Teachers and administrators at Samuel E. Talbert Middle School are tapping into new technology this year to prepare students for a new statewide student assessment system that will eventually incorporate Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.
The school, which has already started transitioning to Common Core-style teaching, recently launched a pilot program that emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math skills.
The STEM Academy offers an advanced version of the school's regular curriculum. Its 32 students get to use Chromebooks – lower-end laptop computers – in their classes. The use of these computers varies depending on the class. In science, for instance, the students use the laptop computers to plan and execute a science fair project over the course of the year. In English/Language Arts, the students use the computers to complete writing assignments.
While Talbert's STEM students have access to the Chromebooks during class, Viet Nguyen, who is part of the STEM Academy's teaching staff, said he sees the technology as a tool for teaching certain life skills, like communication and data analysis.
The academy's teachers also try to connect students with professionals in STEM-related fields by organizing field trips to places like the Ocean Institute in Orange County and the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon.
By bridging the gap between the classroom and the field, the STEM Academy's teachers hope to motivate students to think critically and develop skills they can use outside the classroom, said John Wood, one of the science teachers involved in the STEM project.
Principal Cara Robinson came up with the idea after attending a conference about technology and social media last year.
“It was like, ‘I've got the teachers and teachers who are trying to integrate tech – wouldn't it be cool to integrate science and technology using all our resources?'” she said.
After returning to campus, she started talking to district officials and schoolteachers to gauge their interest in a potential program. She was able to put together a group of six teachers, many of whom already used technology in their classes, to develop the new academy's curriculum.
The teachers didn't have much to work with because high schools and charter schools are more likely to have STEM programs than middle schools, Robinson said.
“People are starting to think this way, so there are things like this (academy) that are starting, but there's just not a large network (of information),” she said.
FINDING A SMARTER BALANCE
Though he had not heard of Talbert's STEM Academy before, Mark Warschauer, associate dean of UC Irvine's School of Education, said it parallels a growing emphasis on STEM skills at schools nationwide.
“It seems that (Talbert has) found the right formula for exploiting the power of technology to help students develop critical thinking skills,” Warschauer said.
Schools are increasingly incorporating technology with teaching, especially as several states across the country look to update their teaching standards and bring them in line with foreign competitors, Warschauer said.
The Common Core State Standards are set to go in effect next year and will focus on English, language arts and math.
Dozens of states across the nation are planning to roll out Smarter Balanced assessments to put students' real world application skills to the test.
As California prepares for the transition, students will be required to take field tests in English, language arts and math this spring, said Pam Slater, a California Department of Education spokeswoman.
The Next Generation Science Standards are part of a separate program, but address science-related teaching and assessments. These standards are expected to go into effect over the next few years.
Warschauer likened the difference between the old and the new educational standards to the difference between the multiple choice and the driving portions of a driver's license test.
“The multiple-choice test tests your knowledge about something. The driving test tests your ability to do it. … Hopefully we're going to go beyond teaching students just to prepare them for the multiple choice test,” he said.
Slater said the education department has not yet surveyed schools to see how they plan to incorporate Common Core standards into their curriculum.
“We hope they are moving forward and getting everything prepared,” she said.
Many schools within Orange County and school districts in other parts of Southern California have already started incorporating technology into their teaching, partly because students will have to take the new Smarter Balanced assessments online.
“Honestly, for any teacher, even teachers that have been around 20-30 years, (the new standards were) a reality check that you can't escape technology anymore. It's not like you can say, ‘hopefully (students will) figure that out on their own,'” Robinson said.
Daniel Crabb, a seventh-grade student at Talbert, said he decided to apply for the STEM Academy after hearing about it in one of his classes last year. He wants to be a pilot when he grows up.
“It seems like it will help you in college and you're surrounded with smarter kids, so it'll help you in high school,” he said.
His mom, Kathy Crabb, said she has noticed that Daniel has been more excited about science than he was before. He often comes home and talks about what he's learned in his science class – like this past weekend when the STEM Academy's students took a field trip to the Solar Decathlon in Irvine.
“He really likes to work on projects where you start with a goal and work on it little by little, and he wanted to be with kids that would focus on academics (at the STEM Academy),” she said.
If the STEM Academy proves to be successful, Robinson said she hopes the school can offer the program to more students. The overall goal is to build the school's technology program for all students, using the STEM Academy as a model, she added.
But for now, Wood and Nguyen said their main focus is to develop the STEM Academy and make sure it runs smoothly.
“At the end of our first year right here, we're going to spend a lot of time sitting down and looking back at what we've done and where we want to go,” Wood said. “I think the sum of the parts, if we do this right, will become much more than the individuals.”
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