There were so many bridges to cross at all three PAs. I did not realize how privileged I was to be in the presence of some RENOWNED educators. I have met for the first time teachers across the state that has the brightest visions about our journey. If I had to single out one of the professional advancements and consider it as the most valuable. It would be the October PA, the direction and instruction offered to further our curriculum, learn a tremendous part to the politics of education, and begin to research/find a conference for a future presentation. Every  minute of our schedule was filled with valuable information. The Myers-Briggs was a HANDS DOWN eye opener FAVORITE. First time in my ten years of teaching have I had the privilege of studying and embracing my personality as apart of my profession.

All three professional advancements were at cites that allowed me to relax and enjoy some beautiful surroundings. Fellows were treated like professionals that deserved days of structure, valuable presentations, insightful speakers, useful material, and strategies to implement in the classroom. For example, I have never heard of EdCamp until the June PA, now my school has unconferences every month and I am interested in presenting Myers Briggs personality study at one of them. We are focusing on strengthening our PLTs. Presenting Briggs will help co-workers understand strengths and weakness that can make a PLT stronger and functional. I am honored to call myself a Kenon fellow. My number one goal of becoming a Kenan Fellow was to seek PD and extend on learning in the profession. There was so much learning, I am still in the process of digesting it.

This school year marks my tenth year in the profession. I have enjoyed each and EVERY year of meeting new students/parents, creating lasting relationships with students, and sparking their dim love for math. I have learned over the past couple of years, students do not hate me, they hate the subject “Math”. For as long as I can remember students are only “good” at math if they can remember the magic tricks that were presented in lessons and could reproduce the “tricks”. This year, students have spent more time learning to critical think, strategize, and approach an application with an open mind to figure things out. Students learn at different paces and I have SURE seen the student/teacher ratio also have an impact of the students’ comfort level to open up to learning.

This school year I have implemented a strategy of slow down and breathe. Instead of running with the pacing guide and pushing the gas, I am going to LOOP like I have never looped before, revisit, reteach, tutor, make connections with my students, and make sure mastery is attained. Pretty hard to do when there are markers and content that needs to be covered. IF I teach students to relax and approach every problem with authenticity, we will figure things out.

My professional goals this school year will focus on student proficiency, technology implementation, leading through PBIS, and offering tutoring assistance. A school is only as strong as the leaders and teachers. Focusing on my students and their feelings will ensure relationships are created for academic success. Thus far, I am having one of the BEST years in the profession. I will in the upcoming week share my reflection and joyous thoughts with my students and encourage them to keep up the GREAT work! 7^th Grade by far is one of the best grades to settle down with.

After being in school for two weeks. I have learned my students are dynamic individuals and will benefit greatly from the future lessons and demonstrations. I plan on working with my morning group of 31 students who are very eager to do absolutely everything. I have given them time to settle in and get use to 7^th grade. Next week we will be using some time in the mornings to take the pre-survey and learn about my journey over the summer.

I plan on using the Onehealth initiative to teach my students how STEAM and our health are interconnected. My students have two teachers (another teacher on my team) who are sharing their NC State experience from this summer with them. We are going to expose our students to wearable devices and improving our health.

I am most excited about my mentor visiting my students and watching them create their LittleBits circuits. Once, my students finish our fall learning experience, I will try to visit a couple of the lessons created by my peers to have students venture into other domains and lessons.

I was so happy to learn so much over the summer to take back to my students. This year IF we have leadership classes as an elective, I will present the One Health challenge to my students through a year-long class. My vision is to use the lessons and demonstrations created by my Kenan Fellows. The nanotechnology lessons are challenge-based learning techniques embedded in lessons and demonstrations.

Over the summer, I also created three lessons to add the the One Health Assist collection, one using the TI sensor tag, one using LittleBits circuits, and the last one is a solar power presentation. All three lessons will be presented to my 7th grade students this fall. Once the presentations are complete, I will be able to reflect on the entire process of designing and implementing nanotechnology lessons. The students will blog on their experience with the presentations to assist with improvements needed for future presentations. Please come back to check out pictures of the students’ learning in November.

My internship experience was spent with some phenomenal teachers and two great mentors. Jess and Elena made sure our summer was full of learning, idealizing, and hands-on learning. When I started the intern, I did not know it was going to expose me to the different parts of engineering, text tiles, prototypes, programming, and new health initiatives. I toured a total of 10 facilities, created three lesson plans, participated in the ASSIST symposium, and gained some COOL resources to take back to my classroom.

