competition MAY have crept in had it not been the timing of the era where digital integration, the use of the term Community of Practice  and STEM pressures..without definition hit with the most impact...yet the least direction.  Claiming STEM Literacy from what I knew was approaching teachers through following national policy AND the wonderful advantage of membership in the Council of State Science Supervisors during this time gave the MSP design an advantage.

Setting up the parameters and extending the timing to the change between NCLB where the past MSP's were developed and ESSA where they will need to work with ELA and beyond science and math again aids the concept of Community of Practice to ease the teacher to teacher stress.  

I'd be eager to hear from other projects that have considered the concept of Communities of Practice to explain and/or design their scale up directions.   

Betsy has taken the visual data and added some important additional elements, light intensity and temperature. Given that we can track these variables over time, we have a set of ever more objective methods to analyze digital imagery. We can balance the aesthetic and scientific in a more well-rounded learning experience.

Betsy has taken the visual data and added some important additional elements, light intensity and temperature. Given that we can track these variables over time, we have a set of ever more objective methods to analyze digital imagery. We can balance the aesthetic and scientific in a more well-rounded learning experience.

Betsy has taken the visual data and added some important additional elements, light intensity and temperature. Given that we can track these variables over time, we have a set of ever more objective methods to analyze digital imagery. We can balance the aesthetic and scientific in a more well-rounded learning experience.

Betsy has taken the visual data and added some important additional elements, light intensity and temperature. Given that we can track these variables over time, we have a set of ever more objective methods to analyze digital imagery. We can balance the aesthetic and scientific in a more well-rounded learning experience.

Betsy has taken the visual data and added some important additional elements, light intensity and temperature. Given that we can track these variables over time, we have a set of ever more objective methods to analyze digital imagery. We can balance the aesthetic and scientific in a more well-rounded learning experience

Betsy has taken the visual data and added some important additional elements, light intensity and temperature. Given that we can track these variables over time, we have a set of ever more objective methods to analyze digital imagery. We can balance the aesthetic and scientific in a more well-rounded learning experience

Thanks to all who visited and also who answered questions on their comment system. The experience will help us extend the STEM Literacy Community of Practice and also build collaborations to improve STEM integration.