Naomi Meredith  00:00

There are quick and easy ways to get started in STEM as an elementary teacher. And these are definitely awesome things to get your feet wet in the STEM space. You definitely have to start somewhere, right? But when it comes to those quick and easy things, are they really best for the long run? Are your students really wanting more? How does that even pertain to their behavior? Is there a way that you can keep them engaged while doing even more complicated things? In this episode, I'll be sharing with you three quick fixes in the STEM space that aren't always sustainable for the long term, and what you can do to integrate other things into your teaching practice that will be beneficial in the long run. 

Naomi Meredith  00:57

If you are listening to this episode, while it is coming out, I wanted to remind you real quick of my STEM into summer group coaching program that is starting in June 2023. So in this program, we will set you up for success for the school year, you'll get to get hands on with me and other teachers for 16 weeks to set up your year long plan. Take an audit of the lessons that you are teaching, make a purchasing plan for your materials and also get feedback and coaching along the way. You can send me an email if you have any questions at contact Naomi meredith@gmail.com. Or if you are ready, and this sounds like you and this is the extra hands on support that you need, you can claim your spot out of the limited spots I have available at Naomi meredith.com/stem into summer. Also for being a podcast listener, you can get an extra 25% off by joining this program. If you use this promo code at checkout STEMsummerpod all one word, no spaces STEM summer pod for your extra 25% off, would love to see you in there and build up your STEM year together. 

Naomi Meredith  02:34

Teaching is hard. No matter what you teach, I promise you, we all have really hard positions. My teacher honey teaches high school Spanish. And there are so many challenges when it comes to teaching in that space. And likewise, I teach K through five STEM. And that comes with its own challenges as well. So as teachers, we are always looking for those quick fixes and those things that can help us with those solutions. But there are some things in this STEM space that when you're thinking about the long term, and your lessons for the whole entire year, and for years to come, sometimes those quick fixes and those things that you do to get you started might not always be the most sustainable option when it comes to your whole year, and building things off one another. So all these things that I am going to be talking about aren't wrong. And these are all things that I also did to get started. And it's a great place to start somewhere. But then you also want to build and grow and improve. And in turn that's going to build and grow your students along the way. So here are those three not sustainable things in your STEM space and what you can do about it. 

Naomi Meredith  03:48

The first quick fix that always isn't the most sustainable in your STEM space is only doing one day challenges. Like I said, when I first started teaching, this was my go to method, I was really getting day to day, I was spending my weekends planning, I was missing out on time with my friends and family because I needed to go into my classroom, and really wrap my head around this whole STEM teaching thing. And in turn, I was doing a lot more day by day lessons. Now this was great. The kids had something to do. But I realized pretty quickly if I was doing these one day challenges, then I was planning a lot more. Yes, I could repeat these for all the grades, which is awesome. Also great for sub plans. But I was thinking if I'm always doing these one day challenges and then the same thing for every grade, I'm going to have to do a lot of planning for a lot of grades. And they will say oh, we already did this last year which I don't want to have to repeat the same exact lesson every year. It's cool to practice the same skills but the same lesson over and over again. What are we really learning? So really, these one day lessons, were taking more of my planning time because I had to be creative and thinking of a lot more things to do. Also, a big thing that I noticed with these one day lessons is that I could only go so far when it comes to being deep in these concepts. So when I really switched to having these longer projects, we could go deeper on that one topic, showing a play up plan a lot of short activities that go along with the same topic. But having things that could stretch out multiple days, whether I saw them multiple days in a row, or even just once a week, I've had both kinds of schedules, that the results were actually a lot better with my students. And you can even check out how I plan these projects with my students with a free K-5 STEM year long plan. You can grab that at naomimeredith.com/yearlongplan. But I ended up taking a whole summer I would sit down and plan and research and really dive into the standards, and really thinking about my students and the time that I have with them. And I ended up mapping out a whole year long plan that had longer projects for my students. So yes, we could go deeper in these projects. They were making those connections, they were excited for the next day of my class, not that they weren't excited before. It's always a good time. But they were excited to come because we are continuing the work on this project that they were so excited about taking the time to really go through that summer. And spending extra hours yes, upfront. Yes, it was during that summer time and definitely did some planning outside as well. But when it came to coming back into school, I wasn't taking up my weekends and really sitting there on a Sunday catching up on The Bachelor and planning my lessons while in my classroom. Yes, I absolutely did that, sadly, more times than I can count. And I wasn't spending my Sundays anymore. My plan times during the week during the school year, was really dedicated to planning and just some basic lesson prep. So those are the things like Oh, I'm doing robotics coming up, I need to plug in my robots, or oh, we're going to be doing LEGO education kits, I need to pull those down off the shelf, make sure all my apps are uploaded, maybe this whole few months, I am loading 3D prints and managing that on the side. So my time during my planning time was really prepping materials, going over lessons adding and updating things, but not so much. Oh my gosh, what am I teaching today? What am I rushing to do? There's no rushing, it was already done, it was already planned. So just setting that time during the summer was so transformational for me to really set me up for success for the entire school year. And that way I could do all the extra fun things I could do the after school clubs, I could be on that planning committee. I know that everybody's situation is different when it comes to how often you see kids how much time you have with them in a week. But this is definitely possible for you too. I'm sure you all want to gain back your Sundays and your time after school, you don't want to spend it all on STEM planning. But taking that time during the summer can definitely again be transformational for you. And that is something in my STEM into summer group coaching program we will exactly do. And the cool thing about this, I was doing this all by myself. You don't have to do by yourself, you can bounce ideas off of me and other people in our group, and really find success when it comes to your year long plan so that you're not rushing from class to class and that you can be find peace in your lesson planning. 

