STEMS^2 Research

My STEMS^2 Research (or rather the planning for it) is going fairly well.  I would really like to be further along than I am but two straight 7-day work weeks and 6-day work weeks the rest of the time (it's Spring afterall, Science-everything season) have made me less productive than I would like to be.

In the past week though I have been trying to catch up in between coaching Science Olympiad and Robotics (we are in a transition week right now because our first Botball documentation deadline is next Tuesday but at the same time the high school Science Olympiad team qualified for States last Saturday and we have 14 days to add 6 new events....)

Here's what I have been able to accomplish since my last blog post:

• Met with my scientist collaborator to discuss the lesson sequence for my STEMS^2 unit.
• She and her graduate students can come once a week, so we will hopefully start in March before Spring Break.
• I will teach the days in between, with Fridays reserved for Discussion of Omnivore's Dilemma.
• We are planning to add sustainability to the biodiversity studies which will tie in nicely with the book, Omnivore's Dilemma that the students are currently reading in English.
• Dr. Butler will be preparing a list of the concepts that they plan to cover so that I can create a pre-/post- content survey.
• I will be writing up lesson plans for the lessons that Dr. Butler and her students teach so that we can share them with other teachers (this is part of Dr. Butler's goal, to help teachers in the community).
• Discussed my project plan with the Dean of Curriculum and Instruction at my school to get feedback on my parental and student agreement to be in study forms and approval to conduct my research with my 7th grade classes.
• It was suggested that I add in a comparative component to better gauge the effect of the Scientist-Student partnership, where Dr. Butler would teach one class period and I would teach the same content to the other.  I am considering this but feel somewhat bad that one group of students would not get to interact with her and her graduate students.
• Was given survey instruments focused on student attitudes towards Biology that I can adapt to "Science"
• Also suggested to use "Concept Inventories" as we use with our students in Science to get more quantitative data.
• Completed IRB training online
• Drafted my IRB paperwork so that I can submit to the next deadline.
• Read lots more papers about Scientist-School, Scientist-Teacher, Scientist-Student partnerships to inform myself of the different ways that they can operate and the potential challenges that I may face during the project.
• Panda will be observing my class sometime next month or in April. :)

Here is what I need to do in the next week or so:

• Create all of the surveys (content, attitude, concept inventory) that I plan to use.
• Record the procedures I use (or plan to use) in administering surveys and lesson materials so that this can be included in my methods section.
• Devise a strategy for coding responses to open-ended questions on surveys and student journals (from this week's reading, this sounds difficult so I may ask the CRDG researchers who work with data and project assessment for assistance if they have time)
• Send letters and agreements home to students once I get IRB approval.
• Find and read research papers on teaching sustainability since that is being added now.
• Work with Dr. Butler to draft lesson plans for her lessons, especially if I will be teaching one class period exclusively.  Also need to discuss how she feels about this since she has been teaching both class sections in the past.
• Set up a peer-observation.  Does anyone want to be observed?