School Designation: Process > End Results

In September of this school year I became aware that the state of Tennessee had a STEM School Designation Process. Being a little over a year into implementing a STEAM curriculum at Chattanooga Christian Lower School, I decided to look at the criteria to discern what my state felt was "best practice" in regards to STEM education. There are 18 sub areas under the headings of Infastructure, Curriculum and Instruction, Professional Development, Achievement, and Community and Post Secondary Partnerships that are critiqued.

As I looked over what was deemed "best practice," I was fairly excited to learn that we were either hitting all of them hard or were in a process of doing so. I met with our STEAM leadership team and we decided to go ahead and apply for the designation based on our self- evaluation. Two weeks ago I received the news that the committee felt we needed to make some growth in 4 of those 18 sub areas. Honestly, I believe that much of the issue is less that we need to make growth and more that I did not do a great job at documentation in those areas. That being said, our STEAM leadership team has already looked at the feedback and we have made a plan to move forward for next year. The hard part is behind us, it's now just being intentional about updating our sub area folders as needed.

That being said, I was more than a little disappointed that we did not receive the designation this year. We had some unexpected circumstances during the time that the Designation Review Team needed more documentation. I wasn't able to give them the information needed but I also know that we did need to do some improvement in the amount of PD opportunities we give our teachers in regards to STEAM. So here is where I am at...

The process of gathering information for the state of Tennessee for the STEM Designated School process has grown our program more than any assigned "you made it!" stamp could ever do. Being mindful about what is being requested and questioning the WHY of what is deemed important has helped me to add more robustness in areas that we currently might have been lacking in.

This process also has opened the door for me to say "This is best practice, we have to give the teachers the scaffolding they need in STEAM if we expect implementation to go well." It gives me documentation to stand on but furthermore it gives me preset goals that are aligned with what the world (or at least my state) thinks is "best practice." For me, it is never going to look just like what the state desires because we are a private Christian School that wants to definitely strive to holistically teach our students...humanities are just as important to us for a well rounded student BUT if we are doing the things deemed best practice in STEM why not share that?

One of our teachers asked, "Why do we want to be a STEM Designated School?" The answer for me is easy, it gives us solid framework that the outside world is already familiar with and that studies show parents want for their students. But as a leader of the STEAM program, it gives me solid goals in the form of a rubric that can help our school navigate the growth of this program. I don't have to spend my time defining what best practice is, I can spend my time creating opportunities for best practice to happen. Watch out next year, Tennessee...we got this.

The crowd, the community, the connection

The Crowd. As parents and educators we talk a lot about hanging with the wrong crowd. How many times have I said "Well if Jim jumped off a bridge would you do it too?" in a moment of frustration when students aren't making good choices? Usually when we think of going along with the crowd we think of negativity but this week I have been truly smacked in the face with seeing students from the positive side of following the crowd. 

The Community. We, as humans, are all part of communities. For our students a community could be the school itself, their friend groups, their interests, their families. Most of us are in several different communities and our level of interaction within them varies based on our desires to be in association with others. 

The Connection. This past week was one of the busiest weeks I remember in a long time. I had various "big things" all come to a conclusion this week. First of all 6 fifth grade girls that have been working on a "Play to Learn" Playground STEM design attended the awards ceremony. At the ceremony we also learned that two of our high school girls had joined the high school competition to design a future school/learning space. Both teams came away with wins and the older girls pretty much ruled the competition they were in.

 As I drove home that evening I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that both groups spent a lot of time thinking about their designs from an empathetic heart. Our fifth grade girls designed a playground that would include people of all ages and abilities. Our high school girls imagined a repurposing of a warehouse our school has to bring private and public school students together to learn authentically while tapping into local community resources for learning opportunities. Our school is surrounded by a low income area and these girls had a desire to create cutting edge spaces not just for themselves and our school but they were also mission minded in their goals. I was blown away with the underlying empathy that just naturally flowed from both groups.  

