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how to write a STEM lesson plan

How to Write a STEM Lesson Plan [ep. 26]

How to Write a STEM Lesson Plan [ep. 26]

how to write a STEM lesson plan

Check out the full episode on How to Write a STEM Lesson Plan:  

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

When writing a sound lesson plan, there are a lot of components you want to make sure you include, such as the standards, resources, and what students will be creating.

There is a lot to think about.

In this episode, I give you a behind-the-scenes look into how to write your STEM lesson plan from start to finish and help you improve the experiences in your classroom.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How to thoughtfully plan lesson plans
  • How to create lesson plans rooted in the standards
  • My process for planning multi-day lessons

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

When writing a sound lesson plan, there are a lot of components you want to make sure you include, such as the standards, resources, and what students will be creating. There is a lot to think about. In this episode, I will be giving you a behind-the-scenes look into how to write your STEM lesson plan from start to finish and help you improve the experiences in your classroom. 


Naomi Meredith  00:55

Okay, I have a confession to make. One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to STEM lessons is when teachers just throw out their robots, Legos, coding, or whatever STEM tool without any real purpose in mind. Yes, the kids are having a good time, but just using STEM tools doesn't necessarily mean that it is a STEM lesson. Don't get me wrong, STEM is supposed to be fun and engaging. But if we want to level up these lessons and have students use higher level thinking skills, the four C's using standards-based learning, we really have to be more thoughtful with our planning. Likewise, if we are creating or teaching well-thought-out lessons, then there will be a change in perception among teachers in your building and teachers in general as to what STEM education means in the elementary space. In turn, people who are not in education are also going to have a different perception as well. Yes, kids are purposely playing, but what is the real goal that you have in mind? So really take a step back and think about those lessons that you're teaching and how those are creating authentic, real-world connections. 


Naomi Meredith  02:19

If you're curious to learn more about what I believe STEM education means and the elementary space, go back all the way to episode two, and you can hear my thoughts about this and help you build up your perception and beliefs of what STEM means as well. Okay, off my soapbox. Let's dive into this episode and how we can really help you thoughtfully plan those lessons so that there are deeper connections. They are rooted in standards and really help students make those authentic, real-world connections. Throughout this episode, I will be breaking down the process that I use when planning a multi-day lesson. Knowing the structure is important if you see kids all five days in a row. If you're a classroom teacher or a STEM teacher and see kids once a week, this structure can definitely be modified for when you see kids and how to have these meaningful lessons in your classroom. To help you bring this planning process to life, I will be pairing it with a real-life lesson that I teach my third graders. 


Naomi Meredith  03:27

In this lesson, students are taking on the role of paleontologists and telling the story of a living thing that is now fossilized based on the evidence found. I use the Engineering Design Process to plan, but you can definitely modify this same structure if you use a different process, such as the launch cycle, design thinking, or project-based learning. I also use a template for my multi-day project. So there builds consistency for me as a person planning the lessons, but also for my students as well. They are used to a specific structure, and they can be more confident using the Engineering Design Process. But the tools, strategies, skills, standards, and connections will change year after year, lesson by lesson, unit by unit. 


Naomi Meredith  04:17

First, when I am creating my lesson, I work on developing the ask. What is the problem students are going to be solving or the question that they are going to be answering? You can have students help you develop this question based on the time that you have with students. Or you can have this pre-written, so you know the end goal that students are going to get throughout this project. Before I get to developing the ask, I already have gone through the brainstorming process. So I am at a place where I do know what I want students to do. I'm really going to dive into the research behind creating this whole lesson plan. If you want to hear more about my brainstorming process and how I got out here, make sure to go back and listen to episode 24. I break down where I gather ideas and really go down through the line and get to where I am today getting into the lesson. I like to plan my units in my classroom around a theme. My K through five themes is all about STEM careers and animation techniques. Each grade level will have their own way to animate its designs while rooting it in standards and STEM skills. 


Naomi Meredith  05:31

Developing the ask actually takes me a lot more time than you think that it would because this is my North Star, it is my compass and base for the entire lesson. I really look at the wording of the standards to help me write this ask. Also, keep it very open-ended. When I am writing this question, I don't start with “Can you,” because that really limits the question to have a yes or no response. Instead, I start my question off with, “How can you,” so there are multiple ways to solve the problem and think of a lot of different solutions to their designs and their creations. The standard that I am basing this whole project around is the NGSS standard 3-LS4-1. Here's what it says, “Analyze and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of the organisms in the environments in which they lived long ago.” This is the standard for third grade. That is why for this project, I thought it would tie in nicely with students taking on the role of a paleontologist and then using the evidence from the resources that I give them. They can infer and make connections as to what that living thing's life was like based on where the fossil was and the evidence that is surrounding it. 


Naomi Meredith  06:55

Now there are a lot of different ways that you can attack this standard. It definitely doesn't have to be STEM or stop motion. But this is how I am blending the two together, making sense of the standard and giving it my own STEM twist. So eventually, the ask that I came up with for this project that students will be answering along this whole week is how can you create a stop motion video to show how fossils have formed from living things long ago. I will be tying in other standards as it relates to Reading Informational Text writing, speaking and listening, producing short audio, and even some math where students have to count the number of frames that they are using in their video to make sure that it's not moving too quickly. All of those standards are part of my research as well. I'm not going to list all of those out here because of time, but just know that I'm using that NGSS standard as my big base. I am connecting in that ELA and maths standards as well. 


Naomi Meredith  08:01

Next is planning at the imagine and plan stage. Like with the standards, this stage takes me the second longest as well. I want to make sure that I am giving resources to my students that are really helping them answer this question and find the evidence and research that they need. So they can produce a script and a storyboard that will then help them create their props and then eventually have their whole stop motion animation video. Sometimes I even will write my own research for students, especially for the younger grades, because I will often find research that is so relevant to the standard, but the reading level is way beyond their grade level. So oftentimes, I will have to research many different things and then rewrite them in a way that will make sense for my younger students. Thankfully, for third grade and up, I can usually find things that work well that relate to the standards. 


Naomi Meredith  09:03

So using some of my favorite research websites and also epic books that have a great collection of things as well. So for this specific lesson, I found a lot of different resources that would be relevant for third graders to research how different fossils are found. It also gives them information on what the life of that fossil might have been like. Students will have to infer and add in their own information as well, to put it in a way that would make sense for a story, which eventually is their stop motion animation. I also like to include two to four video clips that we can watch together as a class at the beginning of the lesson to add to their knowledge and the science behind how a fossil is formed. Of course, my favorite go-to I always check out first is SciShow Kids, but sometimes I will find other resources that relate to the standard and also build that background knowledge. I also will create vocabulary that students will need to know that will be found in their research. Or they will also have to apply to the script and storyboard that they will end up writing some of those vocabulary words. Of course, I tell them what a paleontologist is and all the different types of fossils that they will be reading and exploring about. 


Naomi Meredith  10:23

When I create vocabulary, I like to have the word nice and bold at the top, write the definition in kid-friendly language and include a picture and maybe a little more about the picture to help them understand what those words mean and give them some context. For this planning stage, since students will be creating a video, this is a lot different than if students will be building a project where they might be planning through drawing and labeling. For this plan, they have a small graphic organizer where they can add three different examples of fossils that they have found through their research to help them gather ideas for their video. Eventually, they will be picking one of these examples where they will dive in deeper and create the story for the stop motion, the things that they're looking for in this lesson, and I really try to focus the resources that I'm giving kids are centered around these questions and pieces of evidence, type of fossils that they found about how old is the fossil? Where was it found? What do you think happened? Of course, in this project, and like other projects, my classroom students will be able to collaborate and work together to fill this out if they so choose. 


Naomi Meredith  11:41

I always give the option of independent work because some students sometimes just need that opportunity that students can work together to create this plan. They'll then move on to that create, experiment, and improve stage. During this create, experiment, and improve stage, specifically since they are creating a video, they do have a script where they need to plug in their information and sketch out what they hope to have their props do during their video. With any video and audio project that I do with my students, I always use a script. When I first started doing these types of projects, I didn't use a script. I noticed kids would get off track with their videos, and they would always say things like “like and subscribe.” They would definitely get off topic and not really zone in on what the project is asking and even miss a lot of important details. In fact, I will say writing the script and creating the props for this project for this stop motion animation takes a lot longer than the actual video production. 


Naomi Meredith  12:45

There is a whole lot of high-level learning when students are thinking about the story of how their props are going to move and connect to the words that they are going to say when it comes to the prop creation. To help save time, I give students the opportunity to create one page of the prompts on the computer, whether they use shape tools to create them or insert images. That way, they don't have to worry so much about the drawing, especially since they are making a stop motion video about fossils and things in the past, like dinosaurs, and all sorts of living things, which are very complicated to draw. So I make sure to include that part in the create stage where they don't have to be so stressed about the drawing part. They can have the props ready to go. Unless I'm planning, I also think about overall the types of materials I'm going to need, which grade levels are going to be working on specific projects, and how I'm going to store these projects. For this stop motion animation, I actually only use paper for the props. 


Naomi Meredith  13:48

Typically with stop motion animation, you might see 3D figures, clay, and playdough, which are excellent tools. However, when I'm thinking about how I have four third-grade classes, at least 25 students each, that is a lot of clay and playdough that my budget doesn't allow. So using paper is just as good. It can get the point across, and students can still create a stop motion animation. It's easy to store the materials when they're not in my classroom. So when you're doing that lesson planning, think about the tools that you have, how can you be creative with things that are easy to get to? Also, think about the tools when you're getting to that cleanup time. How long is it going to take students to clean up those materials and move on for the rest of the day? When I am lesson planning, I also like to include mentor examples and even non-examples for students to refer to when I am teaching them throughout the week, especially if this is a project I have never done with the kids before. I want to actually test out the script to see if it makes sense and find any holes and bugs that are missing before I actually teach it to the kids. 


Naomi Meredith  15:02

Of course, when you teach, things to come up, things are going to happen, and you're always going to have to modify. But actually, testing it out yourself is really helpful, especially when it comes to a video or animation. You can show kids your examples and talk about what went well and what are some other things I needed to work on. I will link in the show notes an example that I created for this stop motion video all about fossils, so you can get an idea of where this project is headed for students. Another thing that I like to do if projects are going well, and this is something that I would like to teach the following year, I will save a lot of their projects in my Google Drive, whether it is a link to the video or even the pictures that I take as well. This is helpful for me to show other students and future years of projects that were super successful. It also helps me reflect as a teacher. So when I'm planning for the next year, what are some things that I need to modify for the lesson to make them better? 


Naomi Meredith  16:05

Finally, I like to plan and think about ways how students are going to be sharing their work in a meaningful way and have an authentic audience. My favorite go-to tool is to use Seesaw K through five because it provides a variety of tools to have students share their voices. Students can write, draw, record, and even make videos of their responses, so they can definitely share in a way that works best for them. The cool thing about this project for this fossil's stop motion is students are creating a digital piece. Their peers can definitely see their work once we put it in Seesaw. With video projects, I also like to create a peer feedback rubric that is the same as the modification checklist or self-assessment rubric, it has the same qualification. So it's really good for kids to self-evaluate using this checklist and also for their peers to look for those same things as well. For this project, when I was creating the feedback checklist, I wanted to make sure to include things that were about the specific video editing. So did they take 30-plus pictures so that the video doesn't go too fast? Are their cameras still so that the light isn't flashing? Are those elements about this specific video I added to their checklist? But then I also made sure to include things that talk about the actual standard. Does your video actually tell the story of a fossil and what its life was like long ago and actually answer the question that we are looking for?


Naomi Meredith  17:43

 From there, I also create a student-friendly rubric that students can self-assess if they have time. Or I can use the same rubric as well. Years ago, I took a workshop about rubric writing. A thing that they mentioned when creating a rubric is to have the grade level expectations in the middle. So maybe it's a four-point rubric, you have the three as grade-level expectations, all written out in that kid-friendly language. Then you have the below-grade-level expectations like they're almost there, the twos have those all written out. But then the lowest, the one where they're missing things, is blank, where you can actually write in what they're missing, or students can write themselves what they're missing. Then the highest qualifier, the four, if they are beyond grade level, students can write what they did that is beyond grade level expectations. Or you can write about those things as well. Having a rubric cleaned out really helps you reflect as the teacher, especially for this project. I wanted to make sure that I am hitting all of those integrated standards, that I am providing the resources that make sense for this lesson, and that it really is answering that main NGSS standard. 

 

Naomi Meredith  18:58

So creating a rubric is super helpful. A lot of us are starting to have to add grades to our STEM space. So having this prepared ahead of time for your project can really help with your overall grading for your classroom. As you can see for this lesson, there is a lot of thoughtful planning when creating just one lesson for my third grade stop motion animation unit, all about them taking the role of the paleontologist and explaining the evidence behind why that fossil became the fossil that we have found today. I totally understand that this can be overwhelming going through this whole process K through five and having different units that are thoughtfully planned and standards-based. Lucky for you, I am obsessed with this stuff. I really do love lesson planning, and I just really love seeing the engagement in my students in my classroom and seeing how they're making all of these real-world connections. In fact, I have my ultimate STEM resource library membership that I would love for you to join. You can join one time for one annual fee or pay monthly, and you will get access to monthly themed lessons, but also the K through five core lessons that are planned with this structure so you can get some time back and not have to worry about every single grade level for every single unit. I hope that seeing this process has helped you rethink the way you're lesson planning and really thinking about all those connections you're making, tying them to standards, and bringing those authentic, real-world connections.

how to write a STEM lesson plan

how to write a STEM lesson plan

how to write a STEM lesson plan

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

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Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

structure-a-stem-lesson

How Do You Structure a STEM Lesson? [ep. 25]

How Do You Structure a STEM Lesson? [ep. 25]

structure-a-stem-lesson

Check out the full episode on How Do You Structure a STEM Lesson?:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

With all the cool tools and resources out there, it's important to structure your STEM lesson so that it is rooted in standards but still engaging. 

