Just rolled in after a two hour drive and my brain is still buzzing a bit. A couple of quick impressions with more thoughtful reflection to come:
- The STEM phrase (and related ones) means different things to different people/schools. I know that this is essentially true of most words, but it seems especially true here. I think it is vital for each school to clearly define for its constituencies what they mean when they are talking about STEM.
- It is clear to me that there are MANY educators who thirst for time to talk with each other about their practice and their ideas. We need to work at each of our institutions to make this more possible.
- The notion of collaboration (between students, between teachers, between departments) was at the heart of all of the talks I attended.
Oh yeah, I won two raffle items! Sweet.
A few questions/thoughts:
1. What does STEM mean to you? What does it mean on your campus?
2. This is me, 100%. And while I enjoy talking with colleagues and other teachers face-to-face at conferences and workshops, my relatively recent journey into collaboration through blogs and Twitter has been unlike anything else I’ve experienced. There are some real benefits to face-to-face time, but the sustained thoughtfulness I come into contact with through blogs and Twitter doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else, at least not that I have physical access to.
3. Awesome.
Congrats on winning the raffles! I hope the prizes were awesome.
Take care,
Michael
I’d say that to me STEM is just the newest catch phrase for trying to break down curricular walls. Recognize that the skills we work on in one classroom are applicable in others as well. If we need new acronyms to get people excited about this, then so be it.
I won Inspiration software and a cool electronic toy kit that I’m saving for my son for Christmas.
Jim, one of the founders of EdCamp is a member of our team at BrightBytes – Kristen Swanson. She is incredible. I hope you had the chance to meet her or hear from her at your EdCamp day!