ASEE K-12 Workshop

I've been to a decent number of conferences mostly thanks to my involvement in ACS as an undergrad.  One of the cool things about being a TigersTeach scholar at Clemson is that I am going to be able to go to more conferences for professional development.

I've already been to my first of the bunch - the 2013 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference.  Only one other cohort member attended the conference with me, so it was a pretty special honor.  We attended a K-12 Workshop on integrating engineering into all types of classes as pre-service teachers.  We were able to attend many sessions throughout the day and got some awesome free stuff.  (Or, as Michael Scott would say "SWAG: stuff we all get.")

My favorite session was one on integrating robotics into the curriculum.  LEGO partners with universities (I think mainly in the northeast) to create these initiatives.  We were lucky enough to get to play with some LEGOs at the conference - aquatic ones!  This website gives way more information on the program.

This is my game face.  We had to build a robot that could make a figure 8 in the water faster than any other robot.  We were definitely champions.

We also attended a session on how to use items found in the home to create engineering opportunities for students.  We were able to peek into a toaster to see just how the knob that adjusts for time/darkness really adjusts.  I never knew that it lowered some bar inside the toaster.  Honestly I thought it was the equivalent of an egg timer.  Not the case!  I was particularly into this session as the speakers were representatives from Michigan Tech.  Hello to my UP pals!

My hair was really looking superb that day.

It was a pretty good day overall.  It was tough to get much out of the conference, though, as pre-service teachers.  I mean, I don't really think I had enough training at that point to really think about applying the stuff I was seeing to the classroom.  I will say, though, that I have been thinking about it more lately as we recently had another scholar dinner and I and the other cohort member had to present to the group stuff that we learned at the conference.  Engineering is everywhere.  Integration of the sciences is here.

Atlanta was a really nice place to have the conference I think.  Before this day I had never actually gotten out of the car/airport in the city before, so I did do just a tad of sightseeing at lunch.

I think Atlanta is pretty big into the Olympics.  Crazy to think that 1996 was 17 years ago.  You'd never know it in this city.

Centennial Olympic Park

I too take pride in the Olympics.  I think I've got my form down.

Emerging Scholars

I had the special opportunity to be involved with the Clemson Emerging Scholars Program this summer.  I have included the link to the program website below and encourage you to check it out for yourself if you have time.  It's a phenomenal program and I was so honored to be a part of it.

Emerging Scholars

To do a quick summary for those who don't have the time to visit the website, Clemson brings students from lower-achieving schools in SC to the university to participate in this program and to get them excited about furthering their education.  Some of these students come from areas where even graduating high school is perhaps a rare occurrence.  Clemson doesn't just plug the orange and purple, though.  They also take the students to surrounding universities to help show the students that they have multiple options.  Students first participate as rising sophomores (and are then invited to return as juniors and seniors too).  They spend a week on campus with other rising sophomores from the same and different schools.  Rising juniors spend two weeks on campus.  Rising seniors are on campus for three weeks and graduate from the program upon completion of those last classes.  I was able to attend this year's graduation ceremony as a guest to the faculty member I worked with in the lab.

This year I helped with rising seniors who were taking a class on environmental science.  The students did random activities as a group, but the main project they had to complete was one that focused on an environmental concern they saw in their communities.  Students were able to work in groups and completed a mini research project about issues like pollution, waste management and recycling, etc.  The faculty member I worked with was able to get some iPads for the students to use for these activities.  The students were able to not only take pictures, but also make notes right below the pictures to best caption the images for their reports.  The app used for this class is one that I will definitely be implementing in my classroom one day if I have access to technology.

As much fun as helping in the lab was, attending the graduation ceremony was the biggest honor I've ever had.  Students performed poetry, songs, and spoke about experiences.  Awards were given and students were recognized for their efforts.  It's heartbreaking to hear what some of these students have already gone through in their lives.  Clemson brought back a member of the very first class of students to participate in this program.  She gave her first speech as a professional doctor that evening.  She spoke about how any of the students sitting in front of her were also capable of earning a PhD and that there are so many opportunities to do so.  She also talked about how the Emerging Scholars program changed her life.  Outstanding.

I've already signed up to help next summer.  I have never been more moved than I was by these students.  I want nothing more than to help them achieve the great heights they are destined to reach and surpass!

Summer 2013

I love how I thought I would have time to regularly keep a blog throughout this experience.

I'd just like to take a few moments now to talk about my summer - the first two semesters of my program.

