Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

Oh my goodness. I cannot believe I am saying this, but today's episode is Bonu mental. We have made it to 100 episodes here on the elementary STEM Coach podcast. I wish I could say that this lined up perfectly with the release of my first episode of the show, but not quite. The first episode was released on July 18, 2022. However, this 100th episode is actually more closely aligned with when I release my trailer. Back before this podcast actually was introduced, I was actually preparing to go to the InEDCO conference in June 2022. My goal was to get my podcast trailer set up and published so that it would hold me accountable when I was talking to people at the conference that I had a podcast coming out, and I didn't want to lie. And, actually, funny enough, I even made business cards with the name of my podcast on it, so then I definitely had to get this show published and make it happen. And funny enough, this is totally a testament to this podcast needed to happen. I had bought all of the materials for the podcast. You don't need a whole lot to get started, but I did get all the tools and the microphone purchased, went up to the conference, and then I actually put my name into a drawing, and I'm not kidding you. I won a podcast microphone, and it is the same microphone that I am using right now, and I absolutely love it. So It was definitely meant to be to have this podcast, and here we are a 100 episodes later. I wasn't even planning on staying with 2 episodes a week. However, you are all listening and chatting with me about how much you love the show and what kind of content you want to hear. So I'm continuing to pump out the episodes. I'm definitely not at a loss for episode ideas. The most random things will pop up and I will put them into my online organization. So I have a whole list of things and things to come all ready to go for you guys. To celebrate the 100th episode, I'm also doing a special giveaway for you. One lucky person will win a free 30-minute coaching session with me. Absolutely free. Again, to enter, it's pretty easy. All you have to do is write a 5-star review of the podcast. Take a screenshot before you hit submit. It can take a while for it to process. So take a screenshot before you click submit. Post a screenshot on Instagram stories and tag me at NaomiMeredith_. If you don't use Instagram, you can also send me an email with that screenshot so you can send me the email at contactnaomimeredith@gmail.com. This will not only let me know what you are loving about this show but also help other teachers know if this show is the perfect fit for them. This giveaway will end on Saturday, July 8, 2023, and I will let the winner know shortly after if they won the session with me. To honor this podcast achievement of the 100th episode, this episode is a special one. I was asked by Brian Miller from Wonder Workshop to be their closing keynote speaker for their spring 2023 International STEAM Summit. Side note, Brian was an awesome guest on the show, and you can go and listen to his interview on episode 32 and another collaboration I had with him in Wonder Workshop where I interviewed a NASA engineer in episode 57. I have never been a keynote speaker before, and this is something that has been on my vision board for the way off future. But we don't always get to decide when things come to us, and this happened to be the right time. So it's not always our timing. I actually presented virtually, and I wasn't able to see anyone's faces. So before you're gonna hear the recording. But before I actually make a joke with everybody to take a selfie with them, which was funny because I actually couldn't see their faces. So I said, get in closer. Let me get a picture of you. Oh my gosh. Your smile's so nice. I couldn't see their faces at all. And, by the way, this was live. So if I mess up, I mess up. I was also navigating the slides and the technology at the same time, and you'll also hear me mention saying things about adding comments in the chat. I was able to interact with the participants live and talked with them throughout. So that's what I am referencing throughout if you hear me say put something in the chat, add something blah blah blah. Enjoy this keynote speech for the 100th episode from me to you to help inspire you for summer and kick off your brand new school year!

Naomi Meredith [00:05:39]:

The moment right after I got my job interview for a K through Five STEM position and coach, I started to cry. I called my teacher honey, and I told him that I messed up the interview and there is no way that I got the job. I had extra time before I needed to go back to school to my classroom teaching position for 6 years, so I went and got a pedicure to calm down and then went back to teach for the rest of the day. I had no clue what the outcome of my interview would be and figured I'd be teaching 3rd grade for another year. which was totally fine. I loved my school and the lessons I was teaching and could definitely stick to teaching what I knew. Growing up, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little girl and that I would go to school, then I would come home, and then I would teach my not-so-willing siblings when I got home. Teaching was my goal in life, and, boy, did I achieve it. But my dreams also took another turn that I had never imagined. Shout out to all my millennials out there, so put some things in the emojis or in the chats that shout out to you. If you watched countless hours of Bill Nye, the science guy, and the Magic School Bus growing up, I would put all of the like buttons on that one, or maybe you still watch them for fun or show them to your classroom. I know there's a new Magic School Bus, but it just doesn't hit the same, just not the same as the old version. And when you think about it from a teacher's perspective, Miss Frizzle was definitely innovative for her time with all of the crazy antics and experiences she provided for her students. She constantly spouted out those words of wisdom, and you might even say it out loud with me. Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. Also, when you are watching, feel free to take pictures or screenshots of me talking if there's anything that you wanna remember. Side note, I totally dressed up as Miss Frizzle for Halloween a couple of years ago with my little dog, Frederick, and he was Liz the lizard. And this was totally worth our time because we won the Halloween costume contest at doggy take care that year. So a fun fact about me. As educators, we can take heart this message as well. How are you taking chances? how are you making mistakes? Are you having moments where things can get a bit messy? It's so easy to stick to what we know, what's comfortable, what works, and what we like. It's safe, and it feels good. But those times, we jump out of our comfort zones and try some of those new things even if we don't always know the outcome. It can be even better than what you think. So feel free to type it out in the chat. So think about something that you definitely wanna step out of your comfort zone and stir up your inner Miss Frizzle. You can feel free to type that in, or maybe you write it for yourself. Something that I tried this past week actually was having my students build their own robots. So that was very exciting. Something I had no idea how to do, and we were cheering each other on today when one of the students was able to light up a light. So there are always lots of things that we can step out of our comfort zones. Lana wants to explore AI. That would definitely be a really great topic to explore with your kids, especially how AI is changing our world. And there are a lot of different avenues with AI as well, so that would be a really interesting lesson. Take chances. The next day, I got a phone call from the job interview committee. I got the job. Not only did I get the K through 5 STEM teaching and coaching position, but I was going to be teaching at a new to me district and school. I didn't know a single teacher or student in the building, and I would be teaching over 500 kids with limited supplies and 0 curriculum. Sounds like the ideal position. Right? Could explore some more of that AI that Lana was talking about. I clutched onto my 6 years of teaching experience. In all the trainings, where I talk about innovative practices, the books I had read, the conferences that I attended, like this International STEAM Summit, and I used these experiences to help me build a foundation and create a program that I dreamed of having. While overwhelmed at first, over the course of the next 5 years, I planned cross-curricular lessons that were rooted in grade-level standards. I took inventory of the supplies I had, found creative ways to get things and plan long-term for future purchases that would enhance my curriculum. Lessons were taught, retaught, and some were thrown out the window, but there were others that got to come back for a second round. And my students and I were loving STEM together and found passions that we never knew existed. Another big thing when stepping out of my comfort zone, and you probably can relate, is teaching during COVID, and that was definitely an interesting time. But it allowed me to get my Master's in STEM leadership to further my teaching practice. And I always like to tell my students when they were learning, I would learn. So a lot of learning was happening during that time. So you can definitely like or add an emoji if you can relate. If you remember those COVID teaching days, It was an interesting time, for sure. That was a weird day. I actually did a balloon launch that day, the day we found out we worked coming back to school. And it was a whole school-wide event. All the kids were lined up outside and then had to go chase a balloon, and then I never saw my students again till the fall, so that was a very weird time. In turn, I've been able to help support teachers and students all over the world in their stem spaces with my resources, podcasts, and online courses. So when it comes to change, change can be a good thing. and it doesn't always have to be a life-altering job switch or getting another degree, which totally can be those things too. Start small. Just like that little seed, start small. You've learned a lot of great ideas from educators this week, and let's put them to good use. Think about a routine you might already have in your class. How can you spice things up and implement an innovative tool to make the routine more engaging? Are there teachers in your building or district that you can collaborate with and bounce ideas off to get a bit of a refresh in your content area? What about a lesson you always teach each year? Can you modernize it a bit? For example, when I was helping my 4th-grade teachers with a unit about ecosystems, they were having their kids make brochures all about ecosystems for years. The content and the way that the teachers were teaching were amazing, but the final product was a bit outdated. I don't know about you, but I'm not typically sitting around reading brochures to get my information. Maybe when you go to one of those hotels on the side of the road, you might get a brochure, but that's not typically my go to resource. Instead, I help the teachers teach their students how to create a website to share their work with a bigger audience while also refining their word processing skills, creating engaging text features, and also capturing what they had been learning throughout the year. Take a moment to write down at least 3 new things. You don't have to overwhelm yourself, but write 3 new things that you want to take a chance on and that you'll commit to trying this next school year. Even the end of the school year is also a great opportunity to try those new things, even though it might not feel like it. You can definitely put that in the chat. It could be one of those things too that you talked about before. Some people wanna start an after school club, like Cheryl said; Kristen wants to do more with games, but think about those lessons that you learned throughout the week and what is something that you could