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Hi Josh,
Our middle school went that route years ago and sadly we stopped. The state of GA made it difficult to obtain STEM status. I hope that it is a bit easier for you. I will tell you some of the things that we did that the state did like:
1. We sent our science and math teachers to be STEM certified. There are many different ways to obtain this training. Make sure it is rigorous and that there is followthrough. By this I mean, whomever teaches this couse should be coming to visit the classroom to see the teachers teach the STEM lessons. Everone has to be open to critique because everything won't be perfect the first time around.
2.We included our 'connection' teachers in planning. Your teachers that teach your technology type courses are invaluable in teaching the 21st century skills needed for this type of learning. They will have to have their classes covered while they are in planning with grade level teachers.
3. Scheduling of students was intersting at the beginning because we tried this with just 2 of 4 teams. Those teams had to stay together in connections because they needed the instruction of the connection teachers for their STEM classes. Eventually, STEM became pervasive and this was not a problem anymore but they liked that we scheduled those students together so they could keep STEM instruction in their connection classes.
4. Our adminstration allowed us more freedom with the curriculum map. Some units took more time and some took less. As long as we were read for the county benchmark at the end of the 9 weeks, they didn't care how long each STEM unit took
5. One of the hardest things was getting buy-in from the ELA teachers. They were 'set in their ways' and had specific stories they used to teach each of their skills. We found a couple who were willing to use the science articles we were reading for STEM and use the science or math we were writing about as assignments in their class to work on the writing skills. This helped quite a bit.
6. In some units SS was more difficult to bring into the unit based on GA curriculum. 6th studies the Western Hemispher and Europe due to WWII. 7th Grade studes the Eastern Hemisphere and 8th grade is Georgia History. The SS teachers would find ways to incoporate what we studied no matter if it was their curriculum or not.
There are many units that are pre made and if you want to contact me, I have some from our school that I would be glad to let you have. Just email me. [email protected].
I hope this helps even a bit.
Sue
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