Describe something that you’ve learned as a result of your Kenan Fellowship that will change how you teach next year.

My teaching will be greatly impacted this year by what I’ve learned as a result of my Kenan Fellowship. I teach at a STEM school, but I never really thought that the principles of STEM were important to me as an English teacher.
Through my work with Dr. Fortne at NC State and Mark Meno at FRC-East I have definitely developed a deeper understanding of the Engineering Design principle, and I am so excited to incorporate this into my English class this year!

I intend to use the Engineering Design process to help my students plan for their papers, products, and speeches; the latter being my focus for my Kenan Fellowship. We have already used the first two phases of the process to write poetry at the beginning of this year. It is amazing to me how applicable this process is to my curriculum, and I intend to use it as often as I can with my students.

Our school is placing an emphasis this year in incorporating the design process in the classroom, and I feel like I already have a head start!
We are using the process broken up to help students with their planning. Here is a picture of the process I use in my classroom as I teach the students about each phase:

I think what I have learned from this process will not only affect my lessons, but also affect the manner in which I plan for lessons, as I myself have used the Engineering Design process to plan my Kenan lesson. Doing this has made everything I do more deliberate in the classroom, and that, I think will make the biggest impact on my teaching overall.

As you prepare for the 2012-2013 school year, describe how you envision your summer experience impacting your students.

I am actually finishing up the beginning year preparations (we just finished our work days this last week and I get kids on Monday), and I can already see my summer experience making a huge impact on my students!

Of course, there is my externship and everything I have learned about the engineering design process. This is going to have a major impact on the way I run my class, and on the way my students proceed with projects, papers, presentations, and really any large assignment. I am working hard this year to incorporate the design process in as many areas of my English curriculum as I can manage.

Not only will my students be impacted by my externship, though. I think the professional development we were able to be a part of will make a huge difference in my classroom! I am already making many changes based on things I learned from presenters! I am collecting more data on my students to better assist them in what their individual needs are, and to better understand where students are coming from. I am opening new avenues of communication (I never thought I would have a twitter!) with students and parents. I think I have taken away the value of open communication with everyone from the PD I participated in!

Not only will these things impact my students, they should impact all students at our school, because I am a huge proponent of sharing. I have shared so many things that I have learned with my colleagues, and in doing so I feel as though my summer experience will impact students even beyond my reach.

How exciting!

As you reflect on your externship experience to date, what has been your biggest “AHA” moment? Include a 3-5 minute video of you at your externship site if allowed.

Looking back on my externship, my biggest “aha” moment was the realization of how often I use pieces of the engineering design process in my classroom. I spent the majority of my externship learning about the FRC, their engineers, and just what they all do; however, right at the end of my on-base visits, I got the opportunity to sit one-on-one with some engineers just to discuss my project and the design process.

I really value this process now, and I am working to incorporate it in all that I do in my classroom. I think I truly saw the value when I used the process to create my Kenan Lesson Plan. I finally saw how beneficial this was going to be for my students in my English classroom, and I got really excited about the engineering design process!!

As I get ready to start back to school (Monday with kids!), I am planning to start the year talking about this process and how we will incorporate it in the majority of our assignments. I think having this revelation about the process is super beneficial to me, my kids, and also my school! Being a STEM school, this is a huge push this year, and after my externship I feel like I have a jump start!