In this episode, I will be sharing with you four different ways that you can plan and structure a STEM lesson and make it work for the time that you have in your classroom.

In this episode, you’ll learn four different ways that you can structure planning your STEM lessons:

  • Multi-day projects
  • Challenges of the day
  • STEM and stories
  • STEM stations

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

With all the cool tools and resources out there, it's important to structure your STEM lesson that is rooted in standards but still engaging. In this episode, I will be sharing with you four different ways that you can plan a STEM lesson and make it work for the time that you have in your classroom. 


Naomi Meredith  00:49

In the last episode, Episode 24, we talked about how to organize all of those ideas and lead up to the actual lesson planning for your STEM lessons. So make sure to go back and check that out because we are at the tail end of that episode and are now getting into how to dive into that planning. Also, if you're curious about how actually to plan your whole STEM scope and sequence, I also recommend checking out episode 14, where I go more into detail about that process. So how do you structure a STEM lesson? Here are four ways that you can structure your STEM lesson, and I know that you are going to find a way that works best for you. You may even try all four of these ideas. 


Naomi Meredith  01:37

First are multi-day projects. For this and all of the different ways to plan, I am going to be talking about how I use the Engineering Design Process as my base, especially when it comes to those multi-day projects. I am really zoning in on the Engineering Design Process. If that's a process that you're not using, this is when you can implement project-based learning, design thinking, the launch process, or even the scientific method, whatever method you are using for planning. This is when I think about those longer multi-day projects. When I'm thinking about multi-day projects, I'm thinking projects that will obviously last more than one day, about three to five days, and you have 40 minutes plus with your classes. I will definitely stretch out and use all of my days with my second and fifth graders and really dive into all of those stages of the Engineering Design Process. 


Naomi Meredith  02:37

For my first and Kindergarten students, I typically have their multi-day projects last about three days. Then I use the remaining two days of my week doing STEM stations, which is another way of planning. We're going to talk about this later in the episode. When working on multi-day projects, here is how I break up all of the stages of the Engineering Design Process. Day one is all about ask and imagine, so using all of those resources to build background and really dive into that S-the science part of the project. Day two is finishing up any imagining and zoning in on their plans, and being thoughtful with those plans. Then days three through five are all about creation, experimenting, and improving, which those stages go back and forth a lot. Then eventually sharing their work in a way that makes sense for that project. 


Naomi Meredith  03:31

I do see kids K through five, five days in a row, the same six classes throughout that same week. If you're a teacher who sees different classes every day, here's how I might split up your multi-day projects. Day one would be all about your asking, imagine. On day two, you could finish up the imagining stage, dive into the plan, and start to gather materials. Maybe you don't have them build quite yet because you probably don't have anywhere to store projects that are being built. Then the final week that they come, day three, or if you do want to carry it into day four, the kids are diving into the creation, experimenting, improving, and sharing piece. Again, remember to have smaller projects. This will also help kids get their buildings done a lot faster. If you are storing projects for more than one day, if the projects are smaller then you will have more ways to creatively store those projects. I know storage can be really tricky, especially when we're not always going into classrooms that were originally designed to be a STEM space. 


Naomi Meredith  04:39

Now multi-day projects might not work best for everybody, and that's okay. Sometimes your schedule is out of your control. So this is for my people who do see the kids one day a week, or if you need ideas for sub plans, if you have a weird week, if you do see kids once a week, one day, but then you see them again the rest of the week. So, for example, there was one year that I taught, and my schedule was a bit funky. On Mondays, I taught eight classes a day, I did say eight, for 35 to 40 minutes. I can't remember exactly. But I taught eight classes in a day, it was insane. Let me tell you, I was super sweaty at the end of the day, that was on Mondays. Tuesday, I was co-teaching with the classroom teachers to help them implement STEM and technology in their instruction. Then Wednesday through Friday, I had the same classes, my same six classes K through five, for three days in a row. 


Naomi Meredith  05:40

For my multi-day projects, I had to zone in, make them more simple, and even shorten some stages of the Engineering Design Process. I also, on those Mondays, didn't connect it with my Wednesday through Friday schedule because it wasn't always the same kids that lined up for that week. So I use this method of the challenge of the day on my Mondays, where it was a quick STEM lesson that had elements of the Engineering Design Process and still planned with standards. I would start and finish within that Monday. So that's all the time that we got. 


Naomi Meredith  06:17

So this brings me to my second way to structure your STEM lessons, and that is the challenge of the day. Like the name says, you are done with a challenge in one day. It has elements of the Engineering Design Process, so you can go through them very quickly or zone in on one or two of them. You are literally done in one day. Here are some examples of challenges of the day that I have done in those random one-day lessons. The year that I had that one day is when I did all of those Dot Day activities. They were quick, they were fun, and students were able to express their creativity, but they were complete in one day, which was perfect for Dot Day. If you're interested in hearing about the types of activities that I did for Dot Day, make sure to go back and listen to episode 16, where I give you five different STEM lessons that you can try in your classroom. Another great use of these one-day activities is to do those themed holiday lessons. At the time of this recording, I am in the middle of the fall, and I have five fall STEM activities that you could try in your classroom back in episode 23. Another great use of your challenge of the day is thinking about those quick STEM projects that are rooted in standards that students can explore and zone in on those science topics. 


Naomi Meredith  07:42

I do take home STEM kits called STEM snack packs. These are quick challenges that families can do together and explore, or it could be a great option for the challenge of the day. If you really don't want to plan using the STEM snack pack models, then this could also be a great sub-plan. One of my lessons for this is the foil boat challenge. Students are given one large piece of foil, and they have to design a boat with just the foil. Then they test different objects to see how much they will weigh. So they make a hypothesis of how many of that same object they think their boat will hold, and then they try lots of different things within that boat. They can even calculate the weight of the items that it held. Things that you could put in your boat would be small marbles, LEGO bricks, popsicle sticks, or any tiny things that you might have laying around. You could find the weight of those things and help them do the calculations. So again, quick one-day activities where it really is a challenge of the day. 


Naomi Meredith  08:46

The third way that you can structure your STEM lessons, it's very similar to the challenge of the day, but that is STEM and stories. This one is definitely a favorite for when I have sub plans. If you're a library specialist who is implementing STEM, this is definitely for you. Of course, read the story to your students, and if you are short on time, I recommend you pre-record yourself reading the story. You could get an ebook version of the book and screen-record yourself reading it. It's even more fun if you're reading it at home with your pets or your children. I have my little dog Frederick when I do this, and the kids love it because I talk to him throughout the story.  The kids feel like they're at home with me, and they have that connection piece as well. If I am personally the one pre-reading the story, the students are just as engaged as they would be if I was reading it in person. 


Naomi Meredith  09:44

STEM and stories challenges allow me to gather any supplies that are needed. Also, when I have students who are coming in that have a hard time with transitions, they come in later in my lesson so that way I can chat with them and handle any of those situations. Once the story is over, all the kids are ready to go. I definitely recommend doing this. This is a great time-saving hack. STEM and stories lessons can last for one day, or you can also stretch it out to multiple days. One of my favorites is after reading the story, Not a Box, students will create a straw marble maze. I use Amazon cardboard as their base, and I have it pre-cut. The students use tape and straws to create the maze for their marble to travel through. You can experiment with different marbles, such as round marbles or marbles with a flat side, to see how it changes the pace of their game. 


Naomi Meredith  10:44

After listening to the story, on day one, students can create their straw cardboard maze. On the second day, they can do all of the math and peer reviews that go along with it. They can calculate how fast the marble goes through their maze. They can add points to their game, write the rules, and then have other people play their game and receive feedback on how the game went. This allows them to make modifications along the way. Just like any of these, you can always extend them further and add even more elements of STEM. STEM and stories are a great way to highlight those common core standards that go along with reading literature. Or you could even do a nonfiction text and really highlight their informational standards as well. 


Naomi Meredith  11:28

The fourth way that you can structure your STEM lesson planning is using STEM stations. During my first few years teaching STEM, I did STEM stations with K through five. This was a way for me to test out all the random supplies in my classroom, see what would work for different types of grade levels, and see my kids' skills and capabilities when it came to using different types of tools. Now while being in my fifth year teaching STEM, I have a pretty good grasp of what the capabilities are for all different grade levels. I only use some stations with K through one. Again, this isn't just a primary thing. I highly recommend using stations when you're short on time, so you can also test out all of those interesting tools. For most weeks, when I'm teaching Kindergarten and first grade, I will do a longer project that is three days or a smaller challenge of the day project around the same theme. The last two days are STEM stations. The way that I like to structure STEM stations, and that has worked best for time, is I have four stations, and students rotate through to a day. 


Naomi Meredith  12:41

So here's how I explain it to the kids, “Hold up two fingers on one hand, put up two fingers on the other hand. What is two plus two?” They usually can tell me four, and I'm all, “Great. We're going to do two today and two tomorrow. If you don't get to your favorites today, when are you going to do them?” They say tomorrow. So they understand that they will get through all the stations as long as they're at school and everybody's happy. I can get through explaining the lessons, often showing a short video that correlates with the science standard. They're able to do the first station, clean up, stand at their clean station, point to the next station they're going to, complete that station, clean up, and they are ready to go all in 45 minutes. Also, I don't throw out random things for the kids to do. I still plan everything with themes and with standards. Again, this does take careful planning, and you can pull out bits and pieces of the Engineering Design Process. 


Naomi Meredith  13:44

Now I told you I like to plan with four stations. So naturally, I plan each station that goes along with each letter of STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. This also helps make sure that I am planning stations that have a variety of tasks for students to do, they are getting a well-balanced experience and their STEM station rotations. For example, here are the four stations that I used when I taught the sun, moon, and stars to first grade. We first started off with a related video with Sideshow kids. Then the science station was moon phase puzzles, where they had all of the different moon phases cut up, and then they put those puzzles back together and got to learn and recognize the details within each of those phases. The technology station was day and night coding where students used to Bee Bots or Blue Bots. They rolled a dice, and there were pictures on the grid that went to each of those things that can be seen during the day, night, or both. 


Naomi Meredith  14:44

The engineering station was some space inspiration. So students had LEGO bricks to build various things that go along with space and all those different images that were provided to them. If I want to mix it up with that space engineering board, I do have some flash cards I got from the Target dollar spot forever ago. They show real-life pictures of things that can be found in space and interesting facts on the back. I had both options for students, and they could choose what worked best for them. The math station was geoboard constellations, and students had different images of famous constellations that they could build using the geoboards and then check off on their laminated list of which constellations they were able to build during that time. Stations can have a little bit more prep work when it comes to supplies. But if you are teaching a lot of classes, it's definitely worth the time. Then you have the tools ready to go for many years to come, and the kids are even more engaged because they all go together and are planned around their standards and go along with that theme. 


Naomi Meredith  15:51

As a recap, here are the four different ways that you can structure planning your STEM lessons. First are multi-day projects. Next are the challenges of the day. Third are STEM and stories lessons, and the fourth is STEM stations. This episode is about finding a planning structure that will work best for you and really root your lessons in standards and research so that the experiences are super meaningful and you are digging into those experiences in your own STEM way. If you want lesson planning templates for this and really dive into structures and routines when it comes to planning and setting up your STEM space, I welcome you to join my course, STEM teacher 101, where I dive in deeper on all of these topics, give you templates and resources, a bonus community to chat with and you even get five PD credit hours that you can take in your own time and be the STEM superstar that you are.

structure-a-stem-lesson

structure-a-stem-lesson

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

organize-my-stem-lesson-ideas

How Do I Organize All of My STEM Lesson Ideas? [ep. 24]

How Do I Organize All of My STEM Lesson Ideas? [ep. 24]

Organize my STEM Lesson Ideas

Check out the full episode on How Do I Organize All of My STEM Lesson Ideas:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!


Episode Summary

STEM lessons are so much fun to plan, but they can be overwhelming. There are so many cool lesson 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 of your STEM lesson ideas and help you choose lessons that will work best for your STEM space. 

In this episode, you’ll learn four ways to help you plan and organize your STEM lesson ideas:

  • Brainstorm themes
  • Research standards
  • Plug your lesson ideas and standards into your year-long plan
  • Fine-tune your lessons

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

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.

Organize my STEM Lesson Ideas

Organize my STEM Lesson Ideas

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

fall-stem-activities

5 Fall STEM Activities to Try [ep. 23]

5 Fall STEM Activities to Try [ep. 23]

fall-stem-activities

Check out the full episode on 5 Fall STEM Activities to Try:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Watch the full episode

Episode Summary

Fall is in the air, and it is a great time to mix in some themed STEM challenges. These five fall STEM activities to try are perfect for one-day lessons, sub plans, or even class parties, especially since they are low prep challenges. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Apple and pumpkin lifecycle robotic coding
  • Fall-themed engineer inspiration boards
  • Pumpkin bridges
  • Pumpkin digital activities
  • Designing a harvest basket

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

Fall is in the air, and it is a great time to mix in some themed STEM challenges. These five fall STEM activities to try are perfect for one-day lessons, sub plans, or even class parties. Let's jump right into these low prep challenges.  


Naomi Meredith  00:27

If you haven't learned this about me by now, I love a good theme. You heard all about how I themed out my first unit of the year back in episode four, Welcome to STEM Survival Camp. If you take a peek around my house, I have some fall decorations peeking in the corners on my tables. Of course, I have all of those fall-flavored candles. In turn, I don't always teach themed lessons in my class. It can be really fun to integrate these within your lessons, especially if you need something quick that works for one day. If you really want to extend it throughout the week, all of these challenges will work perfectly for you and across many different grade levels. So let's jump into these five ideas that you can implement in your STEM space.  


