Top 5 STEM Funding Sources – Make It Rain

 

As I’m sure you’re aware if you’ve read any of my other articles, I’m a public school teacher. It is one of the greatest joys in my life, and I hope I get to do it until I retire. That said, the public school environment can be frustrating. For me, and I imagine for many public school teachers this time of year (budget season) is incredibly stressful. This is especially true in 2017 due to the current political climate. Typically, I consider it a fantastic budget season if my program’s budget stays the same. This year I will consider it amazing if I still have a job. In any case I always need additional STEM funding sources to keep my program strong.

With that in mind there are three reasons I think it’s wise to develop fund raising skills. First, if I can fund my program outside of my allocated budget, my ability to teach is not determined by others. Second, if I can self fund I am more valuable than someone who cannot. Third, if I can self fund I have the ability to expand my program unhindered by the political process. In short, my ability to fund my own program means that I have more freedom in my teaching practice.

Mindset

Here is where most teachers I know have trouble. We know we need more equipment. Teachers know we are better teachers when we have better tools. We know that the likelihood of getting the Administration or the Board to give us more money is pretty low. Most people are terrified to even ask for money. If given an opportunity for additional funding we may not have a plan in place to utilize it. I have covered some of this in the past with posts on the Top 5 Learning Tools Wishlist, and Content Drives Technology NOT The Other Way Around.

This post is focused on how to get more money for your program. Specifically, how to do it as efficiently & painlessly as possible. Maybe some of this comes a bit more easily for me because of my sales background, but everything below is pretty painless. Additionally, some of this you are doing already, but aren’t leveraging effectively. I’m ranking the below STEM funding sources from most effective (for me) to least effective. That said, even the least effective options here are pretty great. They are in my top 5 for a reason. Above all be patient, education funding is a marathon not a sprint.

STEM Funding Sources

I have actually used all of  these resources effectively in my own practice. In some cases I have gotten a lot of equipment, in some cases less equipment. To have a well equipped program you need to be able to gather large, medium, and small amounts of equipment effectively. In some cases the below sources have also led to some fairly lucrative consulting work. Where this is the case I have noted it.

1. Local & Not So Local Higher Learning Institutions

In terms of general STEM funding sources, this one is far and away my favorite way to get extra equipment for my classroom, as well as where I get most of my consulting work. At the time of this writing, STEM is incredibly in vogue. Anything having to do with Engineering, Computer Science, or Design is being studied, analyzed critiqued, and funded. Colleges, and Universities are really good at receiving grants of all sorts.

What you may not know is that part of those grants, as well as the University’s ability to receive further funding requires them to do case studies. Their case studies need to be done in classrooms. Additionally, they don’t always end up using all of the money they receive. If they don’t use all of the money they are given, they need to give it back. If you are exceptionally comfortable talking to people you can try to approach Computer Science and Engineering departments directly, but I’ve never done so.

Best Practices for Higher Ed Networking

The best way I have found to develop contacts at these places is through Professional Development. In my experience, the same departments at higher learning institutions that offer free (or even pay you to attend) PD are the departments that have grant funded projects focused schools. If you take PD through them they will approach you, or at least be willing to listen to your ideas. ALWAYS tell them about your program. Try to spend part of your breaks at PD talking about your program, and what your hopes for your program are to the presenter.

Make sure you get their contact info, and send them an email thanking them for the workshop. If they mention a project while you’re talking with them feel free to mention it in your thank you message. Ask them to keep you posted about additional PD they are teaching. Almost invariably this will lead to them eventually approaching YOU with funding opportunities.

