By Karen Cheng (Columbia Engineering Outreach); original article can be found here.
The 2020 Cohort ofĀ COSMOS-NewLAW summer programĀ teacher participants presented at the annual National Science Foundation (NSF)Ā Research Experience and Mentoring (REM)Ā Virtual Meeting on Feb. 11-12th, 2021. At this annual meeting, REM grantees highlighted institutional work done to build upon the NSFās commitment to increase participation in STEM from individuals of underrepresented groups. During the two-day meeting, faculty, teachers, mentors, and students engaged in workshops, research presentations, and networking in an effort to build a greater community of STEM researchers and educators.
The teachers presented their work from this past summer’s Research Experience for Teachers (RET)/Research Experience and Mentoring (REM) program, jointly run by Columbia āsĀ School of Engineering and Applied Science, ColumbiaĀ Data Science Institute, and NYUĀ Tandon School of Engineering. They highlighted their experiences, takeaways, and outcomes from the RET/REM program. Out of the six awards for excellence in presentations given during the Virtual Meeting, three were awarded to COSMOS-NewLAW teachers: Brooke Williams (Arthur Tappan PS/MS46), Juditha Capa Damiao (Martin Van Buren High School), and Richard Foster (Parkside Preparatory Academy) for their outstanding presentations.Ā
āIām grateful for the experiences these past two summers to better understand what theĀ COSMOS wireless testbedĀ is and how it integrates with the Wireless Education Toolkit. It has provided me with knowledge that Iām now able to mentor non-COSMOS program teachers in my school and I can now show them how to operate theĀ Wireless Education ToolkitĀ and how to use it with their students,ā said Brooke Williams, who teachers math and science atĀ Arthur Tappan PS/MS46Ā in Harlem, where the COSMOS testbed is being deployed. Williams worked alongside other teachers in the 2020 Cohort to extend Wireless Education Toolkit lessons to accommodate for virtual and remote learning experiences, in light of the ongoing pandemic and its impact on K-12 learning.Ā
āIām now transitioning into teaching my students different things about network security and how it relates to math and functions. To have my students be able to see those connections and make those connections has been really rewarding for me,ā Williams added.
Juditha Capa Damiao and Richard Foster, both three-year veterans of the program, shared Williamsā sentiments on the meaningful impacts of the Wireless Education Toolkit on their studentsā learning as well as the professional development from participation in the program.Ā
Capa Damiao is both a math teacher and assistant principal atĀ Martin Van Buren High SchoolĀ in Queens, New York. She said, āBeing a part of the COSMOS-NewLAW program has really given me the opportunity to explore the aspect of making math alive in the classroom, beyond the traditional pencil and paper method of learning. We had the opportunity to find out how the Internet of Things nodes and the Wireless Education Toolkit work ourselves before we implement it with students.āĀ
As the teachers worked hard during the program to adapt the lessons for virtual learning, Capa Damiao noted the challenges and milestones achieved, āSince we were hit by the pandemic this last school year, we tackled the challenge of how we can implement these lessons with our students remotely through creating teacher guides, student guides, student worksheets and vocabulary support, and also video for teachers and students and for setting up the toolkit.ā The opportunity to adapt their STEM curriculum to coincide with real-world wireless technologies came right in time, as teachers nationwide sought professional resources for moving their teaching and learning online.
āThis program has been a tremendous help in my professional growth as a science teacher,ā commented Foster, a science teacher atĀ Parkside Preparatory AcademyĀ in Brooklyn, New York. He goes on to quantify the positive impact that these wireless lessons and activities have had on his studentsā learning and academic growth. āThe first two years using the Wireless Education Toolkit with students was remarkable. The toolkit was what captured their attention and excitement. There was increased interest and excitement in my science class when I used the Toolkit. More importantly, there was clear evidence that there was learning in my classroom. When I taught a particular lesson about Properties of Waves in 2017 (prior to me being involved with the COSMOS-NewLaw program), the number of students passing the class test on Properties of Waves was around 22%. In comparison, after using the Wireless Technology Toolkit with students on this science unit in 2018 (after the first year I became involved with the program), the number of students that passed the class test on Properties of Waves increased to 88%.āĀ
The COSMOS-NewLAW program will soon start recruiting teachers for the summer 2021 cohort. Details will be available in theĀ COSMOS,Ā Columbia Engineering Outreach, andĀ NYU K12 STEMĀ websites.
The program is co-organized by Karen Cheng (Columbia Engineering), Ben Esner, Panagiotis Skrimponis, Nikos Makris, and Virgilios Passas (NYU Tandon) along with ProfessorsĀ Thanasis KorakisĀ (NYU Tandon),Ā Zoran Kostic,Ā Harish Krishnaswamy, andĀ Gil ZussmanĀ (ColumbiaĀ Electrical EngineeringĀ andĀ Data Science Institute). The COSMOS RET/EFRI NewLAW REM program is supported in part by REM supplement to NSF award EFMA-1641100 (NewLAW EFRI), RET supplements to NSF award CNS-1827923 (PAWR COSMOS), and the Columbia Data Science Institute.
