Challenges and Successes of Designing Educational Resources Around My Product

The product I am creating is a wearable device that contains an accelerometer  to detect the horizontal, vertical, and rise/fall speed of a patient which causes the buzzer, and rgb lights to come on to prevent a fall.  The challenges of designing a product to be used as an educational resource were meeting the deadlines for  building the prototype, getting it to work properly, testing the product in order to  make a more efficient prototype.  Our project idea did not allow us to meet specific deadlines which took away the time I could have used to brainstorm tasks for a lesson.  Most our time was spent programming the arduino lilypad to work with the accelerometer and buzzer.  Although my group had some experience with C plus programming, we needed work time to get this activity done. Soon after creating our prototype with a working accelerormeter;  I was able to see how the data was collected and immediately saw how I could incorporate this design into a Mathematics lesson.  I was able to easily create a lesson around product by using the data collected from the accelerometer. However, after designing the lesson, I realized I had have to create a handout for a teacher and students that provide detailed instructions that would allow them to experience the same successes I did.  Again the biggest challenge I had with this overall experience was TIME .  However, I am still working to ensure this product and educational resources are effective lesson design that teachers could easily use; although my internship has ended.  I have contact information of engineers in the ASSIST program at NCSU that could help if I needed further assistance!

Innovation in our Mentoring Organizations

This internship has given me networking tools I can use to impact my mentor’s organization.  Although I have been in the education system for 15 years, I still don’t know all of the answers.   Besides our society  (youth especially have changed over the years and will continue to change “their mindset”).  I did not have access to the vast amount of technology that is around today;  so the mentor organization can not look the same as it did 15 years ago; ( only if we  want an excellent and ever growing organization).   Don’t get me wrong I believe the organization must keep a basic framework, because some  practices should never be compromised; such as the professional decorum of a teacher or any career.  However, my internship experience has shown me that it is “normal” and expected  to become  innovative in sparking change in an organization to fit the needs of a society and/or community: whether it is a mentoring organization, family organization,  business organization, school organization, political organization and much more.  I learned that if  I  can see a challenge, the new norm is to  use my prior knowledge, and innovation… I must not forget Collaborative TEAMWORK; which is the heart of building any organization into an excellent one; to create a more efficient and highly effective plan!

Goals as an Educator using Internship experience

One of the goals of the internship with ASSIST at NCSU  is to apply understanding of sensing technologies and system design toward the fabrication of a One Health inspired wearable sensor system. This goal exposed me to different types of emerging issues in our society that students should be made aware of.  Understanding and developing wearables made me a aware of the challenges our society faces and challenges that needs to be researched and analyzed in order to sustain human life.  As an educator, I realize that I should increase the students’ awareness of the One Health Challenges.  In the same way develop and design mathematically lessons that would show students how to use the data collected from these devices to make further predictions, analysis.  The ability to collect and analyze the data would motivate students to design and/or build devices that could solve world challenges involving One Health.

Another goal in the ASSIST program internship is to develop educational lessons focusing on One Health, energy harvesting, sensing, system design, nanotechnology, and prototyping this goal will  allow me to not only educate student about the One Health but also to inform teachers about one health and energy harvesting in order to sustain human life.  This experience allowed me to work with other educators to plan and design a lesson plan that I can use to train other teacher in mathematics and  also team up with other teachers across the curriculum how to incorporate One Health engineering design into a class lesson for the entire school.

I

I am a teacher at Knightdale High School.  I have been teaching for 14 ½ years.  In August of 2008 I begin teaching at Wake Early College.  Wake Early College mathematics program became a piloted school for the Core Plus Integrated Mathematics course that would soon become known as the Common Core Mathematics.  I begin to attend the Integrated Mathematics workshops held at the Durham School of Math and Science for two weeks.  This was in-depth training with teachers, doctorate students,  etc.. from all over the United States.  I also begin to attend with my principal the New Schools Project initiative in order to learn how to incorporate collaborative group experiences, and other types of instructional tool to effectively facilitate learning in the classroom.  I left Wake Early College to teach at Knightdale High School.  I experienced a culture shock, when I noticed the traditional style of teaching in the majority of the classrooms.  So, I started back teaching the traditional way too.  The students were disengaged, they seem to not care and/or seem interested in what I was teaching.  As a matter of fact, the discipline problems and cell phone usage became a teacher’s nightmare.  So, I restructured the classroom, I put the students in groups of 4’s and gave them real-world investigative problem based situations to solve.  They had to use the materials given to them along with instructions to work in groups and learn through discovery.  The students suddenly became very interested in the hands- on activity rather than sitting in their seat while I do direct teaching.  However, it did take time to train the students that we are not looking for right or wrong answers, but their ability to simulate a situation a come up with a logical explaination and/or reasoning based on their observation with little teacher input.  I was excited and what to share some of my ideas with the mathematics department at my school.  They begin to complain about me not staying up with the pacing guide and covering all of the material as mandated by the county which they said could result in my students not passing the state exam.  I became an outcast.  I was looked at not being competent in my ability to teach the students.  The suggestions I made to better the program were not valued and needed immediate attention from administration.  Common Core Mathematics was finally initiated which gave me a little freedom to continue with my investigative style teaching.  I was very excited about the new math launch for the county I attended every math training and development I could possibly attend.  Hoping to become a Professional Learning Team Leader, so that way I could share the things I learned with the staff, I was not asked to serve this position even after showing interest in the position.  So I begin to attend NCSU to obtain a Master’s degree hoping be seen as a leader at my school and in the county.  Due to the time and offering of the courses at NCSU.  I had to step away from graduate school at NCSU.  I decided instead to pursue my National Boards Certification with much success.  During all of this, I have noticed that students were becoming more interested in their devices rather that working through even hands on activity.  Our school became a BYOD school and had just got approval to change our school dynamics to Collaborative school with several institutes that would interest the students.  I knew I needed to be part of a workshop, internship, and/or group that would give me new and fresh ideas I could implement at my school and in the community to change the perception of our mathematics program, to renew the interest of our students in the areas of mathematics, to spark change in our school and community.  After reading much information about the Kenans Fellows Program, I knew that this would  lead me in the right direction and give me a system of network and resources I could use to support these ideas.  The goal of my internship is to incorporate nanotechnology and sensor tag devices to collect data and show student how to generate formulas and algorithms to develop a deeper understanding of mathematics.  My internship  will and has allowed me to practice creating lesson plans that have multiple task and solutions to the  a situation that involves One Health.  These goals will also show my students how to be aware of the the challenges and topics in our society.

Ultimately the Kenans Fellow internship will help me facilitate and promote critical thinking and problems solving  skills in the area of mathematics, across the curriculum, and in the community.