Onwards and upwards... integrating STEM ideas into an overloaded curriculum

Well it's been a while internet.... My life as a Teacher-librarian has been busy and contained not as much "librarianing" (yes, it is now a verb) as I'd hoped or thought it would. Or maybe it has. What is a Teacher-librarian in the digital economy anyway? Yes I deal with information, digital information, but my position has seen me spend countless hours in the "back-end" (so to speak) of websites and databases and hand holding... lots of hand holding of digitally shy colleagues trying to push their pedagogy forward into the 21st Century.

Musings aside, as that seems to be a luxury I don't have the time for at the moment, I am now on a new journey, or more aptly an extension of my previous TL journey, in STEM Education *tadah*

So now I'm going to use this platform to track my progress as a "STEM Catalyst" over the next two years. What's a STEM Catalyst? Basically it's an initiative run by the Victorian DET touted as...

A new Secondary STEM Catalysts program to build the capacity of 60 teachers across 30 secondary schools in disadvantaged areas to lead, encourage and support changes to teaching Years 7 and 8 maths and science, including digital technologies.

So, through Deakin Uni, a colleague and myself will be completing a Graduate certificate in STEM Education and be helping our school move into a more integrated approach to education... no pressure...

Final reflections on Inquiry Learning @ QUT

Looking back to my initial post for LCN616 Inquiry Learning I believe I have grown immeasurably throughout this subject. My conceptions of both inquiry and information literacy have developed over the last four months (actually it's hard to believe that only four months have passed as the amount of information I've digested is immense) to a point where I am now confident to engage in discussions with my colleagues about their curriculum and the scope for furthering the inquiries within their lessons.

I've particularly engaged with Kuhlthau's Information Search Process (ISP) and find it nearly impossible not to analyse what part of the ISP 'journey' myself and others are at within many contexts. Recently I delivered a presentation at a college staff meeting about the importance of website design and "the user journey" for our students. This was to help staff move forward with their online curriculum sites they are building with Google Sites. Before starting the presentation I displayed Kuhlthau's ISP (the fancy version I re-imaged in an earlier post) and congratulated the staff on moving through this process with their own learning around the Google Apps for Education suite. Whilst many are still grappling with the new platform they are finally moving out of the 'vague loop' (as I've call it) and are becoming focused. I feel that as teachers we often get overlooked when it comes to receiving praise for the acquisition of new skills, while we are constantly building up our students' efforts. 

Although this marks the end of my own inquiry learning journey in the Master of Ed. I am committed to continuing to push every learning activity as far as I can through the Transformative (GeSTE) window and to the peak of Bloom's Pyramid (create) towards a sense of accomplishment and increased self-awareness (Kuhlthau's ISP) for myself, my colleagues and my students. So until my next pedagogical or bibliographical musings dear reader... I bid you adieu.