Coaching Science Olympiad 30+ years and my science teaching cousin still a rookie, we offer tips and tricks on team startup or management. Join us to hear how I took a tiny Nebraska school to win B and C Divisions at Regionals my first year at Arcadia. Having been a veteran coach at four public schools, this amazing educational science event molded careers for my students, cousin, and four children. My cousin started a team in western Nebraska which added travel challenges across our state. We will share ideas on how to manage 2 teams of 30+ students to compete in 24+ events that coaches rarely get to see. Nebraska coaches often make tests for 2 events in 4 time slots to judge. Balancing team preparation and meeting NGSS/state science standards is a challenge while teaching a full day with 3-7 preps. The NE Director asked me to mentor more S.O. coaches so here we are. Teachers will be enlightened with a poster, slide show, paper examples and 3-D visuals to help coaches find success.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will gain ideas to start their own Science Olympiad Team/s. How to select students for various events to earn team points in each, make user-friendly maps with schedules, reminders and information students can follow, and build unity by wearing team designed school shirts.

SPEAKERS:
Polla Renken (Science Instructor: Kearney, NE), Stacey Bauer (Spalding Academy: Spalding, NE), Marie Wadas (Arcadia Public School: Arcadia, NE)

Interviews with pre-service teachers and their host teachers inform how host teachers can best support observing pre-service teachers, and how observing pre-service teachers can authentically and meaningfully engage in the classroom. The poster will present how both parties can work together to create a learning environment that both the pre-service teacher and host teacher mutually benefit from, and address typical pitfalls causing disengagement and miscommunication in the classroom environment. The research serves to answer the questions of "What do pre-service teachers and host teachers need from each other to produce a meaningful observation experience?" in order to progress science education preparation programs.

TAKEAWAYS:
Both practicing and pre-service teacher attendees will learn how to best support each other during teacher practicum observation hours to ensure both parties mutually benefit and learn from each other.

SPEAKERS:
Carol Compton (Chemistry Teacher: O'Fallon, MO)

As teachers are required to assess a student’s understanding of competencies in addition to knowledge outcomes, they have used tools more commonly used in other disciplines. For example, rubrics have been a tool used to assess many forms of student work. Their general description of each achievement level provides flexibility and personalization. This is particularly useful for essay assignments. However, in lab reports, this often leads to ambiguity. Students may not know the difference between an “acceptable” demonstration of communication compared to a “skilled” demonstration. Despite repeated instruction, the generalized description of rubrics allows room for conflict and negotiation between students and teachers. Rubrics can be redesigned into checklists to remove the ambiguity. It is clear whether or not students have demonstrated each aspect of a competency. This session will share a few of these checklists for teachers to use in their own classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Checklists can be made from rubrics. Checklists are more clear and reduce ambiguity.

SPEAKERS:
Leon Lau (Teacher: , AB)

As a district, we have worked to ensure that all courses have three dimensional standards. We currently teach all of the NGSS standards by the completion of sophomore year. Our freshmen physical science course teaches the physical science standards and one-half of the earth science standards, while our sophomore biology course teaches the biology standards and the other one-half of the earth science standards. To meet the rigor of NGSS, our elective courses such as Chemistry, Physics, Environmental Science, Earth Science, Forensics Science and Plants and Propagation have all built upon the NGSS standards in content, along with identifying Science and Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts. Our goal would be that participants would leave with a process in which they could do the same. Our process has been influenced by the 5 tools training as well as many of the NSTA publications designed to lead teachers and teacher leaders in standard development.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with examples of elective standards that are three-dimensional.

SPEAKERS:
Teresa Bender (Omaha Northwest High School: No City, No State), Jennifer Rhine (Omaha Public Schools: Omaha, NE)

STEM Career awareness has been done in many ways, as has STEM experiences. Students doing research projects is not new, nor is having mentors. What IS novel is how a coordinated effort to move students from career awareness, to interest, to proficiency through doing research in a mentored and well-resourced environment with extensive Teacher PD at the core, really results in 89% of the students choosing a STEM career. Based on a 12-year case study, the combination of intentional (teacher/student) support centered around a specific STEM career has outcomes tracked in a free online database. This presentation will share the formula, coach teachers to create their own implementation plan during the session, and offer web access to the free online database so teachers/students can track their own progress and benchmark it to aggregated anonymous data of others doing similar programs. Teachers are able to pull/share a PDF report of their own outcomes and as compared to others.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with a written plan for their chosen career focus and lists of resource suggestions to help implement this program locally, as well as access to an online data tracking system where they can benchmark outcomes and receive tabulated reports at no charge.

SPEAKERS:
Jill Ott (Science Coach: Saint Louis, MO)