October 25, 2018 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Coinciding with both Active Learning Week and Disability Awareness Month, this webinar focuses attention on evidence and best-practices around 1) Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a research-based framework that addresses the wide range of variability found in today’s learners; 2) effective instructional approaches to promote STEM achievement for students with disabilities; and 3) inquiry-based engineering design. It is hoped that participants will seek to implement these active learning pedagogies in their own practice and contribute to the growing, exciting field.
The topic will be explored through engagement of the following multiple stakeholder perspectives:
Jose Blackorby, Ph.D.
BIO
CAST and Harvard Graduate School
of Education
A Nationally Recognized Researcher -
will describe the current state of UDL, best practices in teacher education and K-12 settings, several concrete examples, challenges, as well as future trends. Fundamental to UDL, is the insight that the “average” learner is a myth, and educational solutions targeting an average student will miss the needs of many students. By contrast, based on insights from cognitive neuroscience, the learning sciences, and educational and psychological research, UDL recognizes the variability in learners. It promotes educational solutions that provide multiple means of representation, multiple means of action/expression, and multiple means of engagement. UDL is referenced in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and is growing in implementation in the U.S. and abroad.
Jiwon Hwang, Ph.D.
BIO
California State University
Bakersfield
A Preparation Program Investigator -
will provide an overview of re-conceptualizing STEM education to emphasize instruction in STEM content knowledge (i.e., “what you know”) and generalization of that knowledge (i.e., “what you can do with what you know”) to better promote student engagement and performance in STEM disciplines. Although educators have started to pay attention to how meeting students’ special needs can fit into the design of instructional plans, there is a critical lack of research about STEM education for students with disabilities. In addition, expanding STEM to a STREAM interdisciplinary approach will be demonstrated by adding reading goals and embedding arts. Arts components further promote the motivation, creativity, critical thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills students need to prepare to enter the STEM workforce.
Richard Eitel, Ph.D.
BIO
Bryan High School
Omaha (NE) Public Schools
A STEM Teacher Leader -
will reflect on his own teacher preparation program experience –including as a recent Noyce Fellow – as well as his current efforts, as a secondary physics teacher, to develop and implement inquiry-based units and engineering design practices to engage students of varying abilities. Additionally, lessons learned from previous experiences and results adopting active learning practices in higher education and conducting action research focusing on female and minority students’ science self-efficacy will be described. Ultimately, advice to preservice teacher educators and current teachers seeking to incorporate authentic performances and active learning practices will be shared.
Participant Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this webinar, participants will:
- develop a deeper understanding of the importance of studying STEM teacher retention;
- increase familiarity with what we know and gaps in our knowledge of STEM teacher retention that need to be further explored;
- recognize the relevance of research on STEM teacher retention to their role;
- identify an action step to apply something gleaned toward their own research/program/practice.
About the ARISE Community Webinar Series:
Evidence-Based Transformative STEM Teacher Preparation
This webinar series is intended to encourage engagement with current research and experimentation to advance knowledge and solutions to persistent challenges in STEM teacher preparation, particularly for high-need school districts.
Webinars feature multiple stakeholder perspectives on each session topic through:
- dissemination of research findings from cutting-edge/prominent researchers,
- evidence-based results of innovative STEM teacher preparation programs, &
- teacher leader voice to ground discussions.
The interactive webinars will be recorded and include audience interaction and Q&A.
OBJECTIVES
As part of ARISE’s outreach strategy, this webinar series seeks to:
- collect and share information about topics and strategies for research and evidence-based approaches to understand effective ways to recruit, train, and retain a high-quality STEM teacher workforce; and
- provide quality presentations and opportunities for attendee engagement to increase attendees’:
- awareness of,
- understanding of,
- interest in, and
- proficiency toward addressing critical STEM teacher preparation issues.