On Thursday, I spent the day preparing for Chattanooga's first ever social event to support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation...One Night for JDRF. As we planned all week for this event we realized we needed some volunteers to help it go smoothly. After contacting our community service director in our high school (Karen happens to be a Type 1 diabetic too), she found some girls to volunteer. There was nothing glorious about their jobs that night. They picked up garbage off tables and they walked back and forth endlessly to the silent auction table to help with the closing of the auction.
Another sweet girl took photos all night for us. They didn't have to do this. There was no gain for them except that they either have Type 1 diabetes or they are best friends with someone with Type 1. These girls were mission minded, empathetic souls that wanted to make a difference and support their friends. 

Saturday night the AP and Honors Art Students from our high school had an opening night of their spring collection of artwork that took place at a local art studio. These students took on the publicizing of this event (which is a whole other blog post) and the room was packed when I walked in. What I found amazingly wonderful was it wasn't just family there supporting their artistic family members, it was athletes supporting their artistic friends (just like those artists do when they attend sporting events.) Their was a sense of community in that crowded gallery that made my heart swell with pride. Our students have a great sense of supporting within their community. All week long I kept thinking, I'm so glad my own children have been part of this crowd! 

We hear a lot these days about the soft skills that will be needed for the future workforce. Those skills include but aren't limited to collaboration, communication, initiative, and social skills. I saw all these and more being modeled in our students this week and I am so thankful and proud of the community of CCS and the students we have. Bravo! 

Squad Goals

As we navigate technology integration at our preK-12 school we are looking at establishing a better understand of definitions and expectations.  This includes:

• Philosophy of Instruction Technology Integration
• Integration Expectations
• Instruction Standards Related to Technology
• Device Infrastructure

Most currently we have been rewriting and reassessing our philosophy statement. While this is a work in process, I'm wondering what philosophy statements have others seen that they really liked? 

I have several questions for anyone willing to discuss:

1. What could be stated better in your own district's philosophy statement? 
2. Does your district/school have a philosophy statement for technology integration?
3. Would you include the ISTE standards in your philosophy statement? Why or why not? 
4. Should a philosophy statement offer examples?
5. How should the philosophy of technology integration support the mission statement of the school. Should that be stated in the philosophy?

The following is our work in process...thoughts? 

"At Chattanooga Christian School we see technology as both a medium and a tool that can be used individually and as a society for human flourishing. It is our desire to lay the foundation for appropriate usage to mold our students into digital citizens with a biblical worldview. Technology is not a replacement for education or an end in itself, but it can be used to to enhance education and to expand that education outside the walls and timeframe of the classroom, empowering students to become lifelong learners. We are preparing our students to learn how to be motivated to leverage technology for best learning practices both now and in the future.

These opportunities are significant, but must be understood within the context of a biblical worldview. As educators, we need to model and instruct wise and discerning use of technology. Technology is rightly used in education inasmuch as it helps improve student learning, teacher effectiveness, and institutional coherence and communication.  The technology team will constantly be evaluating current tools of instruction as new innovations come available. This will happen in direct collaboration with curriculum leaders at our school to find the needed balance to best meet the needs of both students and teachers.`

Technology integration expectations (based on ISTE student standards 2016) for the student include :

• Empowered Learner: Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goal informed by the learning sciences.
• Articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.
• Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.
• Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
• Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
• Digital Citizen: Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
• Students cultivate and manage their digital identity and reputation and are aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world.
• Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
• Students demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
• Students manage their personal data to maintain digital privacy and security and are aware of data-collection technology used to track their navigation online.
• Knowledge constructor: Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
• Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
• Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources.
• Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
• Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
• Innovative Designer: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
• Students know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
• Students select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that considers design constraints and calculated risks.
• Students develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
• Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
• Computational Thinker: Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions
• Students formulate problem definitions suited for technology-assisted methods such as data analysis, abstract models and algorithmic thinking in exploring and finding solutions.
• Students collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them, and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making.
• Students break problems into component parts, extract key information, and develop descriptive models to understand complex systems or facilitate problem-solving.
• Students understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.
• Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
• Students choose the appropriate platforms and tools for meeting the desired objectives of their creation or communication.
• Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
• Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.
• Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.
• Global Collaborator: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.
• Students use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning.
• Students use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts or community members, to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints.
• Students contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal.
• Students explore local and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions."