Archive for Creativity and Innovation

MIT Hosts Education Design-a-Thon

March 15, 2013 shannon Creativity and Innovation, Education Innovation, Engineering

On March 9th and 10th, MIT Mechanical Engineering Professor David Wallace and the MIT Office of Digital Learning hosted the Education Design-a-thon, an education hacking event for MIT students and anyone interested in education.  Organizations posed challenges and attendees chose one project to work on throughout the 32-hour event.

Projects ranged from the purely virtual — video games teaching computer program cell phone apps to help dropouts resume their education — to the extremely tactile: robotic drawing arms and hands-on tools to help teachers design curriculum.

~Shannon Morey

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MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Organize Art Exhibit

March 4, 2013 shannon Creativity and Innovation, Science

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have organized Synergy: An Experiment in Art and Science Collaboration.  This has culminated in an exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Science.  The exhibit matched artists with scientists at WHOI to showcase the experiential side of science.  Synergy hopes to demonstrate the creative and analytical side of both science and art.  The exhibit will be on display through May. Check it out!

~ Shannon Morey

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Vegetated Roof and Astronomy Viewing Area Among Features of Green STEM Facility

December 12, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation

New construction breaks ground at the Atlantic Cape Community College in New Jersey. This $16 Million building that focuses on STEM facilities will be a sustainable venture into expanding the College’s supply of forward thinking curriculum. “It will be the home of the new Air Traffic Control (Terminal) Degree program, will have a vegetated “green” roof and astronomy viewing area, and is designed to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver status”. Complete with a Recycled materials and energy saving construction costs, the new building will not only support our future STEM graduates but the environment for years to come!

See on Press of Atlantic City

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Innovative Project in Worcester Turns STEM to STEAM

October 16, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation, Grants

The Art of Science Learning, a new initiative made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation, promises to enhance STEM education in Worcester through the arts.  Led by the Ecotarium in partnership with individuals from numerous Worcester organizations, the project is one of three in the country benefiting from the $2.7 million NSF Art of Science Learning grant. The other two projects are in San Francicso and Chicago.

MSSEF board member Sandra Mayrand, director and founder of UMass Medical School’s Regional Science Resource Center and director of the Central Massachusetts STEM Network serves on the advisory board.  “The collaboration of the Worcester art and science organizations, including the Medical School, greatly impressed the site reviewers,” said Mayrand. “A lot of people including representatives from government, business, education and the non-profit world quickly came together to present our case. It was obvious that we all had worked together many times.”

In recognition of her work on behalf of STEM education in the region, Mayrand received the 2012 Steve Mills Founders Award from the Worcester Education Development Foundation this month. She was cited for her leadership and her commitment to public education and the mission of the Foundation. She also received a key to city from the Worcester School Committee; the key was made by students at Worcester Technical High School.  She has won numerous awards for work in building partnerships that support students and teachers.

Mayrand sees big opportunities for graduate students afforded by the Art of Science Learning grant. “They are the next generation of educators,” she said. “Many of them are hungry for opportunities to teach.”
See on www.umassmed.edu

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Innovative MA Science Teacher Honored at Patriots Game

September 24, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation, STEM Education

Science scored a touchdown at the Patriots game last night, when Kelly Graveson, an 8th-grade teacher at Douglas High School in Douglas, MA, earned “Teacher of the Week” honors through Cubist Pharmaceuticals’ Science Education Leadership Award program.  Throughout football season, the program will honor science teachers in middle and high schools throughout New England who are incorporating innovative techniques in the classroom that inspire and engage students in the world of science.

Kelly was nominated by Sandra Mayrand, director of the Regional Science Resource Center at UMass Medical School and a member of the Massachusetts State Science & Engineering Fair (MSSEF) board of directors.  “Kelly is a phenomenal teacher,” Sandra said.  “I have seen her classes come alive for all of her students with them working in teams solving science challenges, learning, and loving it.”

Kelly has attended graduate professional development courses offered through MSSEF’s Curious Minds Initiative.  In addition, her classes have been part of the Gelfand Endeavor in Massachusetts Schools (GEMS), which works in partnership with MSSEF’s CMI Initiative to help teachers and schools integrate real-world, inquiry-based learning activities into their existing curricula, and create school-based science and engineering fair initiatives.

The science fair program in Kelly’s school district is only two years old.  Despite its recent inception, the Douglas science fair program has seen impressive success: Ten 8th-grade projects and 10 projects from 6th and 7th grade entered the Worcester Regional Middle School Fair in 2012. Several of those moved on the the State Middle School Science & Engineering Fair, and one made it into the Broadcom MASTERS semi-finals — an achievement realized by a total of only nine students in the state.

