OrthoWorx, Warsaw Schools Together Invest $485,000 in STEM
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
Brad Bishop, OrthoWorx executive director, announced at the school board meeting Monday night that OrthoWorx was partnering with WCS to support the school system’s Moving STEM Forward program. The board last night also approved the donation and the corporation’s share.
“Our interest in STEM education is for every student in every grade be provided an opportunity to have a STEM-focused experience,” Bishop told the board.
He said it was OrthoWorx’s hope that all students be exposed to a STEM education.
“We tend to focus on orthopedics, of course, but almost every job today is a STEM job. We tend to think of STEM jobs as jobs of the future, but I think the future is here in terms of requirements of most jobs at any skill level,” Bishop stated.
He said the $300,000 OrthoWorx is providing for the program will enable strategic planning in STEM for the corporation, professional teacher development as well as a mobile STEM learning laboratory that can be employed across the corporation.
Board Secretary Delores Hearn said, “I know this has been our concern throughout our STEM programs that we be able to move this forward to all students and the idea of what OrthoWorx is going to do to help us do that is more than appreciated.”
In a press release provided by Bishop, OrthoWorx Chief Executive Officer Sheryl Conley stated, “The evidence continues to mount that many of today’s jobs and most of the great jobs of the future will require STEM knowledge and skills, not just in orthopedics, but in nearly every enterprise in our region. As a community, we need to recognize the critical need for STEM learning and the problem-solving and leadership skills that come with it. This is not a ‘nice-to-do,’ this has to do with our long-term economic vitality.”
She continued, “Initiatives such as this one underscore the timely opportunity represented by the matching funds challenge we have from Lilly Endowment Inc. Every eligible dollar we raise before Oct. 15 will be matched by the Endowment and will be available for reinvestment in our community’s future.”
If OrthoWorx raises $3.5 million from the community, Lilly Endowment will provide another $3.5 million.
Bishop concluded by stating, “We view this as a step; our hope and our desire is to move STEM further into the corporation. We have a vision of a high school STEM academy, which we hope you realize over the next few years.”
Bishop said the plan is to implement the Moving STEM Forward program next school year. WCS Chief Academics Officer David Hoffert and instructional coach Nicki Baird explained what was planned.
Hoffert said, “Last spring was the first time we talked with Brad and OrthoWorx a little more on what we could do. And we knew there were a couple of themes that were sitting out there in front of us. ... The question before us was how do we incorporate STEM education into all of our elementary schools.”
WCS took a look at some theme schools this past year. It saw what was going on at Washington STEM Academy, Hoffert said, and wanted to know how it could incorporate project-based learning.
“The next question we had was, ‘How do we create a K-12 STEM curriculum without having any gaps or grade-level gaps?’ This is something that we want to be very careful with, very intentional with as we move up the ladder,” Hoffert said.
Warsaw Community High School already has a very strong Project Lead The Way with the biomedical industry, he said. And Washington STEM is doing some “amazing things with project-based learning,” he added, as well as at other pockets throughout the district. However, there are gaps.
Last spring, Hoffert said, “We had all of our elementary principals in and we had a really frank conversation on what the elementary science curriculum looked like. And to be honest with you, we have a long way to go, we really do.”
After the conversation with the principals, Hoffert said a small group gathered together, including Baird, STEM coach Ben Barkey and WCS instructional coach Christine Bonifield. They began to put down on paper what they saw and heard from principals and teachers what next steps were needed for STEM education in WCS.
The first is to create a or make a connection with a local STEM advisor.
“We know that the orthopedic industry is changing on a daily basis. And it’s a huge challenge to prepare students for jobs that haven’t even be created yet,” Baird said. “So we need someone who is on the forefront and has that vision for what those jobs may look like and what technology students need to be exposed to now to make those jobs accessible in the future.”
The second thing WCS needs to do, she said, is to create a “K-12 Vertical Strand of STEM.” It’s a huge challenge to align curriculum, resources and WCS’s vision going forward. Knowing that help was needed and they want to work with the best, she said they found that Smithsonian Institute was it.
“They hold a week-long intensive road mapping during the summer. So we’d like to take a team that’s not just educators. It’s teachers, community members, administrators and the STEM advisor I just told you about,” she said.
Third, she said they need to train teachers because “big changes happen in the classroom.” She said they want to take one primary and one intermediate teacher at every elementary school and train them exclusively on acquiring project-based learning strategies. They will use their skills not only in the classroom, but also to help WCS develop a strong curriculum in STEM.
Hoffert said during their investigation, they kept coming across the idea of a mobile learning laboratory. Ethos, a science resource center in Elkhart, uses a bus. He said they realized it was an incredible learning facility, but it didn’t meet all the needs of WCS students.
He said they started dreaming about what they wanted on their bus, and asked teachers and principals what a WCS mobile learning lab should have on it.
“We’re still in that developmental stage. But we really broke it down into three areas that we wanted to see on this bus. Three things that we wanted this bus to do,” Hoffert said.
Those three things was a state-of-the-art mobile laboratory to impact teacher professional learning and to impact student learning and provide a visual commitment from both the community and school system to STEM education.
“We realize there’s a good deal of work that is going to go forward in this, this next year,” Hoffert stated. “We want to make sure that we are not in a hurry to spend these dollars. We want to make sure we spend it correctly and we spend it wisely. We want to make sure we’re doing something different from any other school corporation out there. And we want to make sure we provide an opportunity truly for all of our students.”
Board members Curt Hermann, Randy Polston and Matt Dick praised the orthopedic companies for their investments in the school corporation and taking an interest in the students.
