On Saturday we spent the day observing several instructors at the Children's Science Museum in Shizuoka Japan, including Dr. Kumano. Watching Dr. Kumano teach was a true joy and obvious that he is a teacher in is heart and loves working with children. The students participated in a 3 hr science/STEM expansion lesson where they studied and investigated, laser treated Morning Glory seeds, 3D models of the earth and moon they build using Styrofoam balls and maps created by NASA/JASA and then interacting with computer software that allows GIS like layering to investigation earthquakes and plate tectonics. It was a a very busy 3 hrs and the students were cooperative, engage and allowed us as foreign visitors to work with them and learn how they enjoyed the science lessons.
In the afternoon we toured the museum and I think I filled my memory card with all the photos and videos I shot. Dr. Kumano was instrumental in bringing the museum to Shizuoka and providing many of the ideas for the interactive learning stations in the museum. There were many families with children there and a lot of the stations were run by volunteers, many of whom are retired teachers.
The day ended with our presentation in which we were scheduled to provide STEM professional development for 90 minutes, but we ended up going over two hours due to interest and questions form the participants. We had over 25 people come to our workshop and they included building administrators, college professors, classroom teachers and preservice teachers. We introduced our ideas about integrated STEM Ed with having participants brains storm key words to describe STEM and then asked teams to create Haikus with the words. This led us into having the group divide into 5 different teams to practice STEM lessons as students and then reflect as teachers and finished with questions. The teams had fun and were very active in participating in the lessons, the conversations were deep and insight and many people came to our team afterwards to thank us and say they found the workshop exciting and inspiring. We all came away feeling excited and looking forward to more opportunities to work with teachers internationally.
In the afternoon we toured the museum and I think I filled my memory card with all the photos and videos I shot. Dr. Kumano was instrumental in bringing the museum to Shizuoka and providing many of the ideas for the interactive learning stations in the museum. There were many families with children there and a lot of the stations were run by volunteers, many of whom are retired teachers.
The day ended with our presentation in which we were scheduled to provide STEM professional development for 90 minutes, but we ended up going over two hours due to interest and questions form the participants. We had over 25 people come to our workshop and they included building administrators, college professors, classroom teachers and preservice teachers. We introduced our ideas about integrated STEM Ed with having participants brains storm key words to describe STEM and then asked teams to create Haikus with the words. This led us into having the group divide into 5 different teams to practice STEM lessons as students and then reflect as teachers and finished with questions. The teams had fun and were very active in participating in the lessons, the conversations were deep and insight and many people came to our team afterwards to thank us and say they found the workshop exciting and inspiring. We all came away feeling excited and looking forward to more opportunities to work with teachers internationally.