Naomi Meredith  08:51

A second quick fix that isn't always sustainable for the long term when it comes to teaching STEM in your classroom is only connecting STEM lessons to literacy. Again, there is nothing wrong with this at all. But if this is the only thing that you are doing, it's time to branch out. Don't get rid of it completely, still do it. I still do a lot of STEM in stories for when I'm not feeling Well that day. Or if I have a sub plan, maybe it's the next day when I really don't feel well. There's nothing wrong with a seven stories lesson. Again, this is an excellent way to get started. But if this is the only thing that you are doing, you might be boxing your kids and to only doing literacy things. Maybe there are some real world problems that you aren't attacking. There are some great books about real world problems, not saying there aren't. But there are other ways that you can introduce the STEM project that aren't always tied to a book. Likewise, it might be a little tricky to find the books all the time. It's something that I would have a hard time with too is like I can't find the book, or I don't want to buy it right now or it's not available in the library so that can be stressed Still tooth, again, goes back to the planning one day lessons, a lot of times these book lessons are a one day thing, which is great. But then you have to find a lot of books to do a lot of lessons. So definitely still sprinkle those in think of other ways that students can attack real world problems. And again, having those multiday projects can really be transformational for your students, and have that high engagement. Also, when you're thinking about planning with your STEM and stories, what standards are you using to plan you probably have the reading literature standards, the RL and the Common Core State Standards. But are you having student is doing more informational reading, when I was teaching third grade before this position K through five STEM. So much of the reading that my third grader said was actually a lot of nonfiction. And there's of course, there's studies that everything but there's a lot of stories about the real reading that we do as adults to gather information is nonfiction reading, and we need to have our students be informed citizen scientists of the world and do more nonfiction reading and using that reading to inform their practices. Back in the interview, actually, when I interviewed that children's book author, Dr. Rajani, la Rocha, we were talking about this and how there's so much reading in her position even as a doctor. So yes, maybe you are reading the story to kids, but think about your projects. Are you having kids read to gather information? Are you doing multiday projects where they are planning, revising gathering materials? So yes, still do that literacy, but maybe flip that literacy on them, and have them access the information, even think about what types of STEM careers or related careers can students explor as another option to connect to your projects as well. I actually recently hosted a STEM career day at my school, which I saved everything that I did for this, I will be talking more about this in the fall. So don't worry, I know I talked about on my Instagram, but I haven't forgotten about it. I have a whole series coming up about family engagement that I'll do in the fall. But really think about what are those STEM careers are likewise, those skills that students can be exploring? What are those other standards that you're not hitting? Or you have a hard time hitting? Or maybe you're like, I haven't even been planning with standards anyway, in my STEM space, that's also very common as well, you just say, Oh, this fits, how are you actually planning with standards. So thinking about that other ways to plan when it's not just stories all the time, there are more effective ways to plan on top of stories. And that is something when working with me and my program, I would love to be your guide, lesson planning is totally my jam, I get in the zone. It's like my zone of genius when it comes to coming up with ideas for projects. I thrive on that. And let me tell you, I've been loving it for my wedding as Well, I have all the ideas. And I'm really good also at executing ideas. So I am a big picture person. But I can also get down to the details and make it happen. So that is something that if that's not your strong suit, I love love, love to think of those things, and help it relate to your space. 

