Naomi Meredith  00:00

STEM lessons are so much fun to plan, but they can be overwhelming. There are so many cool ideas out there. But how do you organize them all, especially when you teach Kindergarten through fifth grade STEM? How do you even fit it all in? In today's episode, I'll be sharing with you my system to organize all your ideas and help you choose lessons that will work best for your STEM space. 

Naomi Meredith  00:56

I recently received an email from a fellow STEM teacher that inspired this episode, and I wanted to read that to you. “Hey, Naomi, I've been teaching STEM for a couple of years. My biggest challenge is being organized with all the resources I'm now finding more of, focusing on my plans for the year, and each grade is my biggest challenge. Doing themes would be ideal, but I seem to be all over the place. Any advice?” from Ban K. 

Naomi Meredith  01:24

Before I jump into my response, I want to make sure that I am best serving you with my podcast and answering your specific questions. I want to hear your voice. You are always welcome to email, but I also mean your literal voice. I have set up a special voice message system where you can leave me an audio message, hit record, ask your question, and even have the chance to be featured on the podcast. Think of it like one of those help columns that used to be in newspapers. You don't even have to use your real name if you don't want to. You can say things like struggling STEM teacher, or excited for STEM can be examples of names. I will link this voice message system in the show notes for today and all future episodes. I really can't wait to hear your messages and gain inspiration for future podcast episodes!

Naomi Meredith  02:27

Okay, back to the question from this email. I totally get it. I am definitely an ideas person. I am not one to be running out of ideas, whether it's podcast episodes, lesson plans, things to wear for my bachelorette party, you name it. I always have so many ideas swimming around in my head. If you want to get a peek inside of my brain, it's like when you have so many tabs open. I can only focus on one at a time. But I always have lots of things running in the background that I am constantly working on. I definitely understand how it can be overwhelming when you are seeing all of these cool ideas online, on social media, and in books, you read. You start wondering how you can organize all of these in a sequential way that makes sense for your STEM space so you're not just teaching a bunch of random stuff. 

Naomi Meredith  03:27

I'm going to be sharing with you my system for organizing all of these ideas and putting it all together so that it makes sense. There is a progression of learning. The first step is to brainstorm themes. This is the most fun part, and this is where you are going to start organizing all of those ideas. You don't need to be super specific about what the actual lesson looks like. This is all about getting it out of your head and putting it in a place where you can visually see what is going on. You can do this digitally or on paper. You can do it in any note tracking system like Google Keep or Trello, which is one of my favorites. But this is where you will brainstorm and add in all those ideas. You are going to organize these ideas somewhat so that when you get into the next stages of this system, it's going to make a lot more sense. You're going to set up a piece of paper, physical or digital, and each piece of paper is going to have a major STEM theme that you are planning for. You can definitely take a peek at my free K through five STEM year-long plan to give you some ideas and some major things that you definitely want to have in your STEM planning. 

Naomi Meredith  04:46

The themes that I am thinking of are coding, robotics, Makerspace, and 3D printing. You should have each of these listed on their own sheet of paper, and when you see ideas or you have ideas of your own, you learn something at a conference, you might even learn something from this podcast, add it to your brainstorm list and try to categorize them. This will actually help you visually see what types of lessons you have tons of ideas for and ones that you need more research on. Also, this will help you create a balance throughout your year, so you're not doing one or the other. You can create a whole bunch of experiences for your students. So this will be your first go to place to jot down any of those ideas, it doesn't mean you have to teach them. It's going to help you organize everything that's floating around in your head. 

Naomi Meredith  05:41

The next step is to dive in and do backward planning when it comes to standards research. When you think about it, your lessons really do need to be rooted in standards and have that connection to the NGSS or science standards in your state, Common Core, which includes English language, arts, math, and even those speaking and listening skills, along with the ISTE standards for students. Even if you want to think bigger and broader, the four C's, this is where you want to take a peek at your lessons and what types of lessons can really hit those standards. You might have to do some research on what would fit, what would not fit, and also which activities are more of a filler activity. There is nothing wrong with these types of STEM projects. They have a place for different situations. For example, I love those little filler activities, and so instead of me teaching those in the classroom, I see them as a great opportunity as sub plans for last-minute things when I am super sick and I have to pull that out. I also create take-home STEM kits, which I'm figuring out how to do an episode all about that. This is something that I'm actually experimenting with my own students right now. So it's definitely in beta mode. But think about how you can send home these ideas with students, where families can support them in this learning where it is more guided step by step and not as deep. So those filler activities definitely have a place, but they might not be with your really high-level instruction. 

