Posted on

Separate but Together

By Tobias Hatten Suffolk- STANYS Earth Science SAR

In the midst of the dog days of summer and the tropical storm Isaias teachers from every corner of the state banded together with the goal of creating remote-ready unit plans for every science regents course. Upstate, downstate, finger lakes, capital, and every region in-between we did it separate, but together. In every aspect this collaborative effort represented the best professional development and networking experience that many teachers had ever experienced. The reach of this effort has been tremendous as it has offered an organized set of unit plans that teachers can quickly implement to broaden their practices and provide students with multi-modal and engaging learning experiences in these unprecedented times. Beyond New York, and across the world, this work has been shared and implemented towards excellence in science education. Amazing work STANYS and thank you!

The Backstory…

Once the world stopped due to COVID-19 science teachers were a bit lost as we tried to navigate our tactile classroom experiences through remote instruction. Each day teachers received e-mail after e-mail with great resources, PD opportunities, and ideas, yet at a certain point all of the e-mails were just lost as we each tried to keep high quality instruction going for our students. Towards May, the Suffolk STANYS group zoomed to discuss this new world and a pattern emerged…teachers were in need of help. No one teacher could transform years of experience and lessons all on their own. So we decided to try to make folders that could be shared, however, it seemed as if we were too late in the year for these to work. But what if we did something different, something better, something that harnessed the amazing skills of teachers across the state.  So we focused on creating an opportunity and a space, Separate-But Together, with the simple focus of making remote-ready unit plans for each regents class. 

The remote ready unit plans were made by 100’s of teachers working together and it has helped 1000’s of teachers because of the involvement of the amazing teachers who made it. The ability of the ideas and resources to spread like a wildfire occurred because of the personal involvement of educators across state and world. Even months afterwards, the facilitators receive 100’s of e-mail each week of thanks and appreciation. Personally, this was the most incredible PD that I have ever been a part of as we all worked Separate but Together. 

Myself and STANYS would like to share an enormous THANK YOU. This work was so meaningful because we all worked together to make it the best. The monumental power of collaboration and willingness to help one another selflessly was amazing. 

Please complete the google form if you would like to be informed of updates.https://forms.gle/7pGJmfrsv86JiVWz9 

Link to Materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c8Cd8cO7uBll-t-OyCx_n_B7KgSZVJQFCXbyIqdOcM4/edit 

Posted on

A Professional Development Experience with Paul Andersen by Alice Veyvoda

This summer, STANYS leaders, Master Teachers, and educational professionals throughout New York State were invited to experience two days of immersion in NYSSLS and Three-Dimensional Learning and Assessment   Paul Andersen joined us to facilitate the learning activities.

There were three workshop sites around the state: July 29-30 (SUNY Stony Brook); July 31-August 1 (SUNY New Paltz); and August 2-3 (Conference Center at Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES). Each workshop was designed to prepare teacher leaders to begin the work of facilitating workshops on how to transition to NYSSLS. These workshops built on those conducted during the last two summers, and teacher leaders attending this year were provided with multiple ideas and resources to share with other educators in their home schools/regions. Workshop activities included creating storylines for lessons to help further understanding regarding the shifts to the new standards and phenomenon-based learning. Learn more at Paul Andersen’s website, TheWonderOfScience

 

Paul also offered some advice to the STANYS leaders as they looked forward to sharing their understanding and providing workshops for their teacher-colleagues “back home” – a sort of “12 step plan” that began with a reminder that teachers are professionals, not students, and should be treated as such, and closed with “Have Fun !” He stressed not to argue about adoption of the new Standards: it’s done!

Day #1 we worked in groups of two or three to develop a 3D assessment. We first continued work on an assessment already started by participants from another workshop and then we chose a Performance Assessment in our subject area and began the process of developing and honing an assessment we might use in the upcoming year. To help us evaluate the assessment we were developing, Paul provided us with his “Performance Assessment Screening Tool – a “check-list” of items designed to ascertain if the assessment tool we were developing was actually doing what we wanted it to: assess 3-dimensional learning for the selected PE area.

Day #2 was devoted to developing activities for a lesson/unit for which we might utilize the assessment developed the previous day. Workshop participants observed various phenomena for introducing “sample” lessons/units, and then searched for a phenomenon suitable for introducing students to the topic they had chosen. We applied Paul’s “method” (his “ABC’s of Teaching”: Activity Before Content”) to our lesson prep. Paul was ready with help, circulating throughout the groups, asking questions and giving suggestions to further our progress. He provided a “3-Dimensional Screening Tool” with a “check-list” to guide us toward development of a truly 3-dimensional lesson. At the close of Day #2, we all felt that we had a 3-D lesson (or the strong beginning of one…) and a 3-D assessment to provide us with student feedback. Quite an accomplishment!

Some comments from attendees:

“As always, my brain hurts from thinking so much … in a good way! I am excited to take all that I learned about developing lessons and assessments and share it with other teachers. I look forward to seeing how the shift to 3D-instruction and learning helps build deeper understanding for students.” Kathi

“This workshop was particularly rewarding beause there was ample tie for discourse among colleagues and we left with a finished product to take back to my classroom!” Jeff Salerno, STANYS Western Section (JeffreySalerno@LSCSD.or)

“As a new teacher that was extensively trained in the new standards it was an insightful experience to work with other teachers and professionals to learn how to incorporate these standards into the classroom.” Riley McHugh

“Paul Andersen has been a phenomenal resource in explaining all of the information about NGSS. I am looking forward to engaging my students with inquiry based labs. See you next year! Ashley Leung

“Paul and the STANYS crew provided another high quality professional development to support the vital work to implement our new standards. They had a great mix of prompts, productive group work, and good humor.” Doug Schmid

“After participating in all three Paul Andersen workshops –this final hands-on interactive presentation really wrapped the NYSSLS into a nice package I look forward to unwrapping during the school year. My level of understanding of the new standards is finally sinking in and Ifeel like I have material to try this upcoming year. The professional development these two days was excellent and well put together by all involved.”Sonja Anderson

“The authentic scientific practices being implemented in NGSS are invaluable for scientific reasoning for all students.” Peter Rosen

“The opportunity to collaborate with colleagues of all levels of experience and all types of backgrounds made this daunting task of implementing NGSS feel totally attainable!” Seth

Paul Andersen will be a presenter at the Annual Conference November 1-4, 2019, in Rochester NY. Find more information online at STANYS.org/ConferenceMain where the full Conference Program is available.

Posted on

Outstanding Students and Teachers to be Recognized at the 44th Annual Awards Dinner in May

Each year the STANYS Suffolk Section presents an Awards Dinner at which outstanding science students and science educators are honored.  The dinner this year will be held on May 23, 2018 at Villa Lombardi’s in Holbrook.  Each high school science department from districts that are patrons of our District Membership Services Program submit an outstanding graduating senior from their school who is recognized at the Awards Dinner.  At the dinner three teachers (elementary, middle level, and high school) receive our Science Teacher Recognition Awards for meritorious service as a science educators.                                                                                                      

A letter has been sent to all building principals and to high school science supervisors inviting them to nominate a member of their faculty for recognition as a Science Teacher of the Year.  We invite you to assist us with our Science Teacher Recognition Awards Program by submitting a nomination form for an outstanding science educator.   You may nominate a colleague or yourself to be a candidate for recognition as a Science Teacher of the Year:  2017 – 2018.  The award recipient may be either a teacher of science or a science specialist who has made extraordinary contributions to the science teaching profession.  Examples of such contributions are:

  1. An outstanding teacher- One who helps students and other teachers both inside and outside the classroom with the delivery of science programs, organizes special student programs and has achieved success with special groups.
  2. An innovative teacher – One who successfully introduces new programs, develops or revises curricula, teaching methods or materials. 
  3. A teacher serving other teachers – One who works through professional organizations such as  STANYS, NSTA, NESTA, NABT, AAPT, AACT, BOCES, SCOPE, intra-school or inter-school programs, to provide ongoing help for student teachers, new teachers and veteran teachers.                                                                          

To nominate a teacher for an award, click here to complete the Google form. Once the information on the nominee has been entered in the form a cover letter and an application will be sent to the candidate.  This will include providing more detailed information about the candidate, and instructions for including a professional resume, a personal response, and letters of recommendation.  It will be the candidate’s responsibility to complete all forms and obtain all of required documentation. 

At the Awards dinner in May Outstanding High School Science Seniors are recognized from each participating high school in our District Membership Services Program. Student honorees and a teacher of their choice are guests of the Suffolk STANYS section.  The invited teacher speaks about the student as the receive a plaque.                        

Letters have also been sent to all to all Suffolk County high school principals and science supervisors requesting student nominations, which should be submitted by completing this Google form.  Please see if your district is a patron of the District Membership Services Program and can submit a student nomination.  If not, it’s not to late for a district to enroll.  The cost is $200 per high school.  If you need information about enrolling your high school in the District Member Services Program please contact Brian Vorwald. If this isn’t possible for this year, please consider supporting the program next year.  

Posted on

FRC FTW

The first of the year always tends to give my kids anxiety and feeling of abandonment. The next six weeks they will lose their parent. My precious Dorothy (5) and adorable Jame (3) will only see me on FaceTime for bedtime and a quick 5 minutes in the morning when they wake up as I am going out the door. This is due to the oath I took as well as thousands of others globally to be a FIRST robotics mentor. January 6th the Saturday that begins the 6 weeks of build season. For those of you that are unaware, this day Globally at about 10 am EST we learn our fate and the game of the year. In this cas, I am lucky that I live in the same time zone as where the game is released. Broadcasted out from the main kickoff event in New Hampshire Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers send their message and homework to the world. Then the problem solving, game strategies, and money for supplies starts flowing. Here is the link to this years game.

There has been plenty of preparation gone into the year before the kick-off. Teams have been training new members and fundraising. Plenty of fundraising is required to build these elaborate robots. Our team tries to include local businesses and to help sponsor and mentor our team. What is great about this, is that our students go out and have to talk and convince the sponsors how great this program and why they need to support us. Also, students show up not knowing the difference between a wrench and a hammer. So the leadership of the program is charged with training the new members on the equipment and start building the family. Robotics becomes more than a program to the kids. It becomes family. Our team motto has become “relationships forged with aluminum but built for life” This has become more evident to me as I just went to a wedding of one of our alumni. As I saw her cake with FIRST symbols and binary code, and sitting at the robotics table, I knew I was apart of something bigger than I. Each one of the alumni had a masters in engineering, programming, and heading into Medical School.

Now for this years game. This year we need to stack milk crates “power cubes” onto a balance beam that is either about 2 feet or 5 feet off the ground. As long as the balance is tilted to our team we are building points. Then at the end of the game we can opt to climb a 7 foot high bar for 30 points. The moment we find out our task the students start to problem solve and design. They prototype and do research. They have found out that a previous robot that we built while these students were in elementary school. Was able to stack crates with ease. So they savagely recycled her. So now have a robot in the works. Making better what we used in the past. Also the climbing task was very similar to another robot we built when these students were in Pre-k. They are currently adapting the plans to meet this years needs. Students are actively working each day doing things that they can not do anywhere else.

The way the build works is that student leadership is charged with different teams and the leadership is not supposed to touch tools but to assist the younger members staying on task and the leadership reports to mentors. This is what every team should be doing. Using the adults as a reference but the robots should be built completely by students. Student ideas should be examined experimented and tested. Although some of the robots do not look student built at all. I get some joy in seeing the finished product and the pride of my team each year.

The FIRST program is a program that get the students heads out of their phones and gaming systems and takes textbook knowledge and puts it to real use. Get the students to make something real and tangible. Gives them the ability to fail, fall down, and pick themselves up to succeed. Any student that does not have an idea fail doesn’t learn anything. It is not uncommon to see a student break down when something they worked hard for fail, but you see them get the determination to adapt and change their idea. These are the success stories. They own their creation. Often their creation becomes their child. When the students develop this adaptation and creativity you see it in the pits of the competition. That is a sight to see. The team converge on their bot during competition and fix things that broke or tweek their design to make their bot better mid competition. My job is to support them and the students make it happen. They are learning to depend on themselves and their team. They are learning that life is not about memorizing what someone told them, they are learning life does not have an instruction manual. They are learning that they need to critically think and whatever they put their mind to they can accomplish.

The team is not just about building robots. Team 2161 is also about helping others. In the past 12 years or so They have raised over $200,000 for St. Baldricks to help fund research on childhood cancers. They put the whole event together and team alumni come back to shave the way to a cure.  Please consider donating or coming.

As my children Dori and James lose a parent for six weeks. In the end when they come to competition they see their extended family the robotics team. As my kids come up to the school to support my events , the students get to know them and the students will have them control a robot and show them what their parent has been up to. James also has been shaving his head since he was one year old. My students expect my kids to be at competition too. So each year the family grows. The stress and anxiety continues but in the end a better society can be formed with the critically thinking students that realize that they hold the key to greatness. I leave you with these two quotes from Nicola Tesla “Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.” “I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”