Student and Teacher Technology Transformation Teams (ST4)

Maricopa County Community College District, Tempe AZ

Investigators

Abstract

The Student and Teacher Technology Transformation Teams (ST4) project is increasing the ability of secondary STEM teachers and students to collaboratively learn and apply STEM skills using information and communications technology (ICT). The performing unit is the National Center for Teacher Education (NCTE), a permanent part of the Maricopa County Community Colleges District in Arizona. NCTE is partnering with the Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC), Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI), and International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). ST4 is providing workshops and blended, online training for secondary STEM teachers and students in four Arizona Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs: bioscience, engineering, information technologies, and agriscience. Teachers and "student leaders" from these programs are receiving direct training, then implementing the ICT tools and collaborative learning methods in their courses. The innovative and transformative elements of this project lie in the incorporation of ICT training, design-based learning, and student participation in teacher professional development. Intellectual Merit: Secondary students are prepared for college and the workforce only if they can use the technologies that are critical to learning, collaboration, and professional work. Yet, schools have failed to harness the full power of ICT and pre-existing motivation and skills many young adults possess relative to ICT. Students tend to be less apprehensive about adopting new ICT tools than their teachers, and many have become highly skilled in using ICT to enhance their communications, expand their entertainment options, and increase their ability to interact socially. In this project, these conditions are being leveraged by (1) training students to use ICT to collaboratively learn and apply STEM knowledge and skills, and (2) enabling students to help their teachers become more confident and competent ICT users. The ST4 project is designed to tap these two potentials. A research component is embedded in the project to identify pre-existing student motivation, ICT abilities, and behaviors that can be further leveraged to improve STEM learning. Broader Impacts: ST4 aims to train 40 STEM teachers and 200 "student leaders" in an extensive series of face-to-face and online training events. The ICT tools and design-based, collaborative learning methods are being implemented in CTE courses as an integral part of the training, thus ultimately providing ICT training and collaborative, team-based learning for 1,800 STEM students. ST4 impacts are being expanded further by the delivery of training webinars to STEM teachers and students nationwide.