In nominating Kelly for the honor, Sandra said that Kelly is “committed to providing relevant innovative science and engineering classroom experiences to raise student achievement and boost student interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers.”

Throughout the Patriots football season, a “Teacher of the Week” will be recognized and have his/her name read on-air during the New England Patriots radio broadcast. At the end of the season, one of these teachers will be selected as the recipient of the Cubist Science Education Leadership Award and win $5,000 for the teacher’s school science department.

Congratulations, Kelly!

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STEM Toy Fuels Young Imaginations

September 5, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation

On a recent post in her blog, Shaping Youth founder Amy Jussel shares her impressions of a couple of STEM-centric toys showcased at the Maker Faire.  Specifically, littleBits grabbed — and held — the interest of young kids.

LittleBits (dubbed “LEGOs for the iPad generation”) enable children to create working circuits without soldering, programming, or wiring.  Using the components and buildables, including dimmer, buzzer, light sensor, etc), kids can create almost anything they can imagine.

“We now live in a world that is full of lights and sounds and things reacting to each other, and screens, and we don’t understand the guts of it,” said Little Bits founder Ayah Bdeir. “It’s very important for us to go back to basics, to see, and to say that the magic of electricity is something that is everywhere that’s around us—it’s beautiful and we have to contribute to it and we have to be creative with it.”
See on www.shapingyouth.org

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“Extreme” Science Fair Project Set to Hit the Market… and the Slopes

August 24, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation, Science Fairs

There’s plenty of room in the fast-moving world of extreme sports for science.  Ben Gulak proved it.  As a teenager, the now-23-year-old had a big ambition: Winning the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.  His senior project, the Uno, was a part Segway, part motorcycle vehicle that he developed as an environmentally friendly transportation option for consumers in Asia.  Although regulatory issues thwarted that vision, the chairman of Intel at the time, Craig Barrett noticed Ben’s project, which won the “most marketable” award.

From there, Ben launched his won engineering design company, called BPG Werks, to develop a similar, even cheaper-to-produce concept — the DTV Shredder.  Geared toward extreme-sports fans, he tough-looking all-terrain vehicle borrows elements from the Segway, motorcycle, and skateboard.   “I really like the idea of bringing something new into the world, to an industry that’s been stagnant for a long time,” Ben said.  With about 4,000 pre-sold to date, Ben anticipates that he’ll ship in November and will have 10,000 sold by the December holidays.
See on www.businessweek.com

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Turning Classrooms into Idea Factories

August 22, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation

All signs point to the fact that the abilities to innovate and create are skills that today’s students need for future success. Teachers who make their classrooms “idea factories” for their students, rather than focusing solely on textbook-based instruction, have the right idea. By coming up with their own ideas and executing them in the classroom, students get grounded in the kind of thinking and experimentation that is the foundation for innovation.

A new book, Bringing Innovation to School: Empowering Students to Thrive in a Changing World, makes useful suggestions for turning classrooms into spaces where innovation can thrive.  Among them, the book advises teachers to welcome authentic questions, build empathy, and amplify worthy ideas.
See on blogs.kqed.org

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Why Should Techies Care About Education Theory?

August 6, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation

It’s an age-old question: What’s the best way to teach? These days the question is a has a new dimension: What’s the best way to use technology to teach?”

A recent article in “Hack Education” tackles that latter question by asking readers to take a look back at the contributions of five of the 20th century’s most influential educational theorists: John Dewey (pictured here), Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, B.F. Skinner, and Paolo Freire. In several-paragraphs summaries of the philosophies of each thinker, article author Audrey Watters puts the philosophers’ influences into current-day perpective by identifying who in tech each has influenced (in Dewey’s case, the Maker Movement). It’s an interesting and thought-provoking piece worth a look.
See on www.hackeducation.com

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Food for Thought: Teaching Teachers About the Brain

July 30, 2012 editor Creativity and Innovation, Education Innovation

How’s this for a useful application of science: An interesting post by Dr. Judy Willis in Edutopia makes the case for teachers having a foundation in neuroscience.  A neurologist herself, as well as a teacher, Dr. Willis says, “Teachers who are prepared with knowledge of the workings of the brain will have the optimism, incentive and motivation to follow the ongoing research, and to apply their findings to the classroom.”  She goes on to say, “These teachers can help all children build their brain potential — regardless of past performance — bridge the achievement gap, and reach their highest 21st century potential starting now.”  Dr. Willis’s argument makes good sense.  As she points out, if teachers understood the impact of stress on a student’s classroom performance, or knew more about how the brain processes and stores information, wouldn’t such knowledge have great potential to result in a better classroom experience for all students?
See on www.edutopia.org

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