2. Local Non Profit Educational Services Providers

As I have only taught at one school, in one specific region I am not certain that companies like this exist everywhere. I know they are pretty common in NH, and I know that the one that serves my area is fantastic. If you are unfamiliar with organizations of this type, their whole purpose is making the lives of educators better. They provide Professional Development, apply for grants. Participate in studies. Provide meeting space. Facilitate educator networking, and a whole host of other things I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

I have found this STEM funding source incredibly useful in in my Professional Development. Again, I take no cost (to me) PD that makes me a better, more informed, smarter teacher, and I get additional benefits. Developing a relationship with these types of companies has absolutely led to getting additional equipment. Lots of other organizations donate their old tech to these non profits. Oftentimes the tech they take in isn’t good for much other than recycling (or taking apart), but if they know what you’re looking for they will give it to you when they get it.

Organizations like this are also always plugged in to what grants are out there. As such, when they apply for a grant they may name your program as a participant. Additionally, once you are well known they may ask you to present a workshop. This is beneficial on many levels, but these engagements are often paid consulting jobs.

Best practices for Non Profit Networking

You may be surprised to learn that I could literally copy & paste the above best practices section, drop it here, and it would hold true. Take professional development, ideally professional development you get a stipend for taking. Take as much professional development as you can stand. During your workshop talk to the presenter, as well as the individual from the non profit who is observing the workshop. Discuss your program, your goals, and get contact info. Send a thank you email. Let them know you are always on the lookout for more PD. If they ask you what your challenges are, tell them you could use additional equipment. Above all develop a good working relationship.

3. Community Improvement Groups

Every community out there has some group or another that wants to make it better. In some cases there are many groups that want to make your community better. People involved with this STEM funding source, want to help. In my experience they believe (as most teachers do) that the school is at the heart of a community. Strong schools lead to strong communities, and strong communities have a strong school system. Community Improvement groups may not have the resources of the first two STEM funding sources, but they can usually help out somehow. Don’t limit yourself here, look at groups that work to improve arts, adult education, career training, and anything else that improves your community. Oftentimes they have grant funds available that they will not use (and as a result lose). These funds can often be re-purposed for educators with a small amount of finesse.

Best Practices for Community Improvement Networking

In the same manner that you don’t love getting asked for something out of the blue, neither do these organizations. Do some research, and see what sorts of organizations are active in your area. Approach the organizers directly, and see where they could use some help. Let them know what you do, and what your program is like so that they know what you’re doing in the classroom. In my experience they almost always have committees they want people to serve on, input about their own ideas, and participation in the programs they offer. Just like the other organizations mentioned above, once you develop a relationship with them they will likely approach you about helping your program.

4. Youth Groups & Museums

Groups such as 4H, Girl Scouts of America, Boy Scouts of America, and the Civil Air Patrol are all in this bucket as well as many others. In fact, the Civil Air Patrol has specific programs that involve Professional Development for teachers combined with equipment donations. It’s important to remember that these types of organizations are designed to help children in a wide variety of ways. Often they have special programs, and specific ways of helping that involve some paperwork, and training. Working with programs such as these is also an excellent way to get news of your program out into your community. The more excited the community is about what you’re doing, the more potential funding sources you will find.

Museums, especially Science or Children’s Museums often have educational outreach programs designed to benefit schools. They also occasionally receive grants for education, and can be an incredible resource for borrowing scientific equipment as well.

Best Practices for Engaging Youth Groups & Museums

With both of these types of STEM funding sources (as well as with the first 3), often you need to do something to receive something. Get in contact with your local organizations and volunteer to run an activity, or help out. Take any training they offer, and find out what their needs are. Do whatever you can to help. As with any other of the above sources, talk about your program. Discuss what you’re doing, and what you’d like to do. Keep in contact with them, and they will likely reach out to you with ideas about how you can help each other.

Getting funding from most organizations involves relationship building, and sharing your program. People help who they know, and who is on top of their mind. The directors of the groups may come across an opportunity to help out with an incredibly short time window. Make sure you are the person they think of first.