Naomi Meredith  01:40

The first fall STEM activity to try is apple and pumpkin lifecycle robotic coding. This is a great low prep challenge that you can use as a station, and students can learn all about the lifecycle of favorite harvest fruits like apples and pumpkins. You can do this challenge for anything, but these two are very popular during the fall season. All you need to do is have each stage of the lifecycle of the pumpkin or apple on different cards, and students will code in a variety of ways to help them learn more about those life cycles. So here are a few variations of this that you can use with the robots that you have in your classroom. This will work well with pretty much any type of robot that you have. The only one I think it might not work best with is Ozobots unless you have a special grid, you could definitely do this in a different way.  


Naomi Meredith  02:40

Speaking of grids, there are grids that you can purchase that are fancy for all of the robots. However, when you are on a budget like most of us, it is sometimes easier to create your own grid that the robots can move along is really helpful for students to visualize the steps that they need their robot to travel. Most robots for children have very specific movements when they are moving forward in one space. You can create your own mat by measuring the distance of one forward move for each robot. However, I have created a lot of these for all the smaller robots and RDS with all the measurements done for you. So you can just print, cut, glue, and create whatever size mat that you want. Of course, all of the challenges that I will be talking about and these gridlines will be linked in the show notes to save you some time with your fall theme planning.  


Naomi Meredith  03:35

So for this lifecycle coding, create a map or use one that you have on hand and have those cards that are about the lifecycle of that living thing. You can even have students be more involved in this creation process. They can create the cards that they will code for that specific lifecycle. Once all of these resources are created, here are variations that you can play with these cards. If you're creating the grid ahead of time, you can laminate the different stages of the lifecycle of the pumpkin or apple. Students will code to those different locations on the grid. Another variation of this challenge is students can be in partnerships. Instead of having the cards laminated on the grid, they can be movable. One partner can place the cards on the grid-facing app, and the other partner will code the robot to gather all of the pieces in order of the lifecycle, and then they can switch. The third variation would be having that partner system, but then they have to code the lifecycle backward. The fourth variation is they can either go backward or forward, but instead of the grid-facing app, they can have them facing down, and it can be more like a memory game.  


Naomi Meredith  04:53

So there are a lot of different variations to this and with the age of your students and their coding experience. It's fun for them to try these different challenges to practice their coding skills. The second fall STEM activity to try is creating one-page inspiration boards that follow along with any of the fall holidays you are discussing in your classroom. These could be things like the Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving, Halloween, or even for the whole month, such as what different things are typical for that month. For instance, for the month of September, October, and November, what are different items that people think of for that month? You can have different pictures on this one-page board that can inspire students to build, such as apples, pumpkins, baskets, you name it. You can have these visuals for students, and then they can build with any materials that you have on hand, whether it'd be items in your Makerspace or if you want to pull out LEGO bricks. I really like using this type of engineer inspiration board with my younger students, especially when a lesson might go quicker than expected. These are really great to have on hand that you can have printed at a station, or you can display on the projector or TV in your classroom.  


Naomi Meredith  06:14

The third fall STEM activity to try is creating a pumpkin bridge. Again, this can be a one-day challenge in your classroom, or, if you want to dive in deeper, you can extend this for the whole week and use the Engineering Design Process. If you are a bit unsure about what the Engineering Design Process is, fairly recently, I had a whole mini-series about the Engineering Design Process where I dove into every single stage of that process to give you ideas on how to teach this in your classroom. So make sure to go back and listen to those because that will help you extend your knowledge whether you use the Engineering Design Process already or looking to gain more knowledge about it. For this pumpkin bridge challenge, you can use any materials you have on hand. I like to use popsicle sticks, tape, and cups. Students will build one of the types of bridges that we talked about in class to hold as many pumpkins as possible. This is fine if you use the pumpkin candies that you can find at the store. You can also use unifix cubes as I have. I'll tell the kids that the pumpkins are square because they came right out of Minecraft. There's a whole lot of buy-in for that, and they don't mind that the pumpkins are different colors. You could do a whole lot of math afterward, like how many pumpkins could it hold, and compare the different bridges in the classroom. You could measure how long the bridge was, how wide the bridge was, or how tall. So there's a whole lot of math that you could do with this STEM challenge.  


Naomi Meredith  07:30

The fourth fall STEM activity to try is pumpkin digital activities. Now this one isn't as hands-on, but it's a great way to implement the T-technology within your classroom if you want something that is paperless and easy to assign. I have two different variations for the grades. So for K through two, I like to create a digital interactive activity that they can use on Seesaw or Google slides that are quick little tasks on each slide. These tasks are helpful for the students because they can practice their digital skills, such as dragging and dropping, drawing on the screen, and labeling a picture. All of those tech skills are important for any type of activity, not just pumpkins. You can create each slide that goes along with a theme, like pumpkins. They can do things like measuring a vine using digital unifix cubes. They can use the shape tools to decorate a picture of the pumpkin or even an alphabet match where students are dragging the letters to help them spell different words such as pumpkins. Having these slides with quick activities helps students be successful. They can work at their own pace and also help each other out when they get stuck. For the older students, you could do something similar, but I also like to give them digital interactive notebooks that help them explore other outside resources that are kid friendly. This is where I like to pull in other resources such as podcasts, videos, paired selections, and nonfiction and fiction texts, and they can respond within the digital interactive notebook. You could share just one slide a day. You could have it be differentiated where certain kids might have specific slides, or you can have it even open-ended, and kids pick the slides that are most interesting to them. So this is a great way to pull in those outside resources that you might have been collecting over the years and assign them to one digital platform.  


Naomi Meredith  08:01

The fifth fall-themed STEM activity to try is having students design a harvest basket. Now, this isn't a lesson that I have in my store yet, maybe by the time this recording comes out, it will be in there. But this would be another fun challenge that you can use the Engineering Design Process or even do it in one day. You can have tiny pumpkins or tiny apples, or even pretend if you're worried about them getting damaged, and students could use materials like straws, popsicle sticks, or string to create a harvest basket to hold as many of these fruits as possible. This will be a great collaboration challenge, and also learn different techniques when it comes to securing items and being able to hold weight. If you wanted to extend this challenge even further, you could have students weigh how many apples or how many pumpkins their basket was able to hold. Then you could compare the weights using greater than and less than place value, or even graphing, depending on the age of your students and the math standards that would tie into those.  

 

Naomi Meredith  09:04

This was a quick episode today, but just some fun fall STEM activities that you can try in your STEM space and bring the fall into your classroom. So let's go over those five different activities that you can try. First is the apple and pumpkin lifecycle robotic coding. Next, our fall-themed engineer inspiration boards. Third, are pumpkin bridges. Fourth is pumpkin digital activities. And fifth is designing a harvest basket. I hope you enjoyed these fall-themed activities and definitely share with me what you have done in your classroom. I would love to see how it goes with your students. 

 

fall-stem-activities

 

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

fall-stem-activities

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

engineering-design-sprints

Engineering Design Sprints with Jen Sevy [ep. 22]

Engineering Design Sprints with Jen Sevy [ep. 22]

engineering-design-sprints

Check out the full episode on Engineering Design Sprints with Jen Sevy:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Episode Summary

Today’s episode is very special because I have my very first guest here on the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. In this episode, I talk to Jen Sevy, a K through Five STEM teacher in Colorado. Jen shares with us how she implements engineering design sprints during her students' design challenges in a day. You're going to love her creative ideas for how she taught these quick one-day lessons using the Engineering Design Process, which are perfect if you see students once a week or if you need an extra boost in your sub plans. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • Jen's journey from classroom teacher to STEM teacher
  • How Jen came up with the idea for engineering design sprints and why she implements them in her classroom
  • Examples of engineering design sprints Jen has done with her students
  • Practical tips for incorporating engineering design sprints in your classroom

All About Jen

Jen Sevy has been teaching for 18 years. She taught third grade for eight years, then worked to earn her Masters in Technology Integration and moved into a position teaching Technology as part of the specials rotation at her school. For the last three years, she has been teaching STEM and has found her happy place! She loves anchoring everything she teaches with the Engineering Design Process and sees so much value in students understanding the process. Her goal for her students is to experience joy every day in her classroom.

Connect with her at: jsevy@cherrycreekschools.org

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

Today, I have my very first guest here on the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. We are talking with Jen Sevy, a K through Five STEM teacher in Colorado. She is going to be sharing with you how she used the Engineering Design Process with her students' design challenges in a day. You're going to love her creative ideas for how she taught these quick one-day lessons that are perfect if you see students once a week or if you need an extra boost in your sub plans. Can't wait for you to hear this interview!  


Naomi Meredith  00:40

I am so excited to have our first guest here on the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I'm being so mindful of the people I'm having on the show to talk about their experiences, and I know that you'll love hearing what Jen has to say. I definitely have a growing list of guests that I would love to have on the show, so this is an exciting step here on the podcast. You are the very first guest here, so this is so monumental. I've known Jen for about five years, and her school is only five minutes away from mine. The students from both of our schools feed into the same middle school and high school. I've had the pleasure of being on her STEM virtual PLC over the years, and she's definitely been a great help to me, especially when I was leaving the classroom and then transitioning into this new to me district and STEM. So I'm so excited to have you here today, Jen.


Jen Sevy  01:56

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's exciting.


Naomi Meredith  01:59

Yeah, you're so sweet. Well, I know you, and I'll probably learn more when you introduce yourself. I know your position has evolved a lot as an educator, so just tell us about yourself, what your role has been in the past and what you teach now.


Jen Sevy  02:16

Sure. Well, I started out as a classroom teacher. I taught third grade for eight years, and then I decided to go back to get my master's. I knew I wanted to do something outside the scope of just a normal classroom, so I went ahead and got my master's in educational technology integration. I did that from Boise State, almost actually 10 years ago. While I was working on my master's, our principal was looking for somebody to take over the role of the technology specialist to teach technology as a specialist. She asked me to do it, and I was hesitant at first because I was really nervous to leave the classroom. She had to ask me twice, and I finally said yes. The second time she came back asking, at first, I said no, because I just was really, really unsure about doing it. But it turned out to be a great decision.  I taught technology separate from STEM. We actually had five specials at that time, so we had tech and STEM as separate things. But I had always worked with the STEM teacher pretty closely. We did a lot of projects, we kind of partnered up as this, we shared students, and they would see me and then see her, so that was great. Then a couple of years went by, and we ended up getting a bunch of money as a district as you know that we got to redesign our classrooms with these innovation spaces. So I got to sit on the committee that redid the building, and I was then moved into this amazing new space. It was right at the time when our school was shrinking a little bit, and we decided to combine STEM and technology into one specials.  So at that point, the teacher who had been teaching STEM, she and I kind of job shared. So she taught STEM for third through fifth, and I taught STEM for K through two. Then we were actually both instructional coaches, and we did that for a year or two. She ended up going back to the classroom, and I took over STEM full-time. So now I teach STEM K through five. I see kids for a week at a time, 45 minutes a day, and I love it. This is my third year teaching STEM. My first year full time doing it was during COVID, which was crazy. But yeah, now we're back to normal, and life is good. It's a good time in the STEM classroom.


Naomi Meredith  04:30

I love how you have all these different experiences because I feel like all your experiences are similar to those in the STEM space. I know people who teach STEM full time, do coaching, or are technology teachers who want to do part of STEM. I feel like you have such a well-rounded experience when it comes to your teaching and being in the classroom, which helps so much, too, so you can see all the perspectives.


Jen Sevy  04:55

Yeah, for sure. I never pictured myself here when I decided to be a teacher. I thought I'd be in the classroom until I retired. I'm so glad that my educational journey has taken me this way because it's super fun.


Naomi Meredith  05:07

Was that a hard transition to get into STEM from Tech? Or was it easy for you?


Jen Sevy  05:14

It was easier moving from tech to STEM than it was from the classroom to technology. I think, just because I really got used to looking at what we were doing more as like a project-based, and you know, shorter time periods. A  lot of what I did in tech was similar in that I did use Engineering Design Process already. Just the projects were completely computer-based when I was doing that.


Naomi Meredith  05:40

Well, it shows that you're a really good teacher because you can literally teach anything, Jen.


Jen Sevy  05:45

I don't know about that. But sure, we'll go with that.


Naomi Meredith  05:47

Yeah, you could teach anything. So when I was in your classroom a couple of weeks ago, we hosted a little training together, which was so sweet, and it was so fun. But you had hula hoops hanging from your ceiling. I know everybody was asking you about the hula hoops. You were starting to explain to me that you had these Engineering Design Process sprints, and I was like, “I need to have you on this podcast.” I think teachers are going to love hearing about this, whether they teach STEM five days a week or once a week. So you have to tell us all about these. Where did you get the idea? Why are you doing this? Like, tell us all about it because I'm so obsessed.


Jen Sevy  06:32

Well, actually, it kind of happened, as I like to tell my students, from a failure that I think I had last year. I had been planning all these great activities and units for my fourth graders. It was almost halfway through the school year, and I was like, “Oh my goodness, like we have been doing a lot of computer-based stuff,” which, as we just talked about, is my background. When we were in COVID, it was I didn't do a whole lot of the hands-on because we couldn't share materials. It was a lot of computer-based stuff, so I was kind of kicking myself. I'm like, “How are my fourth graders, they've been on the computer a ton?” So I was very intentional about “Okay, we are going to start off the year with zero tech. It's going to be all hands-on, simple materials. What can that look like?”  At the same time, last year, I also focused on the Engineering Design Process, majorly. My main professional goal for the year was to get kids interested in and understand the different steps of the Engineering Design Process. So funny enough, in talking to our PE teacher at my school, we were sharing ideas. She was like, “If you want the kids to learn this process, you should write a song or like a chant or something that would be catchy that they could really, you know, grab a hold of.” I was like, love the idea. Also, I'm sure someone else has already done that. So I went online, and I found this amazing guy named Baba Bomani. He has written this song, it's Engineering Design Process. It's a rap. It's super catchy and super cute.  He goes through all the steps of the Engineering Design Process. I was even more excited when I saw that he had done a music video for it with a class full of students. They have a little dance that goes with it. So for each step of the design process, there's a little dance move that goes with it. So I started teaching that to all my classes last year. I'm like, okay, so this year, we're going to do a hybrid year: I'm going to start out, we're going to remind ourselves every day, for a week, when kids would come in, we would start out with the song and doing the little dance moves with it, which they love and is so fun. Then so, what I did was I'm calling the unit design challenge in a day. Each day we would work through all of the steps of the design process at a rapid pace, just super quick, and they would have a simple challenge that they'd have to work through.  They'd have to go through all the steps of thinking, you know, here's my challenge, here's my question, and I'm going to imagine it and plan it out. I'm going to create it, test it and then improve it. It turned out really cool. The Hula Hoops were a major talking point. All the kids in every grade were like, “What's up with the hula hoops hanging from the ceiling?” I told them it's for fourth grade, which then kids are like, oh, you know, I'm not in fourth grade yet. Or, dang it, we didn't do that last year when I was in fourth grade. It was pretty cute. But the hula hoops were one of the one-day design challenges, and it was building a paper airplane that you could toss through the hula hoop from eight feet away was ultimately the challenge. 