Naomi Meredith  13:17

And the third thing that isn't always sustainable for the long term and your STEM space is only doing Makerspace projects. So again, Makerspace projects, I would say are the easiest things to get started with because of the materials they're very easy to get your hands on and definitely stock up on those because we teach all the kids in the school, you need a lot. And I did so many Makerspace projects by first year I had a huge misconception that that's what I needed to be doing all the time. They always need to be building with reusable things, and then always taking them home. Also, I had to be a free for all i just like kids build whatever and get whatever they want. And after my first class, I didn't have anything for my next class and I had 24 classes, I ran out of supplies really, really fast. So even if you go back to Episode Six, you can hear how exactly how I managed my Makerspace. But I thought that's what I should have been doing all of the time. And Makerspace is wonderful. And I still mix it in multiple times throughout the year. But what really changed for me is again, going back to those STEM skills in those STEM careers and also knowing your students. Not every kid likes to build with cardboard. Some guys really don't like that. Some kids don't like robotics, some kids love robotics. Some kids really love designing on the computer when it comes to 3D printing some not so much. So exposing kids to a lot of different topics is going to pull out these interests in kids that you might you probably never knew that they had and they probably didn't even know that they had in themselves and a lot of kids will definitely surprise you. Of course, those expensive materials are something to work up to. Oftentimes, more often than not, we are given these spaces where we don't have the supplies to do all of those amazing things. But it's not impossible, there are opportunities to plan for that for the future. And to gather those supplies, that is definitely something that you can work up to. So really thinking through of all the inventory that you have in your space. So this can even help you when you have your year long plan. If you take inventory of your space, what do you currently have, and what are things that you can work up to in different ways of doing that, then that can really help you when it comes to your lessons, and really merge that together when you're auditing your lessons based on the materials you have and where you want to go. So I even created a whole spreadsheet for both of these, like I said, big picture person really good at the little details to get there and make it happen. So I really had this inspiration to create this whole spreadsheet of how to keep track of all the lessons so really thinking through what lesson are you teaching? What grade level? What standards does it hit? How long does the project go? When are you actually teaching this project? What time of year? What materials do you need? So really going a deep dive of all these ideas that are floating in your head? And then in turn, creating a whole inventory of your space? And a plan from there? How are you going to gather the supplies? Who could you ask? What are some donations? So this is that whole thing that will really help set up your program where you are feeling successful, and you have a long term goal. Yes, you want to be prepared for the day, you want to be prepared for the week. But a lot of times I feel like that we're missing because it is such a creative role. How are we prepared for the year, but also years to come? That's when you get to that building a program. My kids are doing completely different things. Five years from when I started, I've grown as a teacher, but we really want to build up these things so that they are prepared for the world ahead of them. They're having that exposure, they want to do these things in middle school. And that is what I am definitely here to help you with, I have those spreadsheets. So the first month when we will work together in the STEM into summer program is I have a whole lesson that's actually never been released before. And these templates that you can have this foundation, you know what you're working with. I'll give you feedback on that. And then we can jump into our coaching from there. So really doing that work to be successful. And again, building up a program your principal probably asks you what do you want to buy? I don't know, maybe I'll just buy some cool robots. I'm going to ask this random Facebook group and see what they have to say. That can be really helpful. But what is their credibility? Who are these people? How do you know it's gonna work, you don't know why they teach. So really, breaking it down into really a sheltered group in a way, having people that you can continuously talk to and having me in your back pocket with that with audio messaging, and weekly video calls can really be transformative for you so you can be prepared and know what lies ahead. 

Naomi Meredith  18:18

As a recap, here are the three quick fixes that aren't always sustainable for the long term and your STEM space. First is only doing one day activities. Next is only connecting your sound lessons to stories. And third is only doing Makerspace activities all the time. Again, I invite you into my STEM into summer group coaching program starting in June 2023, where you will be in a small group where we will chat with each other support each other. You have me in your back pocket to help support you when it comes to setting up your year long plan. Those lessons that you know are going to work and also taking inventory of the materials that you have on hand and also building out that program that you have always dreamed of. So I would love to have you jump on in to your limited spot. The doors are closing soon at the end of the month. So make sure to claim your spot and I would love to see you in there. You can grab that at Naomimeredith.com/stemintosummer.