Siemens STEM Academy – Sunday with Lodge

This week, I have the incredible opportunity to participate in the Siemens STEM Academy, held at Discovery HQ in Silver Spring, MD.  This year, I am serving as a team leader, after having been an attendee (fellow) last year.  What a tremendous week of sharing with colleagues who are are all into advancing the cause of STEM education.  As a team leader, I am excited to share my skills and ideas with the group, and will post parts of my presentation to the blog later this week.

Right now, the group is hearing from Dr. Lodge McCammon, a pioneer in using music and video to stimulate and educate students.  This year’s group of 50 fellows, after some initial networking, are hearing about Lodge’s process for putting together his songs, which often require the recruitment of his mom and dad to perform musical parts.

But moving beyond the songs, Lodge seeks to have students symbolize the lyrics through movement, the “Kinesthetic Lecture”.  Today, the fellows learned new “moves” to share for Lodge’s “Mitosis” song.  Check out there lyrics here (you can also experience more of Lodge’s great songs there), and the kinesthetic moves below:

Lodge is also an expert in the “flipped” classroom model, where teachers produce videos of lessons and concepts, for students to watch and review at home.  In the presentation, Lodge shared anecdotes and ideas for implementing the flipped model.  Many of his ideas and resources can be found at his FIZZ site on the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.  Here’s a quick introduction by Lodge explaining the flipped concept:

I have worked with a number of teachers who are interested in the flipped model, and the flipped ideas have received much press through sites like Khan Academy.  Lodge has collected data on the success of the flipped model through middle school math teachers he works with,  including a comparison of a teacher-created video lesson versus Khan Academy.  I appreciate that Lodge stresses the need for teachers to produce their own videos, and continue to be identified as their students’ educational expert:

It’s critical that the teacher be the deliverer.

Teachers teaching cannot be outsourced and replaced.

Teachers matter now more than ever!  You can follow Lodge on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/fizz.education.  What a fantastic kick-off to the week. Looking forward to hearing about and sharing more classroom ideas.