CPATH RET Meeting

For the past two months, I have been working very hard to put together a meeting here in Arlington, VA.  At the National Science Foundation, I work with Harriet Taylor, program director in the Computer and Information Science Engineering Directorate.  We work on a program called CPATH, (Pathways to Revitalize Undergraduate Computer Education).  Connected to that is a program called Research Experience for Teachers (RET).  I was given the task of planning, organizing, and leading a meeting of CPATH RET teachers.

Last week it all culminated in a meeting that brought 35 K-12 teachers together in Arlington, VA for two and a half days.  They traveled from 15 different states and grades taught ranged from grade school through high school.  As a part of the RET experience, they had all spent a summer working with a professor and a team of graduate students at a university or college working on some sort of research in computer science.  They then brought what they had learned back to their classrooms and tried to infuse computational thinking into their curriculum.  Our meeting brought them altogether where they could share what they had done.

One of the big jobs I had was to create a booklet that highlighted each of their projects.  I also created a poster of each project for the poster session at NSF where they could share their experiences with members of the NSF directorates.

All in all, everything went very well.  The food was good, keynote speaker were great, break out sessions appeared informative.  Feed back from the teachers was very complimentary.  I made many new contacts and some new friends.  I learned a great deal from the experience of organizing the meeting and creating the booklet and posters.  My confidence in my ability to carryout such a big endeavor is now strong.  Everyday that I am here, I am doing something new and stretching outside of my comfort zone.  I am over the halfway point of my Fellowship.  I cannot explain what a wonderful opportunity it has been for me.  I hope you are enjoying reading about some of my adventures.

2011 CPATH RET teachers

Poster Session at NSF

Talking to participants about the day's activities.

Can you see how captivated my audience is?  :-)

I am doing a card trick that demonstrates computational thinking.

Country Music Hall of Fame

While in Nashville, I visited the Country Music Hall of Fame.  I was surprised at how emotional the experience was for me.  Watching video and listening to the best in country music touched me deeply.  I wished I had longer time there.

National Alternative Education Association Conference

This week I was able to attend one of the best conferences I have been to.  In Nashville, Tennessee I spent four days at the National Alternative Education Association Conference.  I was rubbing shoulders with several hundred people that were so passionate about the kids they work with everyday.  Kids that many people label as bad, or failures, or losers, but everyone there only saw untapped potentials and kids that only needed someone to give them another chance.

The first day was spent visiting some alternative education schools in the Nashville area, The Academy at Old Cockrill, Big Picture High School, and Nashville Diploma Plus High School.

One thing that really made the conference special was the quality of the keynote speakers.  

Thursday:  Danny Hill, author of The Power of the ICU and Greg Darnieder, Special Assistant and Advisor to the Secretary of Education.

Friday:  Cathryn Berger Kaye, author of The Complete Guide to Service Learning and Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug-Free Schools. 

Saturday: Chad Foster, successful entrepreneur whose presentation was titled, Will Your Students be Prepared...Or Just Educated?.

They did not just deliver quality presentations, they talked from their hearts.  Darnieder and Jennings are both appointees to President Obama's Department of Education.

Two key ideas that I came away with were service learning and authentic learning in the alternative education classroom.  I am thinking of ways to incorporate each into my classroom when I return to teaching.  I also attended an informative session on grant writing, an important skill in this new economy.

CE21 Community Meeting in New Orleans

Computing Education for the 21st Century.  This is the name for a new solicitation for proposals at NSF.  There was a meeting of about 400 Principle Investigators (PIs) that have grants from our division at NSF.  I and two other Einstein Fellows were there to help keep it all organized. It was a fun mixture of work and play.  I have a variety of pictures to document my trip.

I had a short presentation to give about the Research Experiences for Teachers grants that I have been working with.  It is a program where k-12 teachers have the opportunity to go to a university during the summer and work on a research project with a college professor.  Afterwards, the teachers infuse the research and computational thinking into their classrooms during the school year.  I am in charge of planning a meeting for 41 RET teachers in Arlington.

There was also plenty of time for trying the local cuisine.  These are oysters on the half shell.  Not bad with the cocktail sauce with lots of horseradish.

Looking out on the bay on a foggy morning.

And of course, Bourbon Street was loud, and full of drunks.