If I had to identify a challenge this summer, it would be working on a team prototype and being able to further incorporate some of my summer learning into my classroom. Working in teams can be very productive, as long as all team members respect each other’s attributes and remember to incorporate all team members in the production process. I also had difficulty with learning how to use the Aurdino LilyPad. I took one programming course in college and this was my first time seeing it since 2002. I do plan on extending my understanding and presenting a lesson to my classes with the LilyPad. Stay turned for a lesson presentation update.

My mentors were by far the coolest instructors to work with. At all times I felt like I was surrounded by beauty and brains. Jess Jur and Elena Veety made sure we learned, was fed, and answered any questions that loomed our day. The next step to my relationship with my intern comes from my classroom visits. My mentors are set to visit my class this fall to meet my students and extend on our experience. Jess and Elena taught me so MUCH in 5 weeks of visiting them now I have to take my learning back to my students.

One cool mission I plan to embark on this school year will be the One Health Initiative challenge with my students. My vision is to teach the lessons created this summer by all of my fellow teachers to my 7^th grade elective class. I would like for my elective theme to be Nanotechnology and OneHealth. I will have everything I need at my finger tips as all lessons can be found on the ASSIST One Health website. Please come back in the late fall to read about my journey with my students, Jess, and Elena.

As of today my Kenan Fellow peers have individually completed AT LEAST 30 hours of curriculum building. The lessons seem to range in subject areas, grades, and STEM approaches. I personally have created three lesson plans over the past three weeks. It is pretty amazing how much the human mind can gather when it is time to produce polished products to add to resources libraries. All of my lessons were a stretch for me as I am a math teacher and I wanted to make sure I did not lose my subject area while planning.

Lesson one will focus on the one health initiative and the heat exposure on the human body. Students are to plan a family picnic and decide which location will give family members a “cooler” experience. Students are in charge of using the TI Sensortag to collect different heat and sun reading in the surrounding areas of their school building. Once the data is collected, a presentation on the best picnic location is presented to the class.

Lesson two will focus on the engineering design process in math. Students will use the LittleBits circuits to test the pressure needed to activate an output module. Students will use quarters and half dollars to create the pressure needed to activate the buzzer, fan, bargraph, and vibrator modules. Students are tying in math with exploring proportions and ratios of weights of quarters and half dollars.

The third lesson was an energy harvesting presentation. Super Solar Recycle is an excellent way to have students pick up the empty water bottle or soda can. Solar Robots are using the recyclables to entertain children of all sizes.

In theory, the lessons were exciting to create BUT once my fingers hit the keyboard, time and patience sat in for long hours of planning. Some successes of the lesson writing experience comes from the lessons I have access to once my fellows are all published. The most amazing success from lesson planning was using the TI Sensortag and LittleBits circuits. The only obstacle of presenting my lessons will be getting enough of the Sensortags and LittleBits to conduct the lesson. As long as I have 8 of each which will allow my students to work in groups. The only and BIGGEST challenge I found from lesson planning was my inability to make my lessons as rigorous as I wanted and having enough time to gather my thoughts and get them into the template. In all, I am done with my drafts and now the fun time of the chop and edits can begin!

I have spent the past five weeks in ah with the amount of information, knowledge, and experience my mentor has shared with the Kenan Fellows. I had the privilege to visit over 10 organizations and labs with exposure to the world of textiles, engineering, nanotechnology, prototyping, and the beautiful Hunt Library. It is so easy to reflect on my experience with the ASSIST center but in this reflection I am going to share how my experience will benefit Dr. Jur’s vision and mission.

Dr. Jur has shared several of the ASSIST’s goals with his mentees. I have taken the ASSIST vision and mission from the website, as one can see it will be quite difficult to paraphrase the in-depth vision and mission statements.

The NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center (NERC) for Advanced Self-               Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST) develops and employs nano-enabled energy harvesting, energy storage, nanodevices and sensors to create innovative battery-free, body-powered, and wearable health monitoring systems.

VISION

We envision a paradigm shift in health informatics enabled by wearable nanotechnologies that monitor individual health parameters and environmental exposures. Long-term sensing will enable patients, doctors, and scientists to make direct correlations between health and environmental toxins leading to chronic disease prediction, management and treatment. ASSIST advances will accelerate environmental health research and clinical trials as well as inform environmental policy.

MISSION

Use nanotechnology to improve global health by enabling correlation between personal health and personal environment and by empowering patients and doctors to manage wellness and improve quality of life.