try out in your classroom. So thinking about those things, this definitely ties into Miss Frizzle's next lesson, and is all about making mistakes. I'm the kind of teacher that loves to host after school clubs, so Cheryl, this one's for you. And as a kid, I always involve was always involved in sports and extracurriculars and saw the benefit in my own life. And as a teacher, that's something I've always implemented for my students to help them explore the world in new ways and find new passions. Clubs are also a great way to test out new lessons with less pressure. And this can help you with that thing that we just talked about. So if you're a little bit scared, just try it within your own classroom. Think about an after school club, and you can explore in a less scary setting. This past school year, I hosted a robotics club at my school for 2nd through 5th graders, and we were coding with our fave, our guy Dash the robot. And there was such high interest for this club over 60 students signed up, so I had to get a bit creative with my scheduling so all the kids could participate, and it was so exciting. I was able to figure out how they could all participate. My district has given us had given us challenges that they wrote, and we would work on those with our teams. Then we brought our completed challenges to our district event. There are a ton of steps in each challenge. Technically not too hard, but just it was a lot to get through. I also highly recommend what Brian was talking about it. But if you're looking for any ideas for after school clubs, the Wonder League Robotics competition challenges are awesome. So when that comes out again, definitely sign your kids up. I've done these before in the past, and they are a lot of fun. So with these challenges, the kids were so excited to attend our district event and see kids from other schools and how they tackled the challenges through creativity and coding. I rolled in my trusty wagon. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I love my wagon. Full of their built designs and our class set of Dash robots and organized our parent volunteers and the groups for the day. When it was finally our schools trying to compete, the kids were so ready. Or so I thought. The kids showed their coats that they had been working on for the past couple of months, their loops, their functions, and their variables, but it was wrong. Wrong; the judges kept saying that their codes weren't right. The challenge wasn't correct. I was so confused, and then I read through the directions again. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I could not believe it. I told my students sorry. My students were amazing listeners and listened to me correctly and how I explained it, but I explained it wrong. Yep. You heard it right. This is even recorded. I explained the challenge wrong. I missed one crucial step, and thus the amazing codes that the kids had collaborated on and worked hard to complete were a bit off. And at that moment, the parents could see how horrible of a teacher I was and how I taught all of their kids wrong. The kids were a bit bummed out, but they were okay. And luckily, there was a day of challenge that they would be able to complete as a team and show off what they knew, and they knew a whole bunch about coding. I had just happened to teach them a little bit wrong. I totally unowned up to it, and I used this as a learning experience, the inner teacher of me did, and modeled how this could work for them. I said something like this that mistakes can help us grow and learn. It's quite alright, everybody. Look how much you have learned with your coding, and collaborating with your whole team, this is a terrible fail, and feeling can be a good thing. In fact, it shows me Miss Meredith that I needed to slow down, and I just got too excited about teaching this challenge to all of you. It's quite alright, and we have a new challenge that we are going to try and show what we know. And, of course, I like we know kids, they did great. The parents were impressed with their coding skills, and the challenges of the day were a success. Miss Frizzle says make mistakes while and we often tell that to our students as well. growth mindset and persistence is something that we're constantly trying to instill in our students, and we should be. However, Are you afraid of making mistakes as an educator? Are you trying to be picture perfect for your students at all times? That is so stressful. Spoiler alert, I make mistakes all the time when I teach, and I let my students see that. We talk through it. We learn about it together, and it all works out. Especially in my k through 5 stem space, I came into my room not really knowing how to use any of the tools that were in there. Robotics, coding, 3 d printing, but I learned right beside my students, I even told them that I wasn't born knowing to use all of these tools. And Neither were they. You can like if you agree with that. We weren't born learning to know all of these things, but it's so exciting because We get to learn all of these amazing things. Making mistakes is so powerful and how often when you really think about it, how often do kids get to see that in their lives where mistakes can actually be a positive experience. Think about some mistakes, and you probably when I was talking, think of these already that you have made in teaching or even lessons that you have taught. If you feel brave enough, you are welcome to share those in the chat. And there are many times that making mistakes are okay and you probably are so embarrassed in the moment, and then then it's all okay in the end. And even collaborating with others is a great way to talk through those mistakes. Like Lana is saying in the chat, how the Wonder Workshop Facebook group is a great way to collaborate indefinitely. Having those opportunities to share your mistakes with your students, but also with each other with educators can be a great way to learn from each other. Definitely. And Miss Frizzle also says, well, get messy. I was so excited about a new I get excited about projects all the time, but so excited about a project that I was going to do with my 5th graders. and we were talking about GIS data or geographical information systems data and how we can use this information from the land to help us built a cohesive city. Students were given fictional data about an area and used the coordinates to color a grid. The colors represented different areas of land, grassy fields, a muddy patch, a lake, and a river, And then they were given another set of data to build up land on this grid to with using clay. Once the clay was dry, the students would have a landscape that they could visually see where they could plan their city and build their design as a team. So you could see some of the student examples up on the screen. Buying supplies for your classroom is definitely tricky on our teacher budget, and I know we're all millionaires out there. You can like if you agree. Yep. We are all teacher millionaires, and we have a ton of extra cash lying around, but Sometimes we do need to get a little creative on how we gather supplies. I am a d o DIY kind of girl and remembered when I was younger, my mom would make us Play-Doh that smelled like Kool-Aid, and I figured, hey. I have a kitchenette mixer. I can channel my inner mom and make this. It's so cheap, and I'll have Plano for everyone. like or put an emoji if you are one of those DIY types of teachers and think that you can make everything. because that is definitely me. The next day in STEM, I brought in my homemade dough, and the kids were so excited for the next part of their challenge. They were going to build their landscape, and They did. Let me show you what ended up happening.

