Lee Burneson Middle School teachers Jen Seighman, Matt Bourn and Paul Roth work on a project during a seminar on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education held in July at Lorain County Community College. (Photo courtesy of Westlake City Schools)

Teachers start year with new technology
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published Aug. 27, 2008

The way students are learning is undergoing a significant change, and teachers at Lee Burneson Middle School spend part of their summer preparing for that change.

As part of the $500,000 state grant the district received to improve instruction in what has come to be known as the STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and math — each classroom at Lee Burneson had a mounted screen installed on which teachers can project content from their computer screens. Teachers can make annotations on the screen during lessons. Those annotations or notes can be saved and posted on the Internet for students who were absent or for those who want to later review them.

Seventh-grade teacher Sandy Sopko said the mounted screen will make teaching easier. In the past, she had to awkwardly turn her desktop computer to the students if she wanted to show them something from the Internet.

“I can bring the world into the classroom,” she said.

Sopko and fellow seventh-grade teacher Sue Weitzel also plan to make use of another tool — the document cam. Weitzel compares it to an old fashioned overhead projector. It can magnify any item being studied — from a paper document to a Petri dish — so every student can get a good look at it on the mounted screen.

Another tool the teachers plan to use is Activevote, a wireless handheld device students will be given on which they can “vote,” or be quizzed, on questions.

Sopko said such a tool can help a teacher know if information is  understood by students.

“You get immediate feedback on what they know and what they don’t know,” Sopko said.

All the tools are part of a package worth $280,000 purchased for Lee Burneson from Promethean, a global education company.

Weitzel said one of her goals is to have the students use the new technology as much as she does.

Sopko and Weitzel were two Lee Burneson teachers who attended a technology camp at the school from Aug. 11 to 15 to acquaint them with the new technology.

Kurt Thonnings, who taught the technology camp, said the teachers seemed receptive to implementing the new technology in their lesson plans.

“We’ve given them a lot of technology to choose from,” said Thonnings, whose title is district’s technology resource teacher. “We’re going to make available continuing professional development to ensure their skills improve.”

Thonnings, who is assigned to Parkside Intermediate and Lee Burneson Middle schools, will work personally with the teachers to help them integrate the technology.

“Some of the technology and some of this software is pretty complicated stuff,” Thonnings said.

The whole purpose of the new technology is to help students be competitive in the global economy of the 21st century, said Pam Griebel, director of academic services for the district.

“When you’re graduating from college, you’re not only competing with people across Ohio for jobs,” she said. “You’re competing with people internationally.”

The new technology and the emphasis on STEM subjects will help students acquire skills needed for the 21st century workplace, such as collaboration, oral and written communication, problem solving, creative and innovative thinking, and deep knowledge of relevant content areas, Griebel said.

Westlake middle school teachers Cathy Dubois, Darlene Fossesco, Michael Bee, Matt Lenczewski work on a project during a STEM education summit at Lorain County Community College in July. (Photo courtesy of Westlake City Schools)

Lee Burneson teachers also attended a STEM Summit at Lorain County Community College in July. The teachers became students during inquiry-based STEM lessons, Griebel said. Their assignment — design an athletic shoe and decide which polymers should be used to make the best product.

Such project-based learning, or experimentation, will be a signature characteristic of STEM education, Griebel said.

“You don’t give kids the answers,” Griebel said describing the STEM approach. “Students find the answers. And more than one answer is right. You can find the answer to a problem in more than one way.”

And the answer that is found today may be superseded by a better answer tomorrow, Griebel added.

This approach helps students build creative and innovative thinking, Griebel explained.

The new technology such as the Internet-connected mounted screens will give teachers unlimited educational resources, Griebel told West Life.

“You’re no longer limited by the textbook and the materials in the classroom,” she said.

Griebel said the district wants to produce more engineers. And the new technology will allow the students to communicate with real engineers working on real-world problems through distance learning programs.

The Westlake Schools have already formed STEM-related partnerships with 11 corporations, including Westlake companies such as Energizer, Hyland Software and Z Space Technologies.  Additional partnerships have been formed with the University of Akron, Lorain Community College and Cleveland State University.