Highlight success stories here, with an archive of prior stories...
"Interesting Links" :
Education News Colorado:
This is one of the best links for keeping up with education news in Colorado...it has interesting articles and commentary. Some may find it controversial but always informational and covering the latest areas of interest from around the state.
http://www.ednewscolorado.org/
Some Interesting Areas Of Interest:
1.) Utah Contingency visits Colorado to share their experience in building a Bio Science pathway that spans middle school through university degrees.
2.) Estes Park was able to build an observatory by collaborations with the school district, city and other community partners.
3.) Dual credit courses through community colleges bring exceptional opportunities to students.
4.) Grant information: successes and opportunities
5.) Something fun...Characterization of the Resistence to Change!
Utah Contingent Summary-March 8th, 2010
“How to Establish a STEM Career Educational Ladder”
Dr. Tammy Goetz, Gina Sanzenbacher,, Larry Madden, Sandi Hemmert, Suzanne Winters, Adam Blaszczak, Ph.D.
The Utah Contingent, consisting of six outstanding science professionals, came and shared their experiences in how they built a Bio Science career ladder that spans middle school to university level programs. It was initially based on a 2x2x2 articulation. They initiated the trip and made a few stops in Northern Colorado. The contingent was full of helpful information and sharing of their experiences and challenges in how they have been able to develop comprehensive program to engage, excite and recruit students into the world of science.
This effort has taken Utah 10 years of blood, sweat and tears, but with a wonderful result. The truly amazing gift they brought to Colorado was their willingness to share their experiences, challenges, solutions, and hope for broadening the effectiveness of developing effective programs and educating students in the world of Bio Science. They admit they are still working on the overall sustainability, but the progress is exceptional and the momentum is full speed ahead!
PoudreSchool District hosted the meetings in our area and we were fortunate to have a few of our Northern Colorado school districts represented for the presentation.
The Utah participants were:
1.) Tammy Goetz-BioScience Advisor to the Governor of UTah and key champion of the initial grant that helped launch their Bio Pathway initiative
2.) Larry Madden-Center for Science Education-Current 6th-9th grades, will be expanding to 10th, 11th & 12th.-Excite students, find ways to connect & engage. The program is based on whatever it takes to connect students with real world science and keep them excited and engaged and wanting to learn more.
3.) Gina Sanzenbacher-Biotechnology Instructor Jordan Applied Technology Center-HS located on the Community College Campus-Mixes High School and College students-Was 2 yrs HS, 2 yrs CC, and now have added a 4 yr Univ. option. They also added a 3rd science course (bio science), allowing students to have a continual progression in the bio-science pathway.
4.) Adam Blaszczak, Ph.D-Director of InnovaBio-Combines HS & College students. Real world, real projects, real customers-State of the Art Equipment-Contracts for real research projects-Drawing back into 9th grade students.
5.) Suzanne Winters-Director of the Innovations Gateway-7 lab Incubator-Just developing-Business gets free resources in students, students get real-time experience and hands on training-just now beginning to populate the labs.
6.) Sandi Hemmert-CTE Funding Coordinator-provides grant application support and financial management for the programs.
This program is an excellent example of how belief in an idea, along with passion and persistence, has produced a new, sustainable, multi-level pathway for Bio Science. It starts with students in middle school (they hope to eventually move it back to earlier grades) and tracks to the University level. The courses are overlapping and students intermix between middle, high school, community college and universities.
Progress takes time. The program has been evolving over 10 years and continues to change as new opportunities are pursued. The initial
Program funding came from a combination of a WIRED grant, leveraged with private investor contributions and school district funding, to build a wet lab on the SaltLakeCommunity College campus. Since then, a variety of grants, private investments and local school district funding has contributed to the support and expansion of programming resources. The bonus for all of us in Colorado…the Utah delegation is willing to share all: programs, funding streams, outcomes, relationship contracts, etc. This alone is worth years of work and helps us avoid and overcome many obstacles before they are even issues!
What a gift this is and reflects on the sincerity of the team to perpetuate their experiential knowledge to those of us who are willing to step out of the traditional roles and explore new methodologies! The opportunity is before us to take advantage of the willingness they have demonstrated to help us move forward much quicker in developing our own programs. They have already done much of the “heavy lifting” in getting the programs to where they are today and fettering out some of the largest obstacles. Their successes can be used to demonstrate the value of the programs and help to pursue funding options.