Naomi Meredith  09:39

Oh, yeah, that's far. 


Jen Sevy  09:40

Yeah, well, it actually is far. I was testing it, of course, because I'm like, can I even do this? I marked spots on the floor. So the first one was about three feet out. The second one was eight feet, and then the last one was about 11 feet. The kids would stand at the markers, and they started the three feet, and if they could successfully throw it through, then they would back up. The middle marker was our eight feet, so that was ultimately the goal. If they could do that, then they would back up, which was fun. But it was really neat. Some kids had built paper airplanes before, and some hadn't. So they could either test out their own idea or build something they've done. I also let them get out the iPad, and they could search for different design ideas on the iPad, which was really cool. It was chaotic and crazy but so much fun. You've never seen kids so excited to go back and improve their design than when their paper planes didn't go through the hula hoop. They couldn't wait to go back and fix it up.


Naomi Meredith  10:35

Did they try different types of paper, or did they have a specific kind? Like, are they testing how different papers flew?


Jen Sevy  10:42

No, they didn't. Actually, now that you say that, that's a really good idea. I just had regular old plain copy paper. But that's a really cool idea to test out like construction paper. Yeah. I'll put that on my list for next year because that'd be a really great question to see if they could figure out which kind of paper flew best.


Naomi Meredith  11:01

I tried paper airplanes during COVID. There was a class that went remote last minute, and I thought, well, yeah, paper airplanes. Oh, it was so chaotic online. I, like, physically couldn't help them, and I felt so bad. Like, this is too hard. I'm like, It's okay, guys. Keep going. I don't know what else to say. You're online, I'm here. You're there. I don't know. So that's great you could do that in person with the kids.


Jen Sevy  11:25

For sure. For sure. It's crazy the things you don't think about that they need direct instruction on, like how to make a tight crease on paper, right? things pop up, and you have to be ready. 


Naomi Meredith  11:34

Like a life skill? 


Jen Sevy  11:36

For sure. 


Naomi Meredith  11:38

Did each grade each day have different challenges? Or did you overlap any of them? Or did you do something different?


Jen Sevy  11:48

Yeah, so it was just fourth grade that worked their way through this. The other grades were still doing Engineering Design Process stuff, but the design sprints were just for fourth grade. The fifth graders, I felt like, had a pretty good handle on it. Plus, I was starting out with 3D printing for them just for ease of getting things printed throughout the year. I did focus on the Engineering Design Process with every grade. So every grade did start out with their little song and dance each day. The fourth grade I just focused on primarily because I wanted to be very intentional, knowing that I felt like that was an area that I had lacked in the year before, and wanting to make sure I'm super intentional with fourth grade getting hands-on and building things. So each day, fourth grade had a different challenge.


Naomi Meredith  12:28

Okay, so they had airplanes. Then what were the other ones that they did?


Jen Sevy  12:34

One day, they started out with paper airplanes. There was a day when they got to come in and build a building using only paper and masking tape that had to withstand a fan being blown directly on it. That one was hilarious, and really, it was cool. The things that popped up were great because the conversations we had, I think, really helped with some critical thinking because there were some groups that were building things. Other groups were like, well, that's not a building. Like that's just a pile of paper all balled up. Right. So then we had to get into what defines a building in this situation. They had one that was to build the longest paper chain, you know, when you cut strips, yeah, and loop them together, the longest paper chain using only a single sheet of construction paper.  That was one of my other favorites because while the paper planes were an individual activity, this was a group effort. I made sure to focus on that as it was more collaborative. It was really cool to watch the kids have to figure out what everyone's role would be. They were like, “You're going to be the cutter, you're going to be the taper, I'm going to be like in charge of the wall, or whatever they would do.” So the collaboration and the strategies they developed were really cool to see. I would always give them the planning part was really fast. It wasn't anything that was in-depth every day because we didn't have a ton of time. Most days, the planning phase was just, I'm going to set a timer for three minutes, and you're going to talk to the people in your group that whole time. What's your strategy, come up with your plan. So yeah, so that was when we also did cup stacking. They had 20 plastic cups, and they had to build the tallest tower that they could. So a little bit of friendly competition there with that one and the paper chain. So that was pretty fun.


Naomi Meredith  14:21

I love that. Those are really good. In a way, you were probably teaching the four C's along with the engineering design. So you really had a creativity day with the buildings like maybe let's go, here's what a building could look like. That's a little bit of a two, like, buildings can look ugly, but if they are more beautiful, people really like them. 


Jen Sevy  14:43

Exactly. 


Naomi Meredith  14:45

So you really had a lot of those four C's. And I love how you talked about planning and how you had kids talk about planning because I think teachers think planning always has to be drawing and labeling, which is important, but it just depends on the day. I actually talked about that in one of our past episodes. It's all about planning for the engineering design. I definitely have done that, like kids talking through it and verbalizing because that's an important skill. Also, being able to articulate your thoughts, and you might not have paper in front of you. So figuring out how you can explain it in a way that would make sense. So that's really good that you did that with your kids.


Jen Sevy  15:22

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it turned out really well. It's really neat to see, especially again, coming back from COVID. I don't know if you've noticed this, but one thing I've seen with my students for sure is they're struggling a little bit to be able to collaborate and work together. I mean, give direct instructions on how to work with a partner, like this is how you take turns, this is how, when there's a disagreement, how you can talk it out and figure out, you know, how you're going to move forward. So it was good to have them working in groups like that, where they get that practice.


Naomi Meredith  15:55

Oh, yeah, we're definitely like, we teach all these cool skills, but really STEM, when it comes down to it, we're all about those soft skills. The tools are going to change. You used paper and tape, and the kids were super engaged. But really, they're working on, like, the skills that are going to carry them throughout life. I have seen the same thing, like being very intentional about how to talk to each other and what is appropriate and not appropriate. Like, we don't just say, “Help me, help me help me.” Explain what you specifically need help with. So yeah, all those communication skills are so important, especially when they're face-to-face. It's like, whoa, so much happened, like, the past couple of years? Like, I'm so glad you're at school because we can definitely work through these things together.


Jen Sevy  16:38

Right? Exactly, exactly. I was gonna say the competition aspect of it led to a lot of good reflections from kids too. When we did the paper chain, there was a clear winner there, with one of those chains being longer than everyone else's. It was still great to honor everyone's process and talk through their process. Each group would share individually what they did that they found worked well and what possibly hindered their progress. It was neat to see that and, honestly, having a table group that had been the quote winners. It was neat to see everybody really listen to that table. I feel like more than anybody else. In the end, they were willing to hear it.  Instead of telling the other groups who lost that they got the wrong answer and trying to show them the correct way to do it.  The winning group shared the strategies that their group used that worked really well for them. So it was awesome to see the respect and the other groups listening to them.


Naomi Meredith  17:35

That's really good. We're any kids frustrated since the time was shorter? Were there any kids complaining about not getting enough time? Or were they okay with it? 


Jen Sevy  17:45

They were okay with it. Most days with the paper chains, I think I gave them about 20 minutes, which is a long time. But most groups still could have produced more after that time. I'm also famous for putting up a timer on our projector. I just will go to YouTube and type in 20-minute timer, and there are crazy timers out there. There are some that look like little bombs going to explode when the timer goes off. Some of them are happy and cheerful. I always put one up on my whiteboard, and it's huge. So there's no question that they know exactly how much time they have left. That really kind of put a kibosh on anyone saying they need more time. I never got any of that because they knew exactly how much time they had the entire time.


Naomi Meredith  18:27

Okay, good. Because yeah, I get kids who I use a timer with also. When I tell them it's clean-up time, I still get kids that say they need more time. I remind them that they have to leave and they're not here forever. My favorite timer is Classroom Screen. Have you used Classroom Screen?


Jen Sevy  18:43

You showed that to me last year! Yes, I have used that where you can have it on there at the same time, right?


Naomi Meredith  18:49

Yeah. I get scared of the YouTube ones because sometimes I don't personally like the sound. I get scared. Oh my gosh, I'm like really startled, and then the kids start laughing at me.


Jen Sevy  19:03

I learned which ones have crazy alarms at the end. I usually will run up to the computer and pause it right when it has one second left. So they know, but then there hasn't been some crazy siren blaring because nobody likes that.


Naomi Meredith  19:17

So how did you get the ideas for these challenges? Were there specific resources you used? Or were they lessons you've done in the past that you pulled out? Because these would make good STEM sub plants for teachers, too, if they're looking for things to do in a day.


Jen Sevy  19:31

That's actually a really good point. I hadn't thought about that either, making it a little emergency binder or folder to pull from. Every teacher should have an emergency binder or folder they can pull out when something happens, and they don't have the capacity to write those awesome plans. No, I actually just went online, searched around for some ideas, and then modified some of the ones that were there. I also looked for ideas using materials that I had plenty of on hand because some of them would be there. They were simple and required basic materials like paper, tape, and plastic cups. 


Naomi Meredith  20:07

I think that's so good for the kids to see that you can create complicated things out of very limited materials, which is such a good way to start off the year because it's not all robots or coding. You can use paper, tape, and glue to create a giant chain.


Jen Sevy  20:26

Right? Yep, absolutely. It was cool to see. I mean, again, back to those little skills like the folding of paper. I have perfected the art of teaching children how to tear tape because they would say, “Well, we get paper and tape, what about scissors?” I would say, “Those aren't on our supply list.” They would respond, “Well, how are we supposed to cut the tape?” And I'm like, “You're not. You're supposed to tear it.” So I have completely perfected how to if you ever need advice on how to teach kids to tear tape. I'm your girl.


Naomi Meredith  20:52

What do you say? Yeah, what do you say to that? What's your advice? You're leaving me hanging.


Jen Sevy  20:57

I know, right? You pinch it with both hands. Then, after you're pinching it, one hand goes forward, one hand goes backward, done. I mean, as long as it's masking tape, it'll rip easily. So even practicing in the air, one hand goes forward, and one hand goes backward.


Naomi Meredith  21:14

Okay, I'm gonna use that.


Jen Sevy  21:18

I mean, it's a silly thing, right? But it really can be cumbersome with kids trying to use tape when they're trying to cut it, and it's getting all stuck and all over. I mean, it's those quick little things that make life more manageable for sure. 


Naomi Meredith  21:30

Yeah, it's good. It's good all these things. I love all of this, and all the little skills that you're teaching kids it is so, so applicable. I know teachers are going to be so excited to try at least one, if not all, of these challenges. We'll definitely have to make sure to link these challenges in the show notes for teachers or list out the ideas so they can definitely do that in their classroom. I appreciate you being here so much. Where can people connect with you if they have any questions? Can they send you an email? Where would you like them to reach out?


Jen Sevy  22:02

Yeah, email is probably the best for sure. My email is jsevy@cherrycreekschools.org.


Naomi Meredith  22:12

Perfect. We'll link that for people as well. So if they're driving, they don't have to scramble and write that down. But thank you so much for your time. You're our great first guest, the first ever on the podcast. So this was monumental. 


Jen Sevy  22:28

Yeah. Well, thanks for having me.


Naomi Meredith  22:30

Yes, of course. We'll have to have you back because you're full of ideas, and I could just talk to you all day. Well, thank you so much again, and I'll chat with you soon.

engineering-design-sprints

engineering-design-sprints

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

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What are Creative Ways to Present a Project? [EDP Series: Share, Ep. 21]

What are Creative Ways to Present a Project? [EDP Series: Share, Ep. 21]

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Check out the full episode on What are Creative Ways to Present a Project?:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Episode Summary

Once students have completed a long-term STEM project, it’s important for them to share their work with an authentic audience. 

How can they share their work besides standing in front of their class and sharing one after the other?

In today’s episode, I will be sharing four creative ways students can present a project and have their voices heard. 

 

In this episode, you’ll learn four creative ways students can present a STEM project:

  • Digitally
  • Answering reflection questions
  • Peer-to-peer sharing
  • Creating a museum-style type of sharing

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

00:00

After students have completed a long-term STEM project, it's important to share their work with an authentic audience. How do you do this besides having kids stand in front of the class and share one after the other? In this episode, I will be sharing with you creative ways that you can have students present their projects and have all of their voices heard. 


00:52

This is the last episode of our mini-series all about the Engineering Design Process. I've had a lot of fun recording these episodes and diving deeper into each stage of the Engineering Design Process. All of these ideas can be modified for any grade level that you teach, which makes the EDP such a great way to plan for the STEM space. If you haven't grabbed it already, I have a free Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide that you can download for your classroom. You can grab that at Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP, and I'll also link it in the show notes. 


01:31

You know, when kids get super excited and want to show you what they have created in STEM? I'm really talking about Kindergarten here because they physically want to show you. You can't look across the room and say, “Oh, wow, you've worked so hard on that.” No, you physically have to go see it. If you are talking to a kindergartner, this is a great way for kids to share. However, there are even more creative ways that students can share their long-term STEM projects. This is an important step not to skip when you are teaching using the Engineering Design Process. So let's dive into these four creative ways that you can have students share their work.