5. Donorschoose.org

This crowd funding organization is specifically designed around the idea of helping teachers get the additional equipment they desperately need. I love donorschoose, they are amazing, easy to use, and relevant to your needs. They understand teachers, and are very good at helping you reach your funding goals. “If it’s so good, then why mention it last?” you may ask. Well, first let me mention that last in the top five is STILL in the top 5. Next, there are some features that make this less awesome than other STEM funding sources. First, you are largely restricted to their specific vendors. This isn’t THAT big a deal since they work with both Amazon & Best Buy, but it can be annoying. Second, you need to go to your own social network for funding. Again, not a HUGE deal but certainly worth considering.

How it works is that you come up with some items you need. You find those items from one of their vendors. Next, follow their instructions about points and shopping. Finally, follow their instructions about how you present the project on social media. When I did mine, I would post a reminder to my Facebook feed once per week. I was fully funded within a month or two. Often this is the most attainable, and approachable method for teachers to start their outside funding journey. For me that was certainly the case.

Conclusion

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned hitting up local businesses, doing fund raisers, or applying for grants here. These are perfectly legit sources, and I encourage you to try anything you can to get outside funding. I have been at social gathering before, and struck up a conversation with someone about work. A few weeks later an Arduino showed up at my house. People want to help, you just need to talk about what you’re doing.

A Quick note about Professional Development. Without exception 100% of the avenues I have pursued for outside funding are tied in some way to the PD I attend. At every opportunity I go to literally every single free PD I can. I’m always on the look out for PD that has a stipend attached. I apply for everything, and I always say yes. When I’m at a PD (or anywhere else) I always network with other educators. I ask questions. By doing the things I mentioned here I have been able to get additional funding, and do consulting work that paid me about 10% of my salary last year. Because of my connections, my school and I have been named by a major university as part of a grant they are pursuing. If I can do it, so can you.

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Creating Coding Lessons – Grade 6-8: Part 2

Any time I try something new I get some unexpected results. Often I learn something new. Usually I tweak something. Sometimes I find a connection to something else. My students find the lesson easier or harder than I expected. I’ve even discovered that some of my basic assumptions were faulty before. This time is no different. This coding lessons reflection will be of dubious use to you without having read this post. Don’t let me dissuade you though, read away. What follows is an outline, and reflection on what I have done for the coding lesson I am working on so far.

I tend towards jumping right in, and being flexible as I go with new lesson ideas. I know that others prefer to have every moment planned out in advance (and there’s nothing wrong with that), but I am more comfortable winging it a bit. That isn’t to say I don’t have a plan, it’s more to say that my plans are fluid. I trust my research and experience to guide me as I go. This post is a bit different than usual as well. There are a lot of moving pieces to this lesson, and I’m writing to focus my own thinking in addition to documenting what I’m doing for others.

Refined Overview

I am working towards several goals in this lesson. First, I want to provide a solid foundation in computer science to my grade 8 students. Second, I want to introduce my students to some basic web design. Third, I want to give them an outlet for their desire to create. Fourth, I want my students to be less dependent on me for the knowledge they require, and finally I am exploring how to differentiate a performance based lesson across students of varying needs.

Students learn different subjects in different ways. Some students require more scaffolding than others in order to benefit from a lesson, other students learn best with more independence, and still others require something in between. I have always been of the opinion that it is not a given student’s responsibility to learn how I teach. Rather, it is my responsibility to teach how they learn. In the immortal words of Mr. Miyagi: “Teacher say, student do”. My hope here is that I can create a lesson for all students.

Assignments Thus Far

As mentioned here, I started of with a simple tutorial for the Talk to Me App in App Inventor 2. Additionally, I assigned the students to create a google site, populate it with an About Me page, a Links page, a Classwork page, and a Portfolio page. We did the tutorial, and the web site assignments together during class. They were also given a question to answer about computers in general.