Although they have been successful in garnering funding from grants and private sources, they specifically noted that the sustainability funding for many of the programs at this time is being supported by the school districts participating in the programs. When you have proven success, ongoing funding seems to come much easier.
One of the important elements in the successful program outcomes has been the focus and ability to engage individual students with interest and provide them with a continuous hands-on, real world environment. One quote from a student was “this is much more fun than school”. As many of the courses are not conducted in a traditional classroom, it seems to be a very conducive learning environment. Many students that have been on the verge of failing or dropping out are responding very positively to the “hands-on”, “real world” environment provided by the bio science programs. The students are re-engaging in education and excited about what the school experience is providing them!
Some of the most important aspects that stand out are 1.) the student’s ability to learn in a real-world environment, 2.) in the InnovaBio program they are producing real analysis, for real businesses 3.) the middle and high school students are interacting and mixing with college students, all learning together, 4.) students as young as middle school or working with the public in a real customer relation experience (the bike repair example), 5.) in the Innovations Gateway program (a business incubator), the students are exposed to various aspects of evolving a business from idea conception to the development of a full blown business plan!
I wanted to share one example with all of you that demonstrated to me how we can be taking advantage of many opportunities that come our way each day to teach a range of skills. Larry Madden, through his Center for Science Education, started with a program (grades 6th – 9th) where some of the students would fix bikes from campus that needed repair. They thought this would be a great way to teach some basic “fix it” skills. This effort became so popular, they expanded the program to include repairs for the general community. They not only did the repairs, but the students would also do the estimates of cost, ordering of parts, recording the repair records, interfacing with customers, etc.—reflecting a real business environment (which it was) while providing a real service to the community! This would not be something you would think of as a typical science project, but I think the variety of skill exposure brought to those students speaks for itself!
Each of the visiting experts had an area of emphasis around their particular program and stories that talked to their challenges and experiences in developing and sustaining the programs. In the time they had for their presentations, they were limited in what they could share, but they have extended an invitation to contact them for anyone interested in further discussion.
For those of you that attended the meeting and presentation, please share the information and encourage discussion about the potential for exploring these programs in more detail. For those of you unable to attend, you can contact me for additional references or contact the Utah teachers directly.
Each of the people in the contingent readily shared that there are many more people that have helped develop and evolve the program. It takes a full commitment and a team willing to fight the battles and persist through the resistance to move a program like this forward. I’m hoping this will gain attention within Northern Colorado and that we are up to taking advantage of the expertise being offered by the Utah group.
Dr. Goetz has expressed the hope of expanding the relationship with Colorado and looks forward to entering into additional discussions on how we can work together to develop multi-state projects and possibly leverage funding, i.e. grant opportunities.
It is clear, that although this program has been designed around Bio Science, it could be duplicated and used as a model for other major sectors and career pathways as well.
They are very willing to take additional calls for more information. Following is the contact info for each of the attendee’s and some additional contacts that are involved in the program. Copies of the presentations given during their visit will be posted when we receive them. I’m sure they would be willing to furnish additional contact names and info should you want to pursue questions in other areas.
Contact info:
Utah Contingent:
www.slcc.edu
(801) 957-6323
(801) 674-2405
(385) 646-4340
(801) 578-8226
Gina Sanzenbacher: gsanzenbacher@jatc-wj.org
www.jordandistrict.org
(801) 256-5927
(385) 646-4625
Additional Contacts:
Deanna Scott: Associate Director of BioMARC Outreach, CSU
(970) 491-8685
Craig Cadwell: Department Chair Biotechnology, Salt Lake Community College, UT
www.slcc.edu/biotech
(801) 957-6350
Susan Hunter: LeadBioscienceCareerAcademy Coordinator
shunter@psdschools.org
(970) 581-0542
Jonathon Tuttle, Biotechnology Instructor, Granite Technical Institute, UT
jdtuttle@graniteschools.org
http://gti.graniteschools.org
(801) 646-4350
Please let me know if I can help with any additional information.