02:14

The first way you can have students share their work is to go digital. This is one of my top favorite ways, and this is something that I do with K through five in my classroom. If I'm using the Engineering Design Process or other teaching methods, I love using Seesaw in my classroom. You can also use Flipgrid as an alternative. I provide the Seesaw code for the class regardless of what stage they are in the Engineering Design Process, but especially during that final share stage. I will do this a few ways with my kids. Oftentimes, I will have them take a video or create an audio recording of their final project. This might be a scripted experience, or it might be off the cuff, and they record an action. Both are valuable, and they can have different purposes. 


03:11

One way that I've used a scripted model is with my first graders when they were sharing their final 3D printed designs when we talked about animal families and their traits. Throughout the week, students researched their favorite animals and learned all about the babies and their adults, what they have on their bodies, and how they might be the same or how they might be different. One thing to keep in mind with 3D printing, I usually don't get the prints done by the end of the week. This share piece was the next month once I saw the kids, they got their 3D prints back. They colored their designs with Sharpies to make them look like real animals. When they were ready to share their work, I had a very specific script that was written and first-grade friendly language that we practiced together as a whole class. We made it a fun game, and the kids really liked how when they got to their specific part, they were supposed to share. It was super crazy but really fun. So we practice this script as a whole class repeatedly, and then students were sent off with their iPad. They were to take a picture of their final 3D printed design, draw the habitat using the seesaw Drawing Tools, and then record audio of their script. 


04:35

This script was very specific, and it helped them share the differences and similarities between the baby animal and their adults. The first graders were able to be successful and independent in this task because they understood what the script was saying. It was shown on this screen, and it was also printed on paper if they wanted to use that version. I also had on the script some visual markers, so little picture icons, to help them remember what the script said. It was so great having the kids in first grade be independent with this task because there were a few kids that needed more support from me. I was able to do that since I'm the only teacher in the classroom. 


05:16

Another way that I've had students share it digitally when it's off the cuff is really showing their work in action. I've talked about this in the other Engineering Design Process episodes of this podcast, including how students have been able to take videos during the experiment and improve stage. This can also be part of the sharing stage. For Kindergarten, I have them create a wall maze using recycled materials to show how the different things on the wall can change the path of the ball moving down the wall. Students again use Seesaw as the platform where they can take a video of their work in action and feel like they are taking the project home. In STEM, we use a lot of different materials. Students aren't always able to take all of that work home. Even if it's recycled materials, it just doesn't always make sense for them to take it home, such as the cardboard wall maze. So having them take a video of their work in action is a great way for them to share their designs with me, each other, and their families at home. Now, this can get a little overwhelming to manage, and it does take a lot of work and practice to teach kids how to use technology appropriately in this stage. Sometimes I will go around with my phone, I have Seesaw loaded on my phone, and I will take a video of their work in action. This is also another great option. If you don't have iPads or tablets in your classroom, you could use your phone as an alternative. But that's definitely up to you. 


06:50

The second way that I like students to share their work at the end of this process is to have reflection questions. I use the same three questions for all of my Engineering Design Process challenges year-round and for all of my grade levels. I like having the same three questions because the responses definitely change based on the types of experiences that we do for each unit. It also helps build that consistency where kids are mentally keeping track of how they are growing throughout these processes and working to try their best. The three questions that I like to give students are, I am proud of; if I were to try this challenge again, …; I would change blank, or blank was challenging for me. These are some great questions for students to type their responses to. So you can mix in that digital sharing, record audio or even video of their response. There's a lot of differentiation within these questions. Some students might even want to draw a picture or take a photo to respond to these questions as well. You can even mix these questions and have them as a class discussion throughout the week. Or, if you are pressed for time, this could just be the last day of your share. You have students share as a small group and then as a whole class. 


08:15

The third way that you can have students creatively share their projects is peer-to-peer sharing, especially in the older grades. They love to hear what their other friends in the class think about their projects. Yes, they want me as a teacher to notice their work, but as they get older, they're so focused on what their peers think. So give them that opportunity and teach them constructive ways to respond to one another. One way that I have done this is with the fourth grade, and they created videos that were all about space junk. So throughout the week, they were researching what space junk is, what the problems are, and what are some possible solutions and even thinking of their own solution. They created a short video in Adobe Spark with a voiceover to share their findings in a concise and clear way. 


09:06

From there, students pasted the link of their video in Seesaw. You guys know I love Seesaw by now. They pasted it in Seesaw, and we talked about ways that are constructive to comment on one another's work. Students commented on the videos, and they wrote at least one thing the students did well in their video and one thing that they needed to work on. The great thing is that these comments come to me first, so I was able to review those before they were approved so that the other students in the class could see. During the same unit for second grade, second graders researched different natural disasters that happen in our world, and they created a scripted video that utilized a green screen to teach us about these natural disasters. Again, students have that video posted in Seesaw, and instead of giving feedback through typing, students were given a paper feedback checklist, where they could circle what went well in the video and things that they needed to work on. 


10:10

This could definitely work for the older grades as well using a peer feedback checklist, especially when it comes to video and audio productions of their work. This same checklist was also used for the students when they were modifying their videos and before they were posting them. So all of the qualifications that their peers were marking them on weren't a surprise because these were things that they needed to add to their video anyway. Having a mix of digital and paper was a great way to have students reflect on their work and hear their peers' viewpoints on what their STEM project was. 


10:47

The fourth way that you can have students share their designs is by creating a museum experience. This is one where you will need space within your classroom or somewhere else in the building where other classes can move about and check out the students' work. Maybe consider if there are any display cases in your building that you could use for a month or so, or maybe somewhere in the library on top of the bookshelves, get creative. And This is a really fun, interactive way where again, students have an authentic audience to view their work. I did this when I was teaching third grade. So before I became a STEM teacher, I taught second grade for two years and third grade for four years. My third graders were really obsessed with rocks and minerals. That was one of the standards that we were teaching in science at the time. This isn't, per se, a STEM project. But this is more so to help you get an idea of how to do a museum-style sharing in your classroom. 


11:50

Students were given a specific rock or mineral that they wanted to learn more about. I actually had the real rocks and minerals for them to explore. They researched their rock or mineral using a variety of resources. Then they created an interactive poster for other kids, other third graders, and their book buddies to explore. Students created little short videos and audio recordings that were created in Seesaw. There is a share button that could create a QR code that could then be posted on the poster. When we were at recess, lunch, or specials. The different classes had the opportunity to sign up for those times when my room was empty. They could borrow the iPads and check out our interactive displays and all the different rocks and minerals that we had in our classroom. So this was not only a great way for my third-grade students to have an authentic audience throughout the day. But the other classes had an in-house field trip that they could come and explore as well, and the classroom teachers appreciate it because there are no permission slips or bus forms required. 


13:01

Another way that I have done this museum-style is for a semester when I first started teaching STEM. I taught gifted and talented science on Mondays for the kids who had been identified in giftedness within science. We would work on projects for the whole semester, and then students had the opportunity to share their projects with their peers through a museum style. I did provide a peer feedback checklist a lot like the one that I just talked about and that the other third, fourth or fifth graders were given so they could give feedback to their peers on their project. After this museum experience, students collected those peer feedback forms, and actually created a graph based on the responses that they were given, and then reflected on how they could improve their work for a different type of presentation for next time. Again, those authentic audiences can definitely be those peers. Use the kids who are in your school, use your teachers, and you can really be creative with the time and the space to make this museum type of experience come to life. 


14:12

As a recap, here are the four different ways that you can have students creatively share their STEM projects at the end of the Engineering Design Process. First, they can share digitally. Second, have reflection questions. Third, peer-to-peer sharing, and fourth, create a museum-style type of sharing. This is the final episode of this mini-series about the Engineering Design Process. But we will definitely be talking about the EDP again, and a lot, but I wanted to make sure to go in-depth about each stage, so this can help with your overall planning. Also, don't forget to grab your free Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide that is linked in the show notes to help you organize and streamline those lesson plans and to dive deeper into the EDP. You can grab that using this direct link Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP. 

helping-students-improve-stem-projects

what-are-creative-ways-to-present-a-project

Check out these creative ways students have shared their designs in some of the projects discussed in this podcast episode: 

3D Print Project: 1st Grade Animal Family Traits

2nd Grade: Earth’s Exciting Events, Green Screen Video

4th Grade: Space Junk Short Video

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

helping-students-improve-stem-projects

Helping Students Improve STEM Projects [EDP Series: Experiment & Improve, Ep. 20]

Helping Students Improve STEM Projects [EDP Series: Experiment & Improve, Ep. 20]

helping-students-improve-stem-projects

Check out the full episode on Helping Students Improve STEM Projects:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Episode Summary

As students are building their STEM projects, are you unsure of ways they can improve their designs?

The experiment and improve stage of the Engineering Design Process is so important to teach kids that things might not be perfect the first time, and there are always ways to make them better. 

In this episode, I will be sharing with you strategies that you can use with your students to help them improve and modify their designs. 

 

In this episode, you’ll learn strategies to help students improve their STEM projects:

  • Using a modification checklist
  • Create a rubric for each STEM project
  • Give students opportunities to show what happened in their project

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

00:00

As students are building their STEM projects, are you unsure of ways they can improve their designs? When students come up to you, and they say, “I'm done,” do you say, “Oh, now go and just add more details.” In this episode, I will be sharing with you strategies that you can use with your students to help them improve and modify their designs. 


00:53

I can't believe we have already made it to Episode 20. It has been so much fun recording these podcasts and creating episodes that you can immediately apply to your classroom. I am excited about how far this podcast has come and what is in store for the future. Trust me, I have a ton of ideas brewing. So lots more fun to be had in the future. If you haven't grabbed it already, I have a free Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide that you can download for your classroom. You can grab that at Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP. I'll also link it in the show notes. 


01:36

I know I've talked about this before, but I like comparing the Engineering Design Process to the writing process because there are a lot of similarities between those two processes. Being a former classroom teacher, that is just something that has stuck in my brain after teaching it for so many years before becoming a STEM teacher. The experiment and improve stage of the Engineering Design Process is similar to the editing stage within the writing process. It is the process for both of these things. A growth mindset that I like to teach my students in my classroom is that practice makes better, not perfect. Everything can be improved, even when you think you're done. This step in the Engineering Design Process is so important to teach kids that things might not be perfect the first time, and there are always ways to make them better. 


02:30

Here are some strategies that I like to use in this stage to make it more impactful and meaningful for students. These strategies keep me from rushing and running out of ideas for kids to make things better, or, after they build something, I don't just send them off to go do a fun activity. This stage in the Engineering Design Process can be very beneficial with some careful planning. 


02:54

The first way that you can enhance the experiment and improve stage is to use a modification checklist. Now, in my first year teaching STEM, I was completely lost on this. I was feeling probably like you are like I have no idea where to even begin with a checklist. I don't even know how the projects are going to turn out. Trust me, I was in your shoes, and I'm in those shoes whenever I'm starting new projects. So here's a little tip that has worked for me. When starting a new project, I will create an anchor chart of ways students can improve their designs as students are working. So with observations and how their projects are going, I will add to this anchor chart and list. I even get feedback from students as to what they would like to add to this list to help the future classes that I'm going to teach. Using the student feedback has been a game changer because I might think the project is going to go one way, but the way students are interacting with the lesson and the supplies are going in a completely different direction. I will always take their feedback when it comes to these checklists. 


04:03

In fact, when I was teaching STEM survival camp for fifth grade, the checklists for the build a shelter design was actually fully developed by my fifth graders. They had the checklist I'd given them, and they were writing all over it and adding in their own categories since I didn't design it in a way that worked best for them. So I recreated that checklist based on their feedback. My fifth graders really liked the layout because kids like them helped me create it. Now, years later, being in this position of K through five STEM, I have created my full year-long plan when it comes to engineering design challenges. Each challenge has different checklists included already, so you don't have to think about them. They are all done for you. There are even checklists for the little kids. 


04:54

For example, with my first graders for a unit, we were talking about Earthlight and light living things. What is that fancy word? Bioluminescent. The kids love learning this word and the meaning behind it. They sounded so fancy when they were sharing this with their teacher when they picked them up for the day. Students were to create their own living thing, either one that already exists or a living thing that would be enhanced if it did give off its own light and the reason behind that light. They were given a checklist the second day of creating, and there were just three lines in this checklist with a thumbs up, and a thumbs down that they could circle on the piece of paper or within Seesaw when I sent it to them digitally. These things weren't required for them, but I did say they had to do at least one of these three things when they were thinking about improving their design. On this checklist, those three things were does your living thing live in water? Does your living thing fly? And does your living thing eat other animals? So this was interesting for them to really think about who their animal was and even the purpose behind the light that they gave them. My example was that I would love it if my little dog Frederick's ears glowed. They had that bioluminescence, so when we're going on walks, he can see more clearly where we're going, and I can also see when I have to pick up his poop. Sorry, super gross TMI right there. 


06:30

Also, when I give checklists to my older kids, I give them those things on the checklist that they may or may not have to do. It depends on the project and the purpose behind the project. There's a space on the side where they can actually explain how the modifications made their design even better. When it comes to my 3D printing lessons, there are specific things they have to do within their project so that it will print correctly. Most of the things on the modification checklist have to be yes before they turn it in. However, there are other projects that we do where only a couple have to be a yes, and the rest are just ways that they can make their design even better. 


07:13

In addition to the checklist, another way that you can enhance your experiment and improve stage with the Engineering Design Process is the use of rubrics. You can use this instead of checklists or in addition to. If I were to use both, especially if I were to give grades within the STEM space, I would have students use the checklist when they are creating and experimenting, and improving. Then, when we are finished with the building stage, and this might even happen on the last day right before we share,  students are given that rubric, and they can reflect on the work that they did within this project. So they might even be done experimenting and improving, and they're thinking about how they really attacked those things. You can use a lot of the same things, even from the checklist, especially if you are planning with standards, which you should be anyway. But you can add some of those elements within your rubric. 