Naomi Meredith  07:22

The standards research is going to help you pick and choose which lessons should be taught within your classroom. Also, when researching those standards, you might even see some common themes and standards that connect across the grade levels. For my video and audio production unit, I picked standards that went along with earth science and space science and how those all connected together within all the grade levels. Each grade level had its own video and audio production unit, and all the standards connected together, which made the planning a whole lot easier. I could see these connections as a teacher and also when I was creating those lessons for my students over the years to help them make those connections. So research those standards, get to know them, and put them in with that STEM twist. 

Naomi Meredith  08:18

Once you have researched those standards, it's time to plug them into your year-long plan. Back in episode 14, I talked about how to write your STEM year-long plan. So make sure to go and check that out that will really help you with this step. I dive more into detail right there. You have your brainstorm, you research the standards, then plug them in into your year-long plan where you can visually see that progression of learning that I was talking about. Again, this will also help you see the holes in what you're missing and where you might have to go back to that brainstorm stage and find lessons that will be high-level learning standards space that will work well within your classroom. You might have an idea of how you want to teach these lessons. But you don't have to be totally married to that right now. You are just plugging in those lessons and those standards to see where you need to fill in those holes. 

Naomi Meredith  09:17

Finally, step four is to really fine-tune those lessons and decide how you want to teach them. For all of my lessons throughout the whole entire school year, I use the Engineering Design Process as my base. I am always referring to this process and how it changes with all the different ways that we are creating and building to solve a problem that is always my base, every single unit from K through five. Now there are different ways that you can actually plan your lessons when it comes to the Engineering Design Process. So you can definitely mix this up for your students and make it work best for your classroom. First, we have the long-term projects that go into detail within Engineering Design Process. This will probably take about three to five days. 

Naomi Meredith  10:07

If you need help with the Engineering Design Process and you are unsure of what I am talking about or how you can actually plan using this, I have a whole bunch of episodes for you to go back and listen to. It starts with Episode 15, where I talk about what the Engineering Design Process is and how you can use it in your planning. From there, we skip ahead to Episodes 17 through 22, where I have a mini-series about each stage of the Engineering Design Process. Then it is finished off with a nice pretty bow with my first guest interview with one of my STEM teacher friends, and how she even does the Engineering Design Process with quick one-day challenges. Again, you don't have to plan with the Engineering Design Process, there definitely is a place for it within the K through five STEM space. There are actually standards that talk specifically about the Engineering Design Process when you go and take a peek at the Next Generation Science Standards. So you are backed up by standards, and you can definitely plan long-term projects. 

Naomi Meredith  11:10

Here are three other ways that you can plan your lessons. You can also think about how you want to integrate STEM stations. This is especially great when you only see kids once a week. You could do two stations per day. For week one, the kids could do two stations the following week. The students can do the last two stations, so you have four stations total, and maybe each one has a different part of the Engineering Design Process that is linked to the standards. Another way that I like to do stations is, especially with my younger students, Kindergarten through first grade, I might have a long-term project that lasts three days. I really zone in on those stages, and we get them done. The creation might even just take one day for my little babies. Then the last two days, I will have four stations. Again, they will do two stations one day and two stations the next day. Each station will go along with the theme for the week or that long-term project. Then each station hits a different letter of STEM. So one is the science station, one is technology, one is engineering, and one is math. So I have a whole balance of things. 

Naomi Meredith  12:20

Yes, it does take a bit more planning to have that variety of things for the little kids. If you have come from the classroom before being a STEM teacher, you know you need a lot of stuff for those little kids to keep them engaged and excited. It is definitely worth that extra planning, and you will have plenty to do for those little ones. Another way that you can plan is to have a challenge of the day. This could be related to a STEM book, fiction or nonfiction, or even thinking about those quick engineering design challenge sprint's that my good friend Jen Sevy discussed in her guest interview. There are four different ways that you could plan, which are multi-day projects, STEM stations, the challenge of the day, or planning them with STEM and stories. 

Naomi Meredith  13:06

As a recap, here is the structure you can use to help you plan and organize all of those ideas floating in your head and get them organized in a way that makes sense, which can eventually turn into your year-long plan, and then your standard-based lessons. First, brainstorm themes. Next, do your standards research. Third, plug them into your year-long plan. Fourth, fine-tune your lessons. Having plenty of ideas is definitely a good thing, and you have that growth mindset where you want to bring in all those awesome experiences for your students. However, you definitely want to organize them in a way that makes sense, so you're not just pulling out random STEM lessons, but instead, it all cohesively goes together, and you have a whole structure for all of those ideas. 

Naomi Meredith  13:59

In the next episode, we will actually be talking more in detail about those four different types of STEM lessons that I just mentioned. I think this will really help you when you get into that lesson planning stage and how you can make these experiences even more meaningful for your students. Also, don't forget to leave me a voice message using the link in the show notes. I definitely want to hear those questions. I think that'll be a really fun way for us to interact and have a community with this growing podcast.