Naomi Meredith [00:23:11]:

And nothing can go wrong.

Naomi Meredith [00:23:14]:

Oh, no. No. It ro — Yep. That's exactly what happens. Not only, was dough all over the grids. It was all over everywhere. The floor, their computers, their hair, my hair. Apparently, the dough didn't dry out enough, and it was extremely sticky. Kids were screaming. Someone had gloves. This was during COVID time, so kids knew I had gloves. somewhere over by the trash can, scraping the dough off of their hands into the trash can, and it was an absolute disaster. I have a video of this somewhere. I will search for it, and I will repost this because it was an absolute mess. And I started to laugh. The kids started to laugh. It was so funny how disastrous my room was and how one turn of events could change the whole project. Once we cleaned up, I let them know that I probably won't be bringing any more dough for the next day, but we will problem-solve and figure it out for the rest of the project. I really could have gotten mad in this instance, super mad, but I didn't. You have to remember. We are working with kids. These are kids that we are dealing with. and these experiences are good for them. Sometimes things in our classroom can be a bit too clean and precise. And this also goes back to that make mistakes part. We, as humans, learn by doing. And in fact, There is some actual science on this, and you probably already know this, but this is really great to keep in mind. So according to the hands on approaches to science teaching questions and answers by David, Harry, and Peter Real Realo. I'm sorry. They say that students in a hands on science program will remember the material better, feel a sense of accomplishment when the task is completed, and be able to transfer that experience easier to other learning situations. And you can even substitute where it says hands on science program. You could substitute that for hands on reading, hands on math. So think about those subjects that they teach. It doesn't just have to be STEM. It doesn't just have to be science. That hands on is really, really helpful. And I see a lot of people already in the emojis liking that because we know that. We know that they're kids. They like these hands on things. Well, I don't recommend making your own Play-Doh. I do think that you should add an element of mess to your lessons. Take the kids outside and explore nature. Connect it with your math lesson. Have students build the setting of the read aloud book that you're reading. as a class. Maybe you could even do that science experiment that you have been putting off that has a lot of materials and takes a lot of your time. Maybe actually do that science experiment. The kids would absolutely love it. The messy experiences are the ones that kids are going to remember. not that cute worksheet that you printed out in Color Inc that day. Think about those hands on things. Just ask my teacher, honey. The one thing that drives him nuts about me is how I can be messy. And I don't think he just understands that Miss Frizzle has been telling me to be messy all of these years.

Naomi Meredith [00:26:55]:

Thumbs up to my messy people out there.

Naomi Meredith [00:26:58]:

Teaching is hard. It's really hard. No matter what subject or grade you teach, it can be easy to stick with the stuff that you know and just get through the day. Do you really wanna just get through the day every day? You are here at the summit to get ideas. Whether you are watching this live or you are watching back the recordings, you want to get some ideas to try something new. So actually do it. Instead of closing your notebook full of ideas and never opening them again, use this as a jumping off point to feel energized for the rest of this school year and also the new school year coming up. And don't take it from me. Miss Priscilla said it best. Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. Thank you so much again for being here and listening to all the episodes so far and also for my first keynote speech. And, also, don't forget to enter my giveaway in honor of this 100th episode. So before you listen to the next one, Make sure to go and write that 5-star review on Apple Podcast. Take a screenshot before you hit submit. Post that screenshot and then Instagram stories and tag me at Naomi Meredith_. Or if you don't have Instagram, you can send me an email at contact Naomi Meredith@gmail.com. Thank you again for being here, and I will talk to you all soon.