08:14

If I were to create a rubric for my STEM classroom, I would have it on a four-point scale, the one would be categorized as I am missing some things. This is if students really struggled in completing the project. Hopefully, they're not in that one category. Or maybe they were absent, so I would actually leave this part of the rubric blank so students could write in their responses, or I could add my responses. The two category would be I can do it with support. So those would be those qualifications that students were below grade level and had most of those things, but they have some holes. The three would be I can complete the project. So those would be all those qualifiers that are at grade level. They can demonstrate an understanding of the standard and the project. The four would be I can extend my learning. I also like to leave this blank. Or, if I know some ways students can extend their learning, I might write those in as well. So having that four-point scale would be really helpful, and have it written in student-friendly language, so it's not a surprise for them as to how they did on their project. This could be a great addition to the stage of the Engineering Design Process. 


09:34

Another thing too, when you're creating this rubric, I would think about the process first, then the product. I would have both within your rubric. So part of those qualifiers on your rubric you could talk about is did they demonstrate certain processes within the project. So learning a new skill when they are working on the project. The product could actually be how they demonstrate the state standard when attacking this challenge. Having a combination of both, which is really important in STEM. Are they understanding the standards? How are they learning new skills within STEM? Whether it's 3D printing or Makerspace coding, how are they demonstrating mastery within those? If you're interested in more things about grading, we could talk about that in the future. I will say I don't actually give grades in my STEM space. But this is the process I would use if I had to do that. So definitely something to consider and talk about when you're thinking about rubrics. 


10:38

Finally, the third way to enhance your experiment and improve stage is to give students the opportunity to show what happens. My two favorite platforms to use within the classroom, and especially in STEM classrooms, are Seesaw and Flipgrid. Both are very similar, but they also have differences. Having these platforms in your classroom is super beneficial for families to see what takes place within your classroom. We know that kids can't always take home the awesome supplies that they're using in STEM. Of course, they really want to, especially LEGO minifigs that go missing. Those never come back. But kids always want to share all the cool things that we did. These platforms are a great way for students to bring those experiences home through video, photos, and audio. Also, when you use these platforms, this is also a great way to keep kids accountable for the work and make sure that they are staying on task and completing the project. 


11:40

One of my first favorite ways is for students to use video during this improve and experiment stage. A big way that I used it with my fifth graders is when they were creating Rube Goldberg Ecosystems. Every time they were testing their design, I wanted them to take a video of inaction, whether it worked or not. It was great for them to have video evidence of their actual experiment. This was also helpful because they could go back and watch what happened the day before and set it up the same way or differently, depending on the results within their Seesaw journal. They had an abundance of videos to go back and reflect on, and this actually helped them when they came into the share stage when we talked about the project throughout the week. 


12:27

Another way that I've used video within an engineering design project was in second grade. They were working on animal migration Ozobots. Ozobots are those tiny little robots that read color codes when you color them with markers or use the stickers provided. Beforehand, students researched the migration patterns of different animals and understood why they were migrating and how that affected them. Students created the path of the migration within the maps that were provided. I wanted students to film the process of their code and action. It's so cute to see them filming this because you can see them experiment within the video when the code doesn't work. They'll pick up the robot and put it where it needs to go. Again, I wanted them to take more than one video so that if their code doesn't work, they could create a new coding sheet on a new map and then record it. So these are just two great examples of experimenting and improving within your STEM lessons. 


13:31

Sometimes video might not be the best fit to share. This is when photos are a great opportunity. Of course, you can have students take pictures of their work but if their invention is supposed to do something, consider having students take before and after photos. Again, in another second-grade lesson, I had students create an invention to help control the effects of water erosion. We actually tested this using dirt that we found outside, so there was a hill I took students out on, and I wanted them actually to test their invention with the water that we brought. Before taking the students outside, I had them take a picture of their invention before it got wet. Then some kids even went on to explain with audio how their invention was going to work. I then had students bring their inventions back into the classroom. After we tested them using the water and the dirt, they took an after photo and then explained what actually happened. I didn't want the iPads outside with the dirt, so that's why I had them bring the inventions back in. 


14:42

If there are before and after opportunities, consider taking photos. If you're doing projects that are all computer-based, there are some platforms that allow students to do screen recordings. This would be really cool if students are creating a code for a game or if they're 3D printing. They can actually film their screen in real-time and play it back on a hyperlapse to see the progression of their projects along the way. On the flip side, when you're thinking about teacher management, it would be great to keep kids accountable and ensure that they're staying on the screen that they're supposed to stay on. A great platform for students to use for screen recording is Screencastify. They have come out with a whole classroom set. You definitely should check that out because I love using Screencastify as a teacher, but it would be a cool asset to use for your older students when it comes to screen recording. Wii video is another platform that allows screen recording capabilities. So definitely check out those platforms and see how you can fit that in when students are designing digitally. 


15:49

As a recap, here are ways to help your students improve their STEM projects when you are in the experiment and improve stage. First, consider using a modification checklist. Next, create rubrics. Third, give students opportunities to show what happens. We have one more stage left in this mini-series about the Engineering Design Process. So thank you so much for joining me on this journey. Make sure to grab your free Engineering Design Process poster and Planning Guide, which is linked in the show notes and are also found at this direct link: Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP.

helping-students-improve-stem-projects

helping-students-improve-stem-projects

helping-students-improve-stem-projects

helping-students-improve-stem-projects

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

teaching-strategies-to-help-student-projects

Teaching Strategies to Help Student Projects [EDP Series: Create, Ep. 19]

Teaching Strategies to Help Student Projects [EDP Series: Create, Ep. 19]

Check out the full episode on Teaching Strategies to Help Student Projects:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Episode Summary

The create stage of the Engineering Design Process is a fun stage and tends to be the kids' favorite stage.

Although a fun stage, it is easy for chaos to ensue during this stage.

In today’s episode, I will be sharing teaching strategies to help student projects so that you can have control instead of chaos in your classroom.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn three teaching strategies to help students with their projects during the create stage in the Engineering Design Process:

  • Create with controlled chaos
  • Manage the materials that stick (i.e., glue, tape, hot glue gun)
  • Have strategies for cleaning up and storing the projects

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

00:00

Kids love to create in STEM, and this is by far their most favorite stage in the Engineering Design Process. In this episode, I'll be sharing with you teaching strategies to help student projects so you can have control of chaos in your classroom. 


00:50

I wanted to start off this episode by reading another review that was left on Apple Podcast for this podcast. Here's what brownie 819 had to say. “I am looking forward to hearing your podcast. I am a K through two STEM teacher and love all your work that you do with engineering challenges. So many times, I put together an idea and hope children will have some success with it. I can't wait to follow along.” Thank you so much for your review. I am so appreciative of that. Speaking of engineering challenges, for this episode, I have a free Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide that you can download for your classroom. You can grab that at Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP. I'll also link it in the show notes. 


01:41

Now let's jump into the Create stage in the Engineering Design Process. Not only is this a favorite stage of my students, but secretly it's one of my favorite stages as well. When I am planning and researching lessons for my K through five STEM space, I have a vague idea of what the project should look like in my head. My students always surprise me with their creative and innovative designs when it comes to solving the problem. Over the years, I've also noticed that my students have been paying more attention to the details they've been adding to their designs. Not only are they solving the problem, but they are adding intricacies to their designs that make them even better and look amazing. I always joke with my classes that, yes, I am their STEM teacher, but there's a little bit of a, a little bit of art. In the top corner of my whiteboard, I have a giant whiteboard sticker on one of my walls. So the entire wall is a whiteboard. In the top right corner, I have the letters STEM cut out in paper, and, in between the E and the M, I literally have a little a written. So I'm their STEM teacher with a little bit of a literally. I tell them that it's always good to have an element of art within your designs, add the beautifying piece and a little bit of style because your project should not only solve the problem but also look good. 


03:17

If you're an inventor selling your designs, people are going to want to buy them. I always give them the example of the car, the PT Cruiser, because, yes, it's probably a quality car, but it is super ugly. I'm sorry if you drive this car, but it's super ugly. It's not super popular because, well, people don't want to be seen driving that, at least I don't. Anyway, let's dive into these strategies that you can use within your teaching during this create stage in the classroom. The Create stage is right after the plan in the Engineering Design Process. We talked about that in the last episode, episode 18. So if you haven't given that a listen, make sure to go and check that out to get some ideas for enhancing the planning stage before the kids dive into create. 


04:27

The Create stage can get a little bit crazy very quickly. So let's talk about ways you can have students create within controlled chaos. I definitely thrive in a classroom when there is a lot going on. My ADHD kicks in, and it becomes my superpower because, for some reason, I know exactly what is going on with all the kids in all of their projects. Also, being the oldest of five kids, I am used to being in loud environments with a lot going on. So these two things definitely become an asset during this create stage and the Engineering Design Process. When students come in for the day, so this is typically day three for me after we have asked the question and did some imagining and planning, the students still come in and meet in our group meeting area. I still have a mini-lesson for them before they tackle their projects and work the entirety of the class. This is the time when I will review where supplies are located in my classroom. This depends on how long you have known the students, if things have changed, or if you have set materials out in a specific part of the classroom, which I will do for certain projects. 


05:32

This is also the time when I will talk about the Makerspace menu, how that process will work for the day, and where all those materials are located. If you're interested in this whole process of the Makerspace menu, I talked about this in episode six. So go back and take a listen. This management system helps with the controlled chaos. During this create stage, I let students build on the floor and at the tables by choice. I typically don't have assigned seating for this stage of the process; however, you know your students best. So if you do need to have assigned spots, don't be afraid to do so. When students are creating, I let them create in groups of one, two, or three. Sometimes they want to create groups of four. However, that gets a little bit crazy, especially since the projects are so small. There isn't usually enough for kids to do when they are in a group of four. So when that's the case, I tell kids to split up in two groups. They can work side by side and share ideas, but they're creating two different projects so that all the kids have a chance to work on something for the next few days. 


06:44

I also remind students that projects will need to be cleaned up at the end of class, and they will be put on our grade-level shelf. This is especially important to tell kids because sometimes they might want to glue or tape things to the tables. Then when the end of class comes, they're sad because they have to take it all apart. So this really enhances their designs because this helps them be mindful of creating things that can be moved back and forth over the next few days. I also like to have a timer up on the screen that all students can see during their work time. I did this as a classroom teacher during their independent work time just as a time management strategy. It's so interesting when I started implementing this with my K through five STEM students. Many of them started getting freaked out by the timer. I did have to have a whole lesson about the timer, and is that me making you rush through everything. The timer is more, for me as a teacher, to make sure that I am giving you enough work time and that when it's time to clean up, we have enough time for that. I tell them I have more students to teach throughout the day. I teach six classes a day, and I wish I could keep them all day. I need to have a timer so we can stay on track and clean up, and then the next kids can come in. 


08:10

Also, a little tip about the timers: remind students that it's not New Year, and they're not counting down when it gets to 10 seconds or less. For some reason, this has become a pet peeve of mine. When it happens 24 different times, you get annoyed pretty quickly. So add that little tidbit in there when you use a timer. My favorite visual timer to use in the classroom is the one from classroomscreen.com. If you haven't checked it out already, pause this podcast and go look at it. The website is named classroom screen.com, and it has all of these widgets at the bottom. There's not only a timer that you can pull up on the screen but there is a clock you can add. You can embed images, and Google slides that you can click through. All of these different widgets are up on the one screen. So you don't have to minimize and move different website tabs around so you can fit it all in. You can fit it in on this main platform. It is a freemium. So the free version won't save all the stuff that you have up on the screen unless you leave the tab open and don't shut down your computer. I believe the annual subscription is a pretty reasonable price. It actually might be worth the investment, especially if you are teaching many classes a day like I am during this mini-lesson. 


09:34

This is also the time where I will teach strategies to help them with their projects, but not necessarily teach them step by step how to do everything. I really want my students' projects to look different. They might have some similarities just because those similarities might all solve the problem. However, this isn't a step-by-step craft. It is a STEM activity. So their inventions should all look different. So here's what I mean about teaching a strategy. When I was doing a lesson with cardboard, students wanted some of their designs to stand up on their own. I noticed that they wanted to do this. So during my mini-lesson, I taught students how to create an L brace using cardboard. Some students wanted to use the strategy, some didn't. But it was just another way to enhance their designs and make them better without me showing them. Oh, you all have to do this, you all have to use this strategy. Another way that I like to do this is posting up on my screen. With classroom screen, I will add images of students' work from the past that I have taken pictures of, and also real-life examples, if it's applicable. These are just as guides as inspiration. The students probably have even seen them before when we were in the Imagine stage. But this is just a great jumping-off point, especially for students who are having a hard time visualizing what their projects should look like. So break out your camera while students are working, take pictures of their work, and save it to a Google Drive folder. This is a great way to store all of those examples and help you reflect as a teacher on how you can improve the projects or even notice which strategies you can teach the students in the future. 


11:25

The second teaching strategy to help manage the projects in your STEM classroom is managing the things that stick, and I'm literally talking about the things that stick: glue sticks, tape, and hot glue guns. It's kind of funny that I'm talking about this, but this is a hot topic in the STEM space and let me tell you. First are glue sticks. I like to buy the Amazon Basic brand, which is so similar to the ‘s glue brand, but a little cheaper. I will link these in the show notes for you. In Episode Five, I talked about the organization of materials in your STEM classroom. So go back and listen if you're unsure how to get things going in your space. With glue sticks, I like to have these in a simple plastic bucket on the tables and have a collection of scissors for students to use. I have a separate bucket for pencils and large erasers. At one point, I had caddies with all the compartments I would set out on the tables. However, I felt that having all those supplies available all the time was quite a distraction for kids, especially when it came to pulling out the scissors and cutting things that aren't supposed to be cut, like hair and pencils. So I like keeping the pencils out all the time. Then I pull out those buckets of glue sticks and scissors when needed. 


