This is a guest post written by Jason Menth, STEM Integrationist at Talahi Community School. Do you need a scholarship to attend a conference? Apply today!
Once again the TIES conference at the Hyatt Hotel in Minneapolis didn’t disappoint. Thanks to a CMLE scholarship, I was able to attend two days of influential keynote speakers, learn from amazing educators from around the country, and make new connections.
My role as a STEM Integrationist at Talahi Community Elementary School in St. Cloud is dependent on my knowledge and skills of current best practices. Though TIES is recognized as technology in education, there are many sessions to attend that inform all areas of education. For example, I attended sessions on the design thinking process, STEM infused learning centers, personalized professional development, problem-based learning, and innovated approaches to learning.
My goal in my position is to bring real-life problem-based learning and application for our students. I often connect with our school’s media specialist to pair the best stories, be it fiction or non-fiction to bridge the learning and help make connections with our students. We’re also fortunate enough to have our school’s makerspace in our library. Students follow the engineering design thinking process to tinker and build a community project for our school.
Two of my favorite sessions were on the design thinking process and problem-based learning. Books and other forms of media such as presentations and video are vital to demonstrate the design thinking process and learn the necessary background knowledge to real life problems that need to be solved. Since attending the conference I’ve already reimagined our makerspace and ordered new books to help promote the design thinking process and bring real-life learning inside the walls of our school.
Luckily, I also got to present at TIES in their makerspace playground. I was able to share our engineering design process and project-based learning our students do at Talahi. The compliments and discussions were so positive that I know what we’re doing at our school is contributing to student success.
I can’t thank CMLE enough for approving my request to attend this conference. CMLE connected me with so many educators that will advance my practice and bring forth new learning for our students and staff.