I have used the past five weeks and will continue on into the school year exploring and teaching my students about global health and improving our quality of life. This week I have completed two lesson plans that are now branded ASSIST. Dr. Jur will add these lesson plans and demonstrations to the center’s resources to aid in teaching others about sensors, prototyping, LittleBits, and energy harvesting solutions. The second way my internship will benefit the ASSIST center will come in conveying and sharing the ASSIST vision/mission with my students and their families. I will take my lessons into my classroom and share the following objectives with my students.

Once students complete lesson 1 on one health and the TI sensortag:

• Students will be able to evaluate the properties of colors and materials as measured by illuminance as well as temperature.
• Informally assess the degree of visual overlap of two numerical data distributions with similar variabilities, measuring the difference between the centers by expressing it as a multiple of a measure of variability.

Once students complete lesson 2 on LittleBits and proportions:

• Students will use a variety of tools to solve real world mathematical problems with positive rational numbers in any form.

• Students will students explore the concept of a ratio, make tables of equivalent ratios, and solve unit problems.

• Students will develop a model using LittleBits to generate data for iterative testing

My goals as a Kenan Fellow may change several times before I see my vision taking shape. I am a very motivated teacher who wants to take all of my professional development with Dr. Jur and turn it into the coolest hands on learning for my students.

I would love for my students to experience the engineering design process in the middle of my math curriculum. My goals will consist of introducing my students to the one health initiative and motivating them to explore through exposure to the TI sensortag. I would love for my students to create a device with a prototype that can improve the health of humans. I will have to provide a rubric, boundaries, and goals of the lesson.

But by the end of the school year, my vision will have students post their projects/prototypes to their digital portfolios.

Last week was an amazing week with my Kenan Fellows. I was able to learn, bond, and develop in so many ways. My professional development ranged from personal growth, professional growth, and peer bonding. Spending time and being taught by individuals with like minds made for an awesome week and experience.

One of the strategies I learned last week I plan to implement over the next school year will include technology and the parent involvement strategies. There were several technology websites, pointers, and new approaches to implementing technology into my curriculum. Parent involvement has always been a work in progress for my 7th grade team; this year I plan to use the power of three, student led conferences, and MAINTAINING an open communication with my parents to increase community involvement.

Professional development sessions can sometime be very tricky when keeping the participants involved. Last week was a week FULL of hands-on participants who seemed to enjoy the presentations. I sat through some very engaging PDs but if I had to pick one session as my least favorite it would be the “Project Based Learning as a Differentiation Strategy”. The presenter was well organized with a beautiful presentation but the information was not targeted toward offering feasible information for my students.

I did find EdCamp as the MOST beneficial experience at NCCAT! There are notes to go with each session, EVEN if I did not go to that session. EdCAMP is also teacher/participant driven. ALL of our sessions were determined through a survey of our interest. This was my first time participating in EdCamp sessions and I definitely am going to participate in others. I am interested in bringing mini EdCamp sessions to my school as a in house PD.

NCCAT set a very high outcome for future professional developments. There were several components to the NCCAT experience. There was the PD as a teacher, PD for fellows’ expectations and outcomes, and PD for team building. We NEVER had any time to stop and wonder why were we here. Every session was geared to increasing our toolbox to better prepare for the upcoming school year. After every session my mind was having a hard time down shifting from all of the information presented. The main difference between last week’s PDs and others I have attended would be the useful information, structure of presentations, choices of PDs, and the level of engagement.

After reflecting on last week’s PD opportunity I am honored to say I am a Kenan Fellow who has experienced what I call the best PD in my 10 years of teaching. The STAFF was second to none with the beautiful environment, professionalism, kind gestures, and phenomenal care.

Welcome to My Goals as a Kenan Fellow

After my feelings subsided about being selected as a 2015-2016 Kenan Fellows, my vision begin to take focus. Once I complete my Kenan Fellowship of working with wearable devices, I will have gained a better respect for collaborating with fellow teachers to design curriculum which will introduce OneHealth, explore the TI Sensortag, and improve my students approach to the engineering design process.

Being a Kenan Fellow will be a different experience for each teacher. Incorporating hands-on learning while maintaining my math curriculum allows me the opportunity to get my students closer to the STEM approach. My teaching career will improve through the lessons created to include community involvement and educate parents/students about Onehealth.

My yearly goals include professional development in several areas. This year I will use my Kenan Fellows experience to improve my students’ love for hands-on-learning. The engineering design and incorporating PBL will add more to my skills as a teacher. Educating the community/parents through presentations about Onehealth and encouraging them to join our class for learning will also show leadership in the school and community.