12:54

I actually don't use the white Squeezy glue in my classroom because with that many kids coming into my room, I feel like that would get messy really quickly. I know that the tops of the glue bottles get clogged, but there is a way to unclog them. That's just something I don't want to be doing with my time. So glue sticks aren't for me. I also have a little collection of glue stick caps that I keep available for kids if they happen to lose their caps. So that's really helpful as well, so we can keep those glue sticks as long as possible. When it comes to tape in my classroom, I am a masking tape-only girl. I do have clear scotch tape on the side when it comes to specific student requests. They might want the tape to not show in their design. But overall, we are here for the masking tape. There is a bundle of tape that I like to purchase on Amazon quite regularly. So I will also link that as well. Now, one of my favorite things to do when it comes to tape management is to create baby tape rolls. This is something that I started during COVID but has carried on because it's been quite a success in my classroom. What I do and also what I have also taught my students to do is to measure about 24 inches of tape on a yardstick, rip that off, tape it onto a popsicle stick and hold the side and roll it up to create a baby tape roll. This is great because this is all the tape that students can use for their projects. So it really helps them be mindful of how they use the tape. Then, in between those days, their tape is in their supplies throughout the week. So then they can have it readily available for them. 


14:40

As a review, here are the three main teaching strategies to help students with their projects during this create stage in the Engineering Design Process. First is create with controlled chaos. Next, manage those things that stick, and third, have strategies when it comes to the cleanup and storage. There are two stages left in this mini-series about the end scenario design process, and I really hope that you have been enjoying it. If you have any successes from these episodes, definitely tag me on Instagram or send me an email because I would love to see how I am helping you and your students in your classroom. Before you go, make sure to grab your free Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide that can help you thoughtfully plan all those amazing ideas you have floating around in your head and implement them in your class. You can grab them in the show notes for today or use them using this direct link: Naomimeredith.com/podcastedp


14:40

Last is the hot glue guns, and this is a specialty item that I have on my Makerspace menu. I don't use hot glue guns all the time for all projects. This is something that we work up to the second semester of the year for second through fifth grades. During that mini-lesson, I will teach kids about the expectations and rules when using hot glue guns. Your school might also want you to have a permission slip when using this type of tool. So ask your admin if that's something that you need to implement. We'll go over hot glue guns, how to use this inner space, and where they're located in our classroom. I do have a list of those safety rules up in my TPT shop and a simple, organized poster, which, again, I'll link for you in the show notes. The hot glue that I like to use is low temperature, and they are made for kids. So there are fewer safety concerns when they're used this tool, but it's also great for them to learn to use that as well because it does have some stronger capabilities. Then my sad little glue sticks. 


15:44

Finally, at the end of class, during this create stage, students have to clean up and store their projects. Again, this is why a classroom timer is super effective because this helps students manage their time and even work a little bit quicker since they know they're going to have to clean up at the end of class. I am really big on transitions, boundaries, and setting up systems and routines in my classroom. So make sure to go back and listen to episode nine because I talk to you about those tips and tricks that I like to use, especially when you teach six classes a day. When it comes to cleanup time, some classes are going to need more structure and routines than other classes. This also will depend on how long you have known the kids and the dynamic of the classroom. Over the years, most of my classes have been able to clean up independently. When the timer goes off, they clean up their supplies, and then they sit at their clean table. Here and there, I have to go over those expectations and break down the cleanup step-by-step. This also comes into play when you think about who their classroom teacher is and what types of systems or routines they have in their homeroom. That will be reflective within your STEM space. So keep that in mind that you might have to change it up for certain classes to help them be successful during this cleanup time. 


17:07

For classes that need more structure, I will actually have them pause, leave their materials on the table and then come join me in a group meeting area. I'll talk about what it looks like to clean up, physically model where those supplies go, and then send them back out to their seats. For classes that need even more structure than this, I will still have that tiny little mini-lesson. So about one minute long, they go back to their seats, and then we will clean up step-by-step-by-step. I just did this with first grade with their fishing pole lesson where the timer went off and it was time to clean up. I showed them how we're going to clean up and then we did each step together as a class. So I said okay, everybody put their fishing pole and their fish in their grocery bag and hold it in the air. So they did that and they had their bag in the air. I'm all great, good job. Okay, put your bag down and throw any trash in the trash can. So they did that. Then after that I'm like okay, check your glue sticks and scissors and then sit at your table. So some classes will need more guidance. Over time, hopefully they can be more independent during that cleanup time. Also, setting a timer during cleanup can be very helpful for classes that move slowly. Some kids do get sad when it's cleanup time. However, that's how it is. You don't have them all day typically, and so it's just part of the process when it comes to this create stage. 


18:35

Like I mentioned with that fishing pole, I have students put all their extra supplies in a grocery bag, along with their plan from the day before. I don't have them write on the bags. I don't pull out sharpies because their plans have their names on them, and they know which bag is theirs. When they grab it the next day, all of their plans will go into a big fabric box from IKEA. I click on the name of their classroom teacher, and then all of their projects that they're continuing to build go on their grade level shelf. The projects are fairly small, so everything fits pretty well throughout the week. When students are done cleaning up all their supplies and materials, they have to go back and sit at their clean table so I can double-check that everybody did their part and cleaned before they line up in the hallway and wait for their classroom teacher while they're sitting at their tables. This is a great time to review the objectives for the day and the next steps for this project.

19:45

As a review, here are the three main teaching strategies to help students with their projects during this create stage in the Engineering Design Process. First is create with controlled chaos. Next, manage those things that stick, and third, have strategies when it comes to the cleanup and storage. There are two stages left in this mini-series about the end scenario design process, and I really hope that you have been enjoying it. If you have any successes from these episodes, definitely tag me on Instagram or send me an email because I would love to see how I am helping you and your students in your classroom. Before you go, make sure to grab your free Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide that can help you thoughtfully plan all those amazing ideas you have floating around in your head and implement them in your class. You can grab them in the show notes for today or use them using this direct link: Naomimeredith.com/podcastedp

 

teaching-strategies-to-help-student-projects

teaching-strategies-to-help-student-projects

teaching-strategies-to-help-student-projects

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

teaching-strategies-to-help-student-projects

Creative Ways for Students to Plan Designs [EDP Series: Plan, Ep. 18]

Creative Ways for Students to Plan Designs[EDP Series: Plan, Ep.18]

students-to-plan-designs

Check out the full episode on Creative Ways for Students to Plan Designs:  

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Episode Summary

The planning stage in the Engineering Design Process is an important step.
 
How do we get our students to enjoy the planning stage as much as the create stage?
 
In today’s episode, I will be sharing creative ways to enhance the planning stage so that students enjoy planning designs instead of rushing through this stage.

In this episode, you’ll learn ways to boost the planning stage in the Engineering Design Process:

  • Discuss the importance of planning
  • Share the materials before planning
  • Provide a space for students to explain their designs
  • Think about trying creative ways to plan

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

00:00

The planning stage in the Engineering Design Process is an important step. Kids always want to jump into the Create stage, but the planning stage is just as important. In this episode, I will be sharing with you creative ways to use in the planning stage of this process and even help kids love this stage to. 


00:55

For this episode in the Engineering Design Process series, I have a free poster and planning guide that you can use to integrate into your lessons. You can grab it in the show notes or use this direct link Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP. When I first started teaching STEM, I did have the kids plan their designs. When we got the plans, the kids would scribble their designs. They would legit scribble their designs. Within five minutes, they were all done and ready to create. I knew with my experience as a classroom teacher before being a STEM teacher that this probably wasn't a plan that was going to be helpful. I had to improve my teaching to teach the students how to thoughtfully plan and really make their plan an important stage in the process. In fact, the kids now love the planning stage just as much as the create stage. I'm going to be sharing with you creative ways to enhance this stage in the process so they aren't just scribbling their designs just because they need to plan but drawing something useful for them. 


02:13

The first way to do this is to discuss the importance of planning. Our kids want to know why we are doing this. I tell my students in the planning stage that if we don't plan, we plan to fail. Now failing is good in STEM; however, what I'm saying is if we just jump into the create stage all the time, we're not understanding the reason why we are doing things. It's just try as we go, which is also fine. The create stage is helping students to visualize and bring those ideas out of their heads and onto paper or the way that you want them to plan. I like to relate the Engineering Design Process to the writing process when I'm teaching students. There are stages to go in order for both processes, but you can always go back to a stage. Just because we did the planning stage and we move on to create doesn't mean that you can't go back and plan. This has developed over the years with my students, and I have had students create a plan, and design something, but it doesn't work, and then they really do go back to the drawing board. 


03:28

So teaching thoughtful plans is so beneficial. Classroom teachers will like this, too, because you're helping them with their teaching when it comes to the writing process and why planning is an important stage within this flow. I found a really great book recently that you can read to your students to help them understand the importance of plans. It is written by HDTVs Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew Scott. It is such an adorable picture book. It's called Builder Brother Big Plans. It talks about them as little boys and how they had an idea and wanted to build something. So they dreamed up ideas in their heads and started making lots of different plans for their design. They finally picked a plan that they wanted to build. They got the materials and started building…well, I'm not going to tell you the rest. I don't want to ruin the ending. Definitely check it out. It is so cute and a great way to introduce planning within your classroom. This could be a short mini-lesson. It doesn't have to take the whole time, but I highly recommend this book. 


04:41

Also, with the planning process, think about having criteria for what their plans should align to. This has definitely been a game changer in my classroom. I'm not having kids scribble little things anymore. There is something for them to refer to improve their work. I have a four-point rubric that I post on my TV. You could print this out for students if you would like. I just have it posted. We talk about this for every single project we need to plan for. There are four different categories. The first category is a one-star plan. A one-star plan is just drawing your design. This is something that I expect out of my Kindergarteners and first graders. A two-star plan is drawing and labeling your design with one view. This is what I would expect from my first and second graders. Then we move on to a three-star plan, which is drawing and labeling more than one view. So if I was the inventor of a TV remote, I would draw the front of the TV remote and label all the parts, and then I would draw the back or maybe the inside and label all the parts as well. This is what I expect in second grade and up. A four-star plan to take it to the next level is doing everything in the previous three, including drawing and labeling more than one view and explaining what each part does. This has really helped my students understand how their plans can be more thoughtful. It helps them think about the components that will make up their design and the materials that they might use. This is also extremely helpful if you are implementing the maker menu, which we talked about in episode six, where they are thoughtfully planning their designs. Then they can create a shopping list to coincide with this plan. 


06:37

So if that is a process that you're implementing the maker menu, this is the time where you would talk about the menu as well. If you want younger students to focus on coloring, I also recommend using a coloring rubric. I don't make my older students color because they are trying to be thoughtful when drawing, labeling, and explaining. Coloring could be a great option for your younger students to help them think about the different parts that their plan or design would have. So on your coloring rubric, you could have three different categories. Then it could be stars or smiley faces, frowny faces, a medium face, I don't know how to call that but a straight line face, you know what I'm talking about, right? So you could have three points in your rubric. The first one could be coloring in the lines, colors that make sense, and no whitespace. You can help your younger students be thoughtful when they're coloring their plans. 


08:50

I also like to teach students that planning is a lot like creating a patent for an invention. Over the summer, I went to Chicago with my teacher honey, and there was this cool booth. They had all of these cool plaques that were burned in with different images, and one of them caught my eye. It was a patent of the LEGO brick. It was so cool because it showed all of the different layers of LEGO brick. It had all of these different labels, and it was just so thoughtfully planned. I now have this hanging up in my classroom. When I'm talking about plans, I take the plaque off the wall. I explain to my students that LEGO didn't actually have a patent before they were selling their bricks, and people were copying their designs. So a patent is important for inventors because they need to be extremely thoughtful about their plans and include every single detail. They even have a document that explains every single part that is labeled in their pictures so no one can steal their ideas. The kids are super enamored by this story. It's true, it's history. You can fact-check me, maybe I'm off by some details. But overall, it's pretty much true. So it's important for students to see those connections. When they hear the words patent pending, they know what it means now. So that's why discussing the importance of planning is important for students. So then they really understand that this is an important stage, and it's not all just about creating when we're using the Engineering Design Process. 


09:16

During the planning stage, I also like to have students be aware of what materials they will be working with. This influences your plan since you know what you're working with, and then you can design your drawings from there. You can have a set list of materials or a Makerspace menu. It's up to you and depends on the project, the time of year, and the amount of time that you have. I have a lesson that is a one-day project, sometimes two, but it's a spider poly, and I have very specific materials that I want students to use. They can use a string that is looped on a pencil that will hold the spider ring. So those little spooky spider rings, they have those materials, and then LEGO bricks and a spider web. I make students aware that those are the materials that they will be using, which influence their design. For younger students, if they're planning on paper or Seesaw, I like to have pictures of the materials if it's a set list, and students can draw lines to the materials list to their drawing. That's just another way that they can label. That way, they're not overwhelmed by writing the words. I'm not here in a writing class, although writing is important. But that's a creative way that you can have students plan if you have the pictures and the words of the materials already on their paper. 


10:49

Third, provide a space for students to explain their plans. Planning through drawing and labeling, in my opinion, is just part of the plan. Give students an opportunity to explain how they're hoping their design or invention will work. I would do this by having a question that students can answer through writing, an audio recording, or a video recording, like in Seesaw or Flipgrid. That way, you can see how their plan is getting to the lesson objective, which is ultimately tied to the standard. Kids love talking about their designs. You probably have kids coming up to you when they're done planning and telling you all about what they drew. So harness all that talking and put it into a platform for them, Seesaw, Flipgrid, or any other platform that you can think of where they can do this. This is great for them to go back and reflect. They can go back and listen to those recordings right before they start creating, so they don't forget all of these amazing ideas. 


11:55

Finally, provide creative ways to plan for students. Here are different ways I like to do this. Of course, drawing and labeling are super important. I have the kids' plan on paper, whether it's a specific graphic organizer I want them to use or scratch or graph paper, which are great options too. I love having the kids take pictures of their plans and posting them in Seesaw. So then I'm not keeping track of all their papers class after class. This really helps with the organization of materials. If I am using Seesaw as a planning tool for Kindergarten and first grade, I will have them draw directly in the app. This depends on the project and the day. I will also use paper for them, but I noticed that for Kindergarten and first grade drawing in Seesaw works out great for them because they're not as detailed with their drawings yet. Also, having an abundance of colors and different tools really helps the kids who are not as engaged during this part of the process, allowing them to produce something on their screen. 


