For Educators
Year-Round Programs for Educators
K-12 Educators are important members of WYSE pre-college research, outreach, and mentoring programs!
WYSE is involved in a variety of programs and grants that directly work with K-12 educators and schools. Opportunities for educators vary by program but can include: curriculum writing and lesson study, teaching STEM outreach classes, mentoring students in STEM, and more.
Catalyzing Inclusive STEM Experiences All-Year Round (CISTEME365)
Informal technology-rich learning can have a transformative impact on students’ self-efficacy and ambition to pursue a career in STEM. A few key challenges are: enabling students access to participate, making the impact of such experiences endure, integrating them with other school efforts, and purposely engaging all student populations.
The NSF-funded CISTEME365 project hypothesizes that experiences with cutting-edge technology must exist all year round to effect significant improvement. Thus, the fundamental project goal is to broaden access and participation in STEM for middle and high school students to participate in sustained, intensive, hands-on STEM learning experiences that build technical knowledge & ability, and that offer insight into different STEM majors & careers. The CISTEME365 project investigates the synergistic effects of school-year STEM clubs, university-hosted summer camps, and a summer learning institute combined with a school-year networked improvement community (NIC) for school counselors and teachers.
IMAGINE STEM Saturdays for Educators
IMAGINE STEM Saturdays were developed as part of the Partnerships for Equity, Access, and Representation in STEM Initiative. PEAR STEM is a collaboration of Champaign-Urbana (C-U) community organizations (DREAAM & UNCC), the Chicago Pre-College Science and Engineering Program, and University of Illinois (UIUC) Psychology and Engineering faculty, specialists in public engagement and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning (WYSE & MSTE).
WYSE offers IMAGINE STEM Saturday classes for Kindergarten – 12th-grade students and families in the Champaign-Urbana area each spring and fall semester. Lessons for these classes are created, evaluated, and refined with the IMAGINE STEM curriculum team and K-12 teachers in the C-U area. Participating teachers also receive professional development. All courses include project-based activities with close attention to advanced mathematics, introducing algebra concepts as early as kindergarten with the goal of long-term participants being algebra-ready by 8th grade and calculus-ready by 12th.