Kathy Gilliland
Coordinator RSA 2
Office: (970) 493-7783
Cell: (970) 576-4124
Community Partnership: Approximately three years ago the Estes Park School District was fortunate to have a resident, a retired engineer and school supporter, approach them with an idea to build an observatory in EstesPark. Together with the help of the city, a donation of land, and a grant, a state of the art observatory has been built! Estes now has an exciting new asset that opens new (literally) universes to it’s residents and students, but that will also be available to use by other communities as well! What an exciting partnership that took a persons passion and an idea, blended it with the right resources and resulted in something that will be valued for years to come by many! And who knows, it may strike that spark in some young mind to venture into new, uncharted territories or put them on the path to an exciting career. For more info contact:…………………….
Funny but timely!
Two leading technology enthusiasts, Dave Thornburg and David Dwyer, put together a set of quotes through the history of American education that characterize the resistance to new technology (Thornburg, 1992) They reflect thew way technology enthusiasts see the problems they are up against in reforming schools. They think that schools are always resistant to change, even when the change will clearly benefit students' learning.
• From a principal's publication in 1815: "Students today depend on
paper too much. They don't know how to write on a slate without
getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can't clean a slate properly.
What will they do when they run out of paper?"
• From the journal of the National Association of Teachers, 1907: "Students
today depend too much upon ink. They don't know how to
use a pen knife to sharpen a pencil. Pen and ink will never replace
the pencil."
• From Rural American Teacher, 1928: "Students today depend upon
store bought ink. They don't know how to make their own. When
they run out of ink they will be unable to write words or ciphers
until their next trip to the settlement. This is a sad commentary on
modern education."
• From PTA Gazette, 1941: "Students today depend on these expensive
fountain pens. They canno longer write with a straight pen and
nib. We parents must not allow them to wallow in such luxury to
the detriment of learning how to cope in the real business world
which is not so extravagant."
• From Federal Teachers, 1950: "Ballpoint pens will be the ruin of education
in our country. Students use these devices and then throw
them away. The American values of thrift and frugality are being
discarded. Businesses and banks will never allow such expensive
luxuries.”
• From a fourth-grade teacher in Apple Classroom of Tomorrow
chronicles, 1987: "If students turn in papers they did on the computer,
I require them to write them over in long hand because 1don't
believe they do the computer work on their own."
• From a science fair judge in Apple Classroom of Tomorrow chronicles,
1988: "Computers give students an unfair advantage. Therefore,
students who used computers to analyze data or create displays
will be eliminated from the science fair."
Dual Credit Opportunities: We are extremely fortunate to have some exceptional Community Colleges and Universities right in our own Northern Colorado back yard! Although some students have more access than others, the value is significant. We have three strong Community Colleges in our region: MorganCommunity College, AIMSCommunity College and Front RangeCommunity College. They offer a variety of disciplines where qualified students in high school can attend classes on campus and get both high school and college credits. The students graduate with a head start on their college education which helps them qualify for post-secondary institutes or have an additional boost on their resumes for entering into the workforce. Some of the dual credit areas are medical fields, auto mechanic & repair, forestry, catering, pre-veterinary and more.
For more information contact:
Links to CC’s
Grants:
Prairie RE-11J was awarded a $XXXXXXX grant for studying bull sperm in 2009. This grant has allowed the students to blah, blah, blah.
St. Vrain RE-1J was awarded a $XXXXXX grant that allowed them to leverage visual arts, communication and ??? together.
Estes Park R-3 has applied for a grant that will link their students, teachers and the National Park in studying the activities of natural habitat wildlife. This program is extremely exciting in that it is connecting students and teachers with an asset that is a part of the community culture.
Greeley 6 was awarded a grant for $1.x million for a program in early childhood development.
PSD R-1 has used multiple grants to enhance their programs. WellingtonMiddle School is building a wind turbine on their grounds and will be using it to teach about alternative energy and powering a classroom to use the power generated
They also have a collaborative program through some of their science classes that links them to AMGEN, a bio science company. Where students get applied learning.
One of the more recent grants will allow them to develop a Community Partnering website that will allow interaction with Community Partners to interact on a variety of levels with the school district, much of which can be completed on-line and be visible throughout the district. This is being leveraged into the regional system to make the information available to the 20 district RSA 2 partners.
Education news from other sources May-11-10
Around the state
Around the nation