13:05

Another way you can have students plan is to verbalize their plan. You can have students think, pair share, and talk to each other about what they are hoping to do. Back in episode 15, I provided this as an option for my fifth-grade students. They ended up drawing their plans anyway. So that was a great success story because they actually did want to be a part of the planning process. Verbalizing your plan is a great way to have students still be involved in the Engineering Design Process. This is a great option if you're short on time. 


13:41

Another way that I've had students plan is to have them gather their materials. Maybe they do have a paper plan. Maybe they don't, or maybe they just verbalized it. Either way, I have them gather their materials, and then I don't give them the tape or glue or scissors yet. They tinker around with what they have first and think about different combinations of how the materials can be put together. Then after a few minutes, I will give them the tape, glue, and scissors so they can manipulate those materials. That's a fun, hands-on way that students can plan. 


14:15

Another type of planning is something that I actually did the other day, and it was an on the fly moment. I hadn't planned this, it was just something that I needed to do to get this student engaged since they kept running out of the classroom. They did not want to draw. They wanted nothing to do with drawing or holding a pencil. We were doing the build a shelter challenge for fifth grade for STEM survival camp. If you want to hear more about STEM survival camp, go back and listen to episode four. He did not want to do anything, so instead of drawing and labeling, I asked the student if they wanted to plan their design using playdough, and they were thrilled to do this. I grabbed different colors of playdough, and they ended up designing their plan with the playdough. Then we took a picture of the plan and put the playdough plan in a bag if they wanted to look at it the next day while they were building their shelter design. They ended up building an entirely different design, which was totally fine. That's normal when it comes to planning. You may start one way, and then it goes an entirely different way, which is great. It was a cool way for the child to be successful in my classroom. The good news was they didn't run away, which I was so excited about. 


15:38

As a recap, let's talk about the ways to boost the planning process when it comes to the Engineering Design Process within your STEM space. First, discuss the importance of planning. Next, share the materials before planning. Third, provide a space for kids to explain their designs. Fourth, think about trying creative ways to plan. I'll be continuing to dive into the Engineering Design Process with this mini-podcast series. Don't forget to download your FREE Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide to help you along the way. You can grab that at Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP, and it will also be linked in the show notes for today. 

students-to-plan-designs

students-to-plan-designs

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

good-research-websites-for-elementary-students

Good Research Websites for Elementary Students [EDP Series: Imagine, Ep. 17]

Good Research Websites for Elementary Students [EDP Series: Imagine, Ep. 17]

good-research-websites-for-elementary-students

Check out the full episode on Good Research Websites for Elementary Students:  

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Episode Summary

What resources should you be using to teach the science part in STEM?

How do you fit it all in?

In today’s episode, I will be sharing good research websites and resources to help teach elementary students the science in STEM. 

 

In this episode, you’ll learn six good research websites to help teach elementary students science in STEM:

  • Epic Books
  • Kiddle
  • Science podcasts, including Brains On and Tumble Science
  • SciShow Kids Youtube Channel
  • National Geographic Kids website
  • San Diego Zoo kids live zoo cameras

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

00:00

I often get asked the question, what resources should I be using to teach the science part in STEM? How do I even fit it all in? In today's episode, I will be sharing with you my top favorite research websites and resources to help build background and teach the science in STEM. 


00:51

For this episode, I have a free engineering design poster and planning guide that can help you get started when you are integrating the Engineering Design Process in your classroom. You can grab it using this link Naomimeredith.com/podcastEDP. This will also be linked in the show notes, so you don't have to memorize it. The resources that I will be sharing with you today are my absolute favorite from back when I was a classroom teacher. They are also things that I love using in my STEM space. Now, I am not sponsored by any of these programs yet, but I just wanted to share with you what has worked really well with my students and things that I think that you will really enjoy. Now with the limited time I have with kids, I don't have the luxury of having the kids research all the resources on their own. So within these different platforms that I'm going to be sharing with you, I actually pre-research using these tools and then share the links with students so that they can get right to the information that they need. Researching is an important skill, and I know it is a standard. Like I said, with the short amount of time that I have, I really have to get to the heart of what I want kids to know and the background knowledge and science concepts that will help with their projects. 


02:18

So let's dive into these resources. I think that you're going to be obsessed with them as much as I am. Now don't feel like you have to memorize all of these links. Again, these will be in the show notes for you, so you can have that right at your fingertips. The first Research website that I absolutely love using in my STEM classroom is Epic Books. Now, if you haven't heard of Epic Books before, you need to jump on this bandwagon, it is worth your time 100%. What is so amazing about this platform is that it is free for teachers to use in the classroom. It provides a library of ebooks, audiobooks, read-to-me books, and videos that aren't connected to YouTube. I highly recommend this resource. It even works on any type of device, which is so helpful, especially since there are so many different devices that are in our schools. 


03:17

Now, as a STEM teacher, I do teach over 500 kids over the course of the month, and that would be a lot of different Epic Books accounts for me to track. So instead of grabbing the classroom teachers' code or creating separate classes for all of them, I actually have one designated epic books account that I use for all of my STEM classes. The way that I set up my Epic Books account is for the student names I just put in a number. So when students log in using my code, they just choose the classroom number that they are associated with. This is extremely helpful because I have specific collections that I create when it relates to the project. That way, I just have to send the collection to one class, and it can be used over the course of the month. This is just a great little hack. So if you feel like when you came from the classroom, you couldn't use epic books anymore, you definitely can. 


04:17

So here's an example lesson that I have taught using Epic Books as a tool for researching for a project. For this example, it is a second-grade 3D printing lesson, and their goal was to create a birdhouse to help the birds in their area. During that imagined stage, I wanted students to see different examples of ways they could enhance their birdhouses and upgrade their designs from the typical house design that we have in our heads. The collection that I made in Epic Books included buildings, architecture, and bird nests for inspiration and being able to see how birds create their homes which influenced their designs as well. There are a few books within Epic Books that are all about building a birdhouse. Having this variety of books is really helpful for students because they can browse through the pictures, read the words and look at the captions to help them imagine different possibilities for their designs. On their little sheet, I had them draw the things that they really liked and things that they might want to include in their plan. Again, this isn't their formal plan, but just gathering as many ideas as possible. Whether or not they tried those ideas, at least they had something going into their plan based on the collection of books that they viewed. 


05:40

The second research tool that I love to use in my STEM classroom is the website called Kiddle. It's spelled K-I-D-D-L-E. Again, this is another free platform that you can use in your classroom, and it is an online encyclopedia. Now, be mindful of the grade level that you use this with. It's best fitted for third, fourth, fifth, and up. So, I wouldn't recommend using this for the primary grades. This is another great research tool where students can gather information about things more in detail. When I was doing a project for third grade, they were creating an invention to help prevent the effects of flooding. What I did when using this tool was I looked up different points in history where floods made a ginormous impact in the area and created QR codes about those different places that students could explore even further. Also, you don't have to create QR codes. That's just how I shared the links to the places. You could definitely link within Google Classroom or Seesaw as well. This is an awesome tool. The articles are really short, and they usually have a few pictures to help students visualize what they're learning about. 


06:58

The third research tool that I love to use in my STEM classroom that I am obsessed with is the YouTube channel SciShow Kids. The girl on the show, I forget her name, I would love to meet her. I am putting this on my vision board: she is someone that I would love to eventually interview on this podcast. So let's hope that this can happen. I love using this resource tool in my STEM classroom as opposed to BrainPOP because I know the classroom teachers are using BrainPOP all the time since we have a school subscription. I am also teaching the same standards as them with a STEM twist. I don't want to overlap the videos that are being used. BrainPOP is an amazing resource that is a paid subscription and highly recommended. If you don't have a subscription, or if you don't want to overlap and take over the videos that they're also using, I recommend SciShow Kids. 


08:03

What's great about these videos is that there's a host that talks, and then there's her little sidekick squeaks, a little mouse. They talk about different science concepts within a few minutes. They also have videos of different science experiments that you could try, which would be great for one-day lessons if that's something that you're looking for. When I use this, I use it with K through five since the younger kids enjoy them a bit more. There are some topics that are relevant for the third, fourth, and fifth, and they like them too. How I used it for first grade is we were talking about the sun, moon, stars, and all the things that appear in our night sky. We were doing station rotations for each of those things, and there was a related video on SciShow Kids that could teach the kids a little more science about what they were going to do in their stations. For example, one of the stations was to build constellations using geoboards. The video we watched before going into our stations was from SciShow Kids explaining what constellations are and some of the ones that you might see in the night sky. So, not overloading kids with all of the science at once, but really breaking it down with short video clips before they spend most of their time working. 


09:24

Another resource to integrate into your lessons is podcasts, specifically science podcasts. Now you are here, you're listening, or maybe you're watching the video version of the podcast. But podcasts are another great tool that is really underutilized within classrooms. Now the two podcasts that I really love that relate to science are Brains On and Tumble Science. Fun fact: back on my previous podcast that I hosted with another teacher, we interviewed one of the hosts from Tumble Science. That was so much fun because that was a podcast that I used in my third-grade classroom all the time, and the kids started to love listening to podcasts. Here I was years later talking to the host, so that was definitely a full circle moment, that was so a core memory. That's for sure. I recommend using these podcasts, and if you're wondering how to listen to them with kids, both have their own websites where within each episode, there's a player that is embedded on the website page so students can listen to the podcast. You don't necessarily have to download a podcasting app for kids to listen to. Often those are blocked by your school filter anyway. But you can link the page that relates to the episode and use that as a tool. Now, both podcast shows, Tumble Science and Brains On, have episodes that are quite lengthy. So you might have a specific part that you want students to listen to either as a whole class or independently. 


11:11

Another way that you can use this if you do want to use the full episode is that this is a really great visualization task. When I am recording videos in the classroom with students, I need the other kids who are not recording to do a quiet task, so we can hear the ones who are on camera more clearly. I'll assign a couple of related podcast episodes to the topic that we're working on, and then students are drawing what the picture is that they're visualizing in their minds. Now, this seems simple enough, but trust me, kids really have a hard time making pictures in their heads. I've had a lot of students tell me, that they don't see anything in their head when it's being spoken to them. So definitely a skill for kids to work on. Now, we teach that podcasts are about listening and paying attention to the details. There's nothing to watch, usually, which is hard for kids because they're so used to watching lots of videos. For most students, podcasts are a new concept. So this is a great way to get kids into listening to podcasts and work on their visualization skills. 


12:22

The fifth resource that I love to use within my STEM classroom is National Geographic Kids. As a teacher, I do have a subscription to the adult version of National Geographic, which is a great tool that I use to help when I am researching for my lesson, but the kid website doesn't require a subscription. The website pages are visually appealing, and they have so many great nonfiction text features like maps, photographs, and captions, all the things that we teach kids about to recognize in print are available on this site. My two favorite categories to use on this website are the animal category and countries. The animal category is linked by its classifications. When you dive in deeper, there are different things about countries and places in the world. This is a great way to really focus on specific animals that kids are researching about or specific places, and they have enough information where they can comprehend what's being said, but it's not overwhelming. One way that I use this resource is for a third-grade 3D printing lesson. During this lesson, students were creating the life cycle of the living thing of their choice. We used Epic Books and the National Geographic Kids as resources that I offered to students to help them learn more about their animal and its lifecycle. I also wanted students to recognize different things that would impact their lifecycle for good or for bad. This would help them draw those inferences on what could affect the lifecycle of their living thing. I recommend the National Geographic Kids as a tool within your space. 


14:12

The sixth resource that I love to use in my classroom is the San Diego Zoo kids' live animal cameras. Now I do have my own live animal camera that I let my students explore. I have a Furbo dog camera at home in my laundry room, and it zooms in on my little dog Frederick, and we can check on him throughout the day when he's not at doggy daycare. The kids actually ask me all the time if we can check on Frederick. I started using this as a behavior incentive in my classroom, and the kids get so excited that they always want me to throw him treats. Now he is the sad little boy when I'm not home, and I tell them nobody wants treats thrown at them when they're sleeping, and they agree, which took some convincing to not throw treats at him. So a similar concept, if you don't have a Furbo, is the live animal cameras at the San Diego Zoo. They don't have cameras at all of the exhibits, but they have them at the most favorite animal exhibits, and almost all of them are live. It's so much fun to go back in and check on them. One time when we were checking in with my first-grade class, there was the condor which is like a vulture, and we noticed that there was an egg within the nest. Each day we kept checking in on the egg, and it was still an egg. A month later, we checked in one more time, and the egg had hatched, and there was a baby condor. So that was super cool that we could see the journey within a month's time of the baby being in the egg and then popping out and just being this ugly little bird that was walking around. That was super exciting. As I said, I did use this with first grade. For our 3D printing unit, students were noticing the similarities and differences between animal babies and their adults. This was one of the resources that we used to help observe animals in their zoo habitats. 


14:12

As a recap, here are the six different resources that you can use in your STEM space to really enhance the imagined stage and research stage of the Engineering Design Process and all sorts of various projects. First, Epic Books. Second Kiddle. Third, science podcasts for kids including Brains On and Tumble Science. Fourth, SciShow Kids YouTube channel. Fifth, the National Geographic Kids website, and sixth, the San Diego Zoo kids live zoo cameras. I'll be continuing to dive into the Engineering Design Process in this mini-series, so make sure you tune in to the next few episodes where you can get ideas to really enhance that process. Also, don't forget to grab your free Engineering Design Process poster and planning guide to help you gather all of these resources and ideas and plan thoughtful lessons. You can grab that in the show notes or using this direct link: Naomimeredith.com/podcastED.

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good-research-websites-for-elementary-students

good-research-websites-for-elementary-students

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!