Showcasing Our Amazing Teaching Moments…

Drum roll please…Amazing teacher moments happened this week.  Our fellows were completely engaged in an amazing teaching moment showdown, which was quite magical!  Lessons ranged in grade level and content area.  Modeling global wind patterns using balloons and dissecting hearts-to name a few!  Angela Barrett used coffee filters to model a lesson on comparing the area of both a circle and a parallelogram.   Following the teaching demonstrations, group members offered “on the table” feedback to express moments of captivation and curiosity about the delivered instruction.

Laddie Perina, Earl Johnson, Darren Fuller, Latasha Petty and Davina Allen are all members of Team STARS.  Each shared their amazing teaching demonstration.  Earl Johnson demonstrated a lesson exploring how to adjust a parabola using Ti-Nspire calculators.  A variety of interactive representations supported student learning as participants/students built their understanding of this important curve and its real-world applications.

Laddie Perina demonstrated an introductory lesson on 3-D drafting.  He modeled a hands-on lesson designed to prepare students for the future use of AutoCAD software.  Students built prototypes using small tiles and then sketched their models on paper.  While all of these lessons were drastically different in content, they shared a few common themes.  Team STARS determined that these critical characteristics were magically woven into all five demonstrated lessons.  The lessons taught were:

Creative

Differentiated

Student Centered

Rigorous

Offered a Real-World Connection

All fifty lessons will be culminated into a book titled Amazing STEM-Coming soon!  Click here to read Ultimate STEM, published by our 2015/2016 #MSUrbanSTEM fellows..