Educational Resources Digest – Week of May 4
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To Parents and Colleagues
There has been a burst of energy for curating, creating, and distributing resources and opportunities to support learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with regularly scheduled programming. We’ve created a digest of what has come through Washington STEM’s inboxes during the past week. As remote learning continues, we will provide additional resource lists as we find them.
Please note that we work with a diverse set of partners, and these opportunities and events are not tailored to any particular audience or partner. Please review each opportunity to decide if it’s relevant to your needs.
— Cheers and be well!
Upcoming Programs and Webinars
Happening in May
Beginning May 4 CareerConnect@Home
When: Weekdays in May
Where: CareerConnect@Home website
On Monday, May 4, Career Connect Washington launched CareerConnect@Home, a new initiative for connecting students in grades 7-12 with real Washington state employers to learn about career opportunities here in our state. Every weekday in May at 3:30 PM, we will livestream a conversation with a different employer, who will talk about their career, their industry, their skills and challenges, and answer questions from students. See the website for full schedule.
This is a free program open to all – discussions will be livestreamed on YouTube and kids can ask questions via our Instagram account career.connect.at.home. Discussions will also be recorded and available for later viewing.
Do you know kids who want to learn how to launch a career in technology? Are they interested in health care or nonprofits? Curious about careers in energy, advanced manufacturing, or construction? Please encourage them to check out CareerConnect@Home!
5/5 – 5/12 2020 STEM For All Video Showcase
When: Until May 12
Where: Online
Join us all this week to take part in a free, interactive, week-long video showcase event, featuring over 170 federally funded projects. This online event provides an opportunity to learn about innovative initiatives to improve STEM education by viewing three-minute video presentations, engaging in online discussions with the presenters and voting for the Public Choice award.
You can search for videos of interest or filter by keyword, intended audience, grade level, resource center, NSF program, organization and state. They cover a vast array of topics in STEM including broadening participation, workforce development, scientific argumentation, NGSS, citizen science, maker spaces, classroom curriculum innovations, apps and games, integration of computer science into STEM and computational thinking (to name but a few).
5/12 – 6/9 ANEW Diversity and Inclusion Summit Virtual Workshop Series
Where: Online, registration required
Cost: Varies
We are excited to take our 2020 Summit virtual! Our focus is to encourage industry partners to work together to create a more inclusive workplace and to commit to these practices, ensuring communication from the top down and bottom up.
Happening in June
6/8 – 6/11 JFF Horizons: Designing a Future that Works Virtual Experience
Where: Online
Join thousands of private, public, and nonprofit trailblazers to design radical new solutions to today’s unprecedented challenges. Our action-oriented virtual #JFFHorizons experience will lay the foundation for transforming education and workforce systems to build an equitable economic recovery.
OTHER RESOURCES
DREME At-Home Early Math Learning Kit
Cost: FREE Download
With many schools and childcare centers closed, there is a critical need for learn-at-home materials focused around early math. DREME’s At-Home Early Math Learning Kit for Families offers practical, research-based strategies that busy families can use to support their young children’s early math learning—at home, right now, for free, and without special materials. Available also in Spanish, these fun and easy ideas are geared toward children from birth through age 8 and can help families use their time together to explore math in everyday home routines.
These weekly emails contain relevant, fun, digestible math strategies for young children and families; including things like math games and movement breaks, math/art explorations, and the #mathwalk challenge. Subscribe here.
Smithsonian Science Education Center Distance Learning Resources
As distance learning continues for K-12 students, teachers, and caregivers, the Smithsonian Science Education Center remains committed to supporting remote learning. Our Distance Learning web page has numerous K-8 STEM resources grouped according to grade level. Check out the newest resources!
Switching Gears: Ways to Optimize an Unplanned Shift to Online Teaching
Teachers did not anticipate having to provide their instructional expertise almost solely through online teaching. This unplanned pivot doesn’t come without challenges, but it also offers opportunities for ingenuity and creativity. Educators may be further ahead than they realize because they have already built relationships with their students.
Free 30-Day Membership to National Science Teaching Association
To support all educators during this difficult time, NSTA is offering a free 30-day membership, providing access to more than 12,000 digital professional learning resources and tools.
AVID Open Access is an open educational resource that provides quick, practical, easy-to-use strategies, tech tips, and grab-and-go lessons for teachers to effectively integrate educational technology, digital pedagogy, and STEM into the classroom, while providing the social and emotional support your students need as we shift from a face-to-face to a virtual classroom.
We want to help you, as you learn to navigate the world of online learning. Throughout this website, we have shared teaching strategies we know work, the best self-paced content there is, lesson plans curated from the world-class STEM partners we have assembled, and skill-building resources that you can put to use immediately, whether you’re teaching virtually or back in the classroom.
Global Family Research Project #OneGlobalFamily campaign
In this time of universal uncertainty and stress over COVID-19, families and teachers are doing the best they can to keep kids engaged and to support home-based learning. With schools closed and children at home, families and teachers are stretched thin as they balance home-schooling with other demands, try to keep children on track, and worry about the negative impacts of lost learning time as well as how they, the economy, and the country will survive, recover, and move ahead.
In the midst of this turmoil, we and others are lifting up the many creative examples of how everyone—from national to community-based organizations and schools—are supporting families in their home-schooling roles and how families are helping each other. The pandemic is underscoring the value of continued family engagement. This crisis reinforces the importance of equitable, inclusive, and effective engagement. It is urgent that we come together to shift away from devaluing family engagement—and doing to and for families—toward valuing and co-creating family engagement in children’s learning.
We urge everyone to share stories through Twitter (via #OneGlobalFamily) and other means to inspire and encourage us all.
Everyday science practices and activities are broken down by grade band.
“Erducator” Strong with Principal Gerry Brooks
Gerry Brooks is sharing the love in these videos! Coronavirus Teacher Educator Evaluation System and Erducator Strong!