Students are required to create a project page for each app, and to fill it with documentation and reflections on each project. After the first assignment they have been given several more in rapid succession. They were assigned the second part of the Talk to me App, the Ball Bounce App, and were tasked with making unique improvements for each app as well. All of the apps up to this point are part of App Inventor’s Hour of Code. As part of these apps we have discussed the concept of abstraction in computer science. Additional App assignments will be designed to cover other topics mentioned in my last post. As an assessment for this first, basic section I asked students to work through the set of tutorials under the Paint Pot App. This assignment is different as I am not giving students class time to complete it.

Coding Lessons Reflection

All assignments are given in the google classroom, and students are encouraged to ask any questions in the google classroom as well. They are also encouraged to answer each others questions.  The first App assignment, and the first web assignments are the only ones we do together in class. The rest will simply be assignments. Students are given class time to work on their assignments. I also expect them to answer many of their own questions through internet research.

There was some push back on these ideas at first, but students are really beginning to embrace this style. This manner of having video tutorials, and performance tasks is allowing me the time to help those students that need it while allowing other students to work at a more accelerated pace. I don’t know yet how the assessment will pan out. My goal is to have students doing work outside of class which will foster greater levels of collaboration on their sites, and in the classroom. My main concern with this is that some students may be unable to work from home because they lack a computer with internet. We’ll see.

I’ve mapped out the app assignments for the rest of the quarter already. I am however, still trying to fit in the concepts & practices I discussed in the first article. That portion is a moving target that I will revisit periodically. Certainly, the app assignments will have most of these ideas built in. My challenge will be to pull out these specific concepts & practices to shine a light on them. A lot of this will come into greater focus as student move away from tutorials, and into building their own unique ideas, but I need to keep them at the top of my mind.

Differentiation in Coding Lessons Reflection

One of the pleasant surprises I’ve come up with is that assigning work in this manner is exceptionally easy to differentiate. In my current class I have several students who are incredibly comfortable with the subject matter, several who are moderately comfortable, and several who need significant scaffolding in order to be successful. By taking myself out of the initial distribution of knowledge to my students, I allow myself to be available to scaffold where needed.

Additionally, by forcing my students to add unique features to their apps I have allowed my students the opportunity to dictate their own level of challenge. Improvements to an app can run the gamut from changing the color of the screen, to translating typed text into another language before “speaking” it. What I’m left with is a room full of engaged students who are given the exact amount of support they require. This has allowed me to view all of my lessons differently, and will change how I teach moving forward.

Next Steps

This Coding Lessons Reflection would be of reduced value without a discussion of where I plan to go next. The rest of the course will continue to be focused on App Tutorials, and web design. In order, the apps I will assign are:

• Magic 8 Ball
• Persisting Photos
• Android Mash
• Logo (App Template Here)
• Student Designed App Number 1
• Presidents Quiz
• No Text While Busy
• Socially Aware App
• Student Designed App Number 2 (Final)

 

As time goes on the tutorials begin to focus on specific features without repeating information. Many deal with some pretty advanced programming concepts so, I’ll have to pay close attention to how my students are doing. There’s a good deal of work left to do on this unit, and I expect to make revisions as I go. I will continue posting about what is going on with the apps individually, as well as what’s happening in my classroom. The really interesting items will be what the kids come up with for individual apps.

Conclusion

Though I am essentially 20% through this first iteration of my coding lessons curriculum there are still a huge number of questions that need answering. I feel like it is going well, and I am excited to see how everything pans out in the end.

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Coding Lesson : Intro To Block Based Programming

I love Lego Mindstorms Ev3 for teaching a coding lesson, but the price to get started is tough to swallow. Enough kits to teach a coding lesson to a class of  16  is 4, which translates to over $1,550.00. Even after getting the kits, you still need 4 computers (not Chromebooks) to run the software. The unfortunate financial reality of Public Education in America is that we are constantly in a state of near starvation. As such, it is not easy to get funds for unproven curricular tools. Stories from other teachers about STEM with robots is not enough to get you the money you need. Typically you need to demonstrate some major benefit in order to get extra money. How then, do you prove that learning coding has a positive impact on your students without breaking your budget?

