Intentional Innovation Conference

This session is for elementary teachers eager to integrate STEM into their school day to promote the development of essential skills in students. The Picture Perfect STEM lessons convey how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics intersect in the real world. They embed reading-comprehension strategies that integrate the STEM subjects and English language arts through high-quality picture books. With this program you’ll help your students engage in STEM activities while learning to read and reading to learn.

Join us as we dive into the design process while exploring an elementary Picture Perfect STEM lesson. In this session participants will apply their knowledge of the design process to develop a solution to a specific problem. Participants will then have time to explore some of the various Picture Perfect STEM kits available at DeKalb Central Schools.

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At its core, Project-Based Learning is about making learning- content, and skills- authentic. PBL adds authenticity and real-world challenges to the work students accomplish, and in the process making learning more engaging and memorable. This workshop gives concrete methods, practices, and resources to create a standards-based, skills and content rich classroom in an innovative project based learning model.

A nationwide survey showed that the top reason people are fired from their jobs is that they lack soft skills: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, adaptability, and confidence. People lack these skills not because they are incapable of learning them, but because they never had a reason to. So much of the education system is focused on technical knowledge and "hard skills," and very little on these essential skills. Essentially, there was not enough purpose to do the hard work of developing soft skills. 
Trevor talks about how teachers can design learning experiences that require their students to develop essential skills. While still learning 'hard skills’ and academic content, students can do purposeful work that makes them better communicators, collaborators, problem solvers, and citizens. 

We know it's essential to teach students soft skills or as we call them in DeKalb Central, the Portrait of a Baron Graduate Competencies". But how can you fit it all in and still teach your standards? Enter- the Bookend Lesson and Project-Based Learning! This session will demonstrate a method of integrating 21st-century skills like Communication and Collaboration into a content lesson. The real magic happens when you realize teaching this way not only grows the skills but also takes the content learning deeper!

Objective #1
Participants will learn about the basics of implementing project-based learning in any classroom K-12. Participants will learn about why PBL is important and dive into the elements of high-quality PBL

Objective #2
Participants will experience a bookend lesson with several learner-centered protocols that encourage deeper understanding through communication and collaboration. We will discuss practical applications for using these learner-centered practices

Slides​​​