In a press release from WCS, Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz stated, “The system’s partnership with OrthoWorx provides unique and progressive opportunities to educate our students for their future and we are pleased to do our part to train future workers for the orthopedic industry.”[[In-content Ad]]
Latest News
E-Editions
Brad Bishop, OrthoWorx executive director, announced at the school board meeting Monday night that OrthoWorx was partnering with WCS to support the school system’s Moving STEM Forward program. The board last night also approved the donation and the corporation’s share.
“Our interest in STEM education is for every student in every grade be provided an opportunity to have a STEM-focused experience,” Bishop told the board.
He said it was OrthoWorx’s hope that all students be exposed to a STEM education.
“We tend to focus on orthopedics, of course, but almost every job today is a STEM job. We tend to think of STEM jobs as jobs of the future, but I think the future is here in terms of requirements of most jobs at any skill level,” Bishop stated.
He said the $300,000 OrthoWorx is providing for the program will enable strategic planning in STEM for the corporation, professional teacher development as well as a mobile STEM learning laboratory that can be employed across the corporation.
Board Secretary Delores Hearn said, “I know this has been our concern throughout our STEM programs that we be able to move this forward to all students and the idea of what OrthoWorx is going to do to help us do that is more than appreciated.”
In a press release provided by Bishop, OrthoWorx Chief Executive Officer Sheryl Conley stated, “The evidence continues to mount that many of today’s jobs and most of the great jobs of the future will require STEM knowledge and skills, not just in orthopedics, but in nearly every enterprise in our region. As a community, we need to recognize the critical need for STEM learning and the problem-solving and leadership skills that come with it. This is not a ‘nice-to-do,’ this has to do with our long-term economic vitality.”
She continued, “Initiatives such as this one underscore the timely opportunity represented by the matching funds challenge we have from Lilly Endowment Inc. Every eligible dollar we raise before Oct. 15 will be matched by the Endowment and will be available for reinvestment in our community’s future.”
If OrthoWorx raises $3.5 million from the community, Lilly Endowment will provide another $3.5 million.
Bishop concluded by stating, “We view this as a step; our hope and our desire is to move STEM further into the corporation. We have a vision of a high school STEM academy, which we hope you realize over the next few years.”
Bishop said the plan is to implement the Moving STEM Forward program next school year. WCS Chief Academics Officer David Hoffert and instructional coach Nicki Baird explained what was planned.
Hoffert said, “Last spring was the first time we talked with Brad and OrthoWorx a little more on what we could do. And we knew there were a couple of themes that were sitting out there in front of us. ... The question before us was how do we incorporate STEM education into all of our elementary schools.”
WCS took a look at some theme schools this past year. It saw what was going on at Washington STEM Academy, Hoffert said, and wanted to know how it could incorporate project-based learning.
“The next question we had was, ‘How do we create a K-12 STEM curriculum without having any gaps or grade-level gaps?’ This is something that we want to be very careful with, very intentional with as we move up the ladder,” Hoffert said.
Warsaw Community High School already has a very strong Project Lead The Way with the biomedical industry, he said. And Washington STEM is doing some “amazing things with project-based learning,” he added, as well as at other pockets throughout the district. However, there are gaps.
Last spring, Hoffert said, “We had all of our elementary principals in and we had a really frank conversation on what the elementary science curriculum looked like. And to be honest with you, we have a long way to go, we really do.”
After the conversation with the principals, Hoffert said a small group gathered together, including Baird, STEM coach Ben Barkey and WCS instructional coach Christine Bonifield. They began to put down on paper what they saw and heard from principals and teachers what next steps were needed for STEM education in WCS.
The first is to create a or make a connection with a local STEM advisor.
“We know that the orthopedic industry is changing on a daily basis. And it’s a huge challenge to prepare students for jobs that haven’t even be created yet,” Baird said. “So we need someone who is on the forefront and has that vision for what those jobs may look like and what technology students need to be exposed to now to make those jobs accessible in the future.”
The second thing WCS needs to do, she said, is to create a “K-12 Vertical Strand of STEM.” It’s a huge challenge to align curriculum, resources and WCS’s vision going forward. Knowing that help was needed and they want to work with the best, she said they found that Smithsonian Institute was it.
“They hold a week-long intensive road mapping during the summer. So we’d like to take a team that’s not just educators. It’s teachers, community members, administrators and the STEM advisor I just told you about,” she said.
Third, she said they need to train teachers because “big changes happen in the classroom.” She said they want to take one primary and one intermediate teacher at every elementary school and train them exclusively on acquiring project-based learning strategies. They will use their skills not only in the classroom, but also to help WCS develop a strong curriculum in STEM.
Hoffert said during their investigation, they kept coming across the idea of a mobile learning laboratory. Ethos, a science resource center in Elkhart, uses a bus. He said they realized it was an incredible learning facility, but it didn’t meet all the needs of WCS students.
He said they started dreaming about what they wanted on their bus, and asked teachers and principals what a WCS mobile learning lab should have on it.
“We’re still in that developmental stage. But we really broke it down into three areas that we wanted to see on this bus. Three things that we wanted this bus to do,” Hoffert said.
Those three things was a state-of-the-art mobile laboratory to impact teacher professional learning and to impact student learning and provide a visual commitment from both the community and school system to STEM education.
“We realize there’s a good deal of work that is going to go forward in this, this next year,” Hoffert stated. “We want to make sure that we are not in a hurry to spend these dollars. We want to make sure we spend it correctly and we spend it wisely. We want to make sure we’re doing something different from any other school corporation out there. And we want to make sure we provide an opportunity truly for all of our students.”
Board members Curt Hermann, Randy Polston and Matt Dick praised the orthopedic companies for their investments in the school corporation and taking an interest in the students.
In a press release from WCS, Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz stated, “The system’s partnership with OrthoWorx provides unique and progressive opportunities to educate our students for their future and we are pleased to do our part to train future workers for the orthopedic industry.”[[In-content Ad]]
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092