District Administration December2017 - 57
SPONSORED WEB SEMINAR DIGEST Kim Alexander Superintendent Roscoe Collegiate ISD (Texas) Salvatore Menzo Superintendent Wallingford Public Schools (Conn.) Paula Love President RFPMatch.com move forward. We continue to hear from businesses that they want students to have soft skills: perseverance, communication, empathy. So we're preparing students to be good communicators and collaborators. When we look at the soft skills, it's work ethic, socialization, technology, written communication. All of these come together. Makerspaces with design thinking are a key to program development and to program enhancement and augmentation. Some people might equate design thinking to inquiry-based science, but it's different in that it provides a broader opportunity for students to investigate and solve problems. It provides them less context and more opportunity to explore their own interests in their areas of concern, which then increases the relevance and their ability to actually connect in a social and emotional way with the problem they're trying to solve. I would encourage anyone who is setting up a makerspace not to fall into the trap of just developing a room and then having it collect dust because you don't know what to do with it. Ground your makerspace in a curriculum, with a foundation for students to learn and grow, and for teachers to be able to actually use this space in the most authentic and relevant way. Paula Love: STEM is taking a front-row seat on the national level.This is going to eventually roll down to the state and local level. In late September President Trump signed a new memorandum intending to increase access to STEM and computer science education across the country. Following that announcement, a collective group of companies including Amazon, Facebook and others pledged to support computer science instruction through $300 million in grants. There are some real actionable funding streams that you can follow right now that will help bring some of your projects to fruition: Title IV Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, the Carl Perkins grant, the CTE Makeover Challenge, the Education Innovation & Research Grant, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers-and don't forget funding in the form of bonds and facility grants, because those also can support your efforts to build makerspaces in your schools. Another important resource for funding is state workforce initiatives, and yet another is the National Science Foundation. The Innovative Technology Experiences for Students andTeachers encourages and engages students in STEM career pathways, and the Computer Science for All program and Cyberlearning for Work at the Human-Technology Frontier create opportunities for students, teachers and workers to come together. And NASA has a great number of educational opportunities, contests and resources for classroom sets of activities. In addition to all of those, private funders are excited to support STEM, such as Fiat Chrysler Automotive, and the National Math and Science Initiative with support from donors such as Exxon-Mobile, the Gates Foundation and Dell. Code.org is increasing participation in computer science by women and underrepresented minorities. The IEEE Foundation is known for its work in robotics competitions, and Toshiba America Foundation offers many grants to support teachers. Northrup Grumman operates a STEM Academy for middle school teachers in conjunction with the National Science Teachers Association. We offer a free resource called GrantsAlert.com, which tracks grants for teachers and schools. To watch this web seminar in its entirety, please visit: www.districtadministration.com/ws101717 www.DistrictAdministration.com December 2017 57