I feel that it is important to state my long term (5 Years) goals first in order to move forward with my short term (next 6 months) goals. My top 3 long term goals include:
Providing opportunities for my students to have more choice in how they engage with and demonstrate STEM competency in order to increase the likelihood of more of my students seriously pursuing STEM pathways into high school, college, and then career choices.
Strengthening bonds with families to increase engagement with STEM for my students.
Encourage more of my colleagues to work together with me to try innovative approaches to integrating STEM within the other disciplines of Social Studies, Math, and Language Arts. This I believe will also help students understand the relevancy and importance of STEM in their lives.
My top 3 short term goals include:
Now that our school has been awarded the FUSE STEAM Grant, I will participate in the summer professional development and begin rolling out use of our new STEAM studio for our students next school year beginning in September.
Continue learning from my newly implemented “STEM-in-the-Home” project with my 6th grade students. Students are currently experimenting with STEM kits acquired through a Donorschoose grant and together with family members they are making their learning public through Google Classroom discussion boards. I need to learn more about what works and what can be improved to help make this program more sustainable and supportive of my longer term goals.
Continue strengthening the partnerships already established with outside STEM institutions such as Northwestern University’s Science in Society after school Science Club Program and NU’s Engineers Without Borders Program. My goal is to find more minority and female representatives from these partnerships so my students feel a more direct cultural connection with them.
My goals will continue to be strengthened and adapted over the next few months that I am in this amazing program, MSUrbanSTEM! Stay tuned for further updates!