Summer I was more informal than anything.  I had two classes, although one was actually a whole summer course.  That class was my grad-level content course: Ecology.  I had never taken an ecology course before, so I was excited to get some new knowledge!  I was a little worried, though, because this class was all online.  I had also never taken an online class before, so I had NO idea what to expect.  Honestly I was worried I'd have to teach myself everything, write papers constantly, participate in forums, etc.  It was truthfully nothing like that.  My professor recorded lectures as if we were in an actual classroom with him and then posted them online for us to watch at our own pace.  That was awesome.  I could "go to class" in my bed and could pause his lecture if I had to use the restroom or if I got hungry.  All of the tests were online and open-book too.  We did have one small paper to write at the end of the semester, but that wasn't bad at all.

The second class I took in Summer I was the first education class of the program.  My professor was from Michigan (hooray!) and was such a great instructor.  She has spent a bunch of time working with students of all ages and is really passionate about her job.  I loved the discussions we had in this class.  We (members of the science cohort) really got to know each other through this class.  We bounced ideas off each other constantly and challenged ourselves.  This class was only three weeks long, but it felt like it FLEW by.  We were in the classroom most of the day throughout the week and I can tell you that I was not once bored.  I was engaged the whole time and I loved it.  It was my first education class ever, so I guess that's a good sign!  The "end-of-semester" projects for this class were our very first unit/lesson plan outline and a classroom safety plan.  The unit/lesson plan thing was pretty simple.  Basically we had to pick a topic and split up lessons over a week's worth of classes.  We didn't have to actually plan any of the lessons, we just had to come up with ideas of what we might do as supplemental instruction and such.  The classroom safety plan was a little more intense.  We had to use sources and other educators' ideas to form our own safety plan for our classroom, no matter where we teach.  I was a little overwhelmed at first by these assignments as I had never seen or heard of anything like these really, but I soon realized I was thinking too much about everything.  I spoke with a couple of people from the previous year's cohort and they helped me realize that it wasn't quite as complicated as I was making it.  I quickly adjusted my efforts and completed the assignments.  Before I knew it, Summer I was over.

Onto Summer II!  I still had that good old ecology class, but I did have two new education classes.  One was about psychology in the classroom and another was basically about learning theories.  Both were challenging in a very good way.  I learned SO much in my psychology class and was able to practice what I was learning in my learning theory class.  I was able to plan some fun chemistry activities and get some GREAT ideas from my cohort about biology activities.  

My psychology class was probably my favorite of the whole summer.  I don't know what it was about this class, but I was fascinated by everything we were learning.  I had never been able to pay complete attention in a class (that was really mostly lecture) before this.  I don't know if it was because my professor was quiet and I had to really listen to hear what she was saying or if it was that I was afraid I would have no idea what was going on if I didn't listen or if it was just that I loved learning about this stuff, but I was able to sit and listen to her talk and had absolutely no fear asking questions or answering her questions.  I'm pretty sure I ended up being her go-to when no one else was answering her questions.  I don't know how it happened, but honestly I wasn't going to pass up any opportunity to learn.  We had a semester-long group project that balanced out the lectures.  I was able to work with two members of the science cohort, so it was pretty great.  We worked really well together and got a TON of great feedback from our professor.  Most fun I've ever had in a group project.  We even got to have a conference-like poster presentation at the end of it all!

My learning theory class, on the other hand, was not my favorite.  The professor had a really unique teaching style that just didn't mesh well with mine.  He is a chemist, though, so I was able to get some very specific feedback from him about my activities.  We also wrote our first teaching philosophies in this class.  My original was pretty much nothing like my final draft.  I still don't really know if I really got the idea of what a teaching philosophy was supposed to look like, but it ended up being 12 pages of A-quality work, so I'm just going to assume for now that it was at least acceptable.  I really enjoyed the activities we got to plan in this class, but I had to pull an all-nighter the evening before this class ended to finish up my projects.  I don't have too much else to say about this class as I really tried to be as removed as possible unless my classmates were presenting ideas or we were working in student groups.  If you talked to me at all during this semester you probably heard me mention small things about this class.  I think I've done a decent job leaving most of those out of this description.  I'd say that I really did learn in this class, but I'm going to leave it at that.

I also had to take the Praxis content exam this summer.  It's a national exam students take to prove they have the knowledge needed to teach such content.  There are several types of tests (and Michigan uses none of them), but there are some specific science ones.  It's all good news, too!  I passed!  I will now be allowed to teach science, at least in SC.

I'll save the extracurricular stuff I did this summer for another post.  Time for school work!