Event

STELAR and select ITEST projects delivered a panel presentation at the Massachusetts STEM Summit in Worcester's DCU Center on Tuesday, November 1, 2016.

Presenters:  Janet Beissinger, Neil Heffernan, Fred Martin

Moderator:  Bernadette Sibuma

This speaker panel shared innovative classroom practices and emerging research and evaluation findings in middle school math and computer science that help foster student motivation to pursue lifetime opportunities in these fields. During this session, three middle school projects funded by the National Science Foundation Innovative Technology Experiences for Teachers and Students (ITEST) program shared their project work and findings. The CryptoClub Project develops material to teach cryptography and mathematics to middle grade students using student created videos. The Middle School Pathways in Computer Science Project is bringing project-based, socially-relevant computing experiences to district middle school students, and studying student learning of computer science. The Predicting STEM Career Choice Project, based at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), impacts youth by creating better understanding of malleable factors that can improve student outcomes, and automated models that can identify if a student is at-risk. Afterwards, the presenters answered audience questions about their presentations, and further discussed issues related to implementing practices mentioned into their classrooms.