Block Based Programming

Block based programming means that instead of typing in words with specific formatting to create a program, programmers use graphical blocks. Presenting programming in this manner will allow you to reach younger students. Traditional coding such as that found in the Python Programming Language is often difficult for younger students to process. After all, they may not fully grasp common English yet. Older learners can benefit from spending some time with a block based language as well.

Block based systems allow learners to discover programming structures, and the basics of how computer programs are constructed more easily. Generally speaking the only difference between computer programming languages are the semantic structures used to translate human commands into something a computer can understand. As such, once a student has a grasp of one language (even a block based one) other languages get much easier to grasp.

Coding Lesson with Block Based Programming

Unlike many of my other posts this will not be an actual lesson plan, but rather a guide to a few online lesson plans that I like in particular. I am a firm believer in “why fix it it it ain’t broke”. In this case, since there are so many top quality lessons out there for free I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. I have many, many, other things to occupy myself with.

www.Code.org

I list this one first because it is my personal go to for my students. Any time a students ask about any kind of coding lesson, any time a student seems to want more coding, or any time I need to give them a break from the normal curriculum this is where I go. There are dozens of online coding lessons that can introduce coding, and even allow a deeper delve for students. I typically suggest my students start with the Hour of Code. There are several different content options, and different options based on grade level. After they complete the hour long coding lesson, they can expand into other areas of the site. Code.org is so engaging for the kids that I often use it as a reward. Honestly, if you use nothing else from any of my posts use this.

www.Scratch.MIT.edu

I have used Scratch a little bit myself. I have also only used Scratch in my classroom for students who want independent study. In my class it has been used exclusively on the Raspberry Pi, not the web based version. On the Pi it is amazing. It really allows kids to do physical programming. All of that said, I have spoken with teachers that have used the web version, and its fantastic. One nice thing about Scratch is that it allows kids to be exceptionally creative with their programming.

When I used it I had the kids working through this book, they loved it. Additionally, there are plenty of tutorials on the Scratch Help site, and elsewhere. A great way you could use Scratch is to combine it with the Makey Makey. I haven’t had the opportunity to do so, but I can see its value. If I do use it this way, I can see students making both a game, and a controller for the game they make.

App Inventor 2 (The Best Tool EVER!)

App Inventor 2 is a web based IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the Android operating system. This block based programming resource will allow your students to create, share, and even sell apps on for any Android device. I don’t know what you are teaching now, but if what you teach touches computers, or computer programming in any way your most common question is “How do I make games/apps?”. Our students hear stories all the time about how kids have made millions making apps. The stories are true, and with the right idea our students can do the same.

In addition to the rare case of a student actually making money by creating an app, this tool is phenomenal for any kind of performance based assessment. In PBA we are working towards having our students create something meaningful, and useful to show mastery of a topic. What better way to do that in a concrete manner than by creating an app that solves a real world problem? Another phenomenal feature is the focus on event driven programming. Being able to teach the concept of EDP alone is well worth using this tool.

There are a huge number of tutorials available for free online dealing with all aspects of AI 2. This is one that is free, and focused on app creation.  I certainly recommend running yourself through any tutorials you use, but you don’t need to be an expert to teach with this tool. The only challenge is that you need some Android devices to use. I solved this problem by purchasing some cheap Android tablets for my classroom, but you don’t need to buy them. Your students may have these devices already, or you may be able to get them donated.

Conclusion

Though it takes some work and creativity, it is absolutely possible to teach coding on a budget. In your classroom you can wrap coding into some other lesson, use coding to help teach a lesson, or teach it as a lesson itself. No matter how you decide to add coding to a STEM curriculum you really need to add it. In my experience few subjects foster higher levels of engagement, teach problem solving more effectively, or develop grit like a coding lesson.

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