Pre-Service Teacher Institute Reveals Benefits of Using NASA to Teach STEM
2014-12-04
Johnson Space Center (JSC) completed its last round of the 2014 Pre-Service Institute (PSTI) this November. This activity enrolled 80 participants representing 11 states. After a series of online training with access to NASA personnel, pre-service teachers were invited to participate in a full week of face-to-face training.
Participant training involved enrichment activities such as designing experiments and planning lessons through the use of NASA Education resources on human space exploration to demonstrate the integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This training exchanged pre-service teacher’s knowledge, skills, and strategies for teaching in technical disciplines, and provided opportunities for educators to develop end products useful for the classroom.
“This experience has been an eye-opener about NASA research and all the components that go into it,” said Sarah Wagner, a student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “Before this experience, I felt it was just engineers, but this government agency is much more diverse and covered a lot more areas than I initially thought.”
Natasha Higgins, student at Huston-Tillotson University, agrees. “The impact this program has made is that it’s made me more receptive to change, to get out of my comfort zone, and opened my eyes as to how I can tie concepts together in my classroom.”
For some PSTI participants, the experience was also about lessons beyond the classroom through introductions to various JSC sites, presentations by NASA education specialists, and lectures by subject matter experts.
“Before I came here, I had a little knowledge about NASA because one of my siblings is a science whiz,” said Casandra Hervey, a student from Prairie View A&M University. “As far as the institution, I thought it was only about astronauts, but it’s much more than that. It’s about knowing beyond what we already know on Earth. It’s about going beyond this Earth. It’s about going beyond the moon, going beyond Mars.”
In this year’s PSTI, eight faculty members were able to join the experience with their students.
“I have been extremely excited about our involvement in this program,” said Dr. Loretta Walton Jaggers, professor at Grambling State University. “We have had excellent opportunities to apply and transfer very high level scientific concepts. We have had opportunities to be able to discuss and model these procedures so that we can utilize these types of experiences with our students in the PK-12 setting. It has also been a wonderful opportunity for collaborations with many of the NASA officials.”
“For my students, I’ve seen them grow.” Said David Campos, professor at the University of Incarnate Word. “They’ve gained a lot of information and knowledge about NASA just as I have. And they’ve gained this knowledge through being active participants. And the long-term effect also is that they’ve developed friendships with people from different cultures, different universities, and I think they’re going to be long-lasting.”
For Katie Crysup Sikes, adjunct professor at Texas A&M Corpus Christi and middle school science teacher at Seashore Middle Academy, the experience has been the best of both worlds.
“The best part about this experience is seeing the pre-service teachers explore, get excited, get engaged in hands-on science inquiry learning. They’ve gained new knowledge, they’ve gained great experiences and they’re going to go back to their college campuses and tell teachers we are now hungry, we want to be in this classroom. I’m honored to have been given the opportunity to join this, and I hope that this pre-service teacher workshop continues in the future and, we can get more and more teachers excited about all the opportunities that NASA has to offer.”
Participants are currently conducting post-experience outreach with presentations from NASA personnel. To see these efforts, visit social media sites using #PSTI2014. For more information on the Pre-Service Teacher Institute, visit http://education.jsc.nasa.gov/psti.
Nancy Garcia
NASA Johnson Space Center
Participant training involved enrichment activities such as designing experiments and planning lessons through the use of NASA Education resources on human space exploration to demonstrate the integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This training exchanged pre-service teacher’s knowledge, skills, and strategies for teaching in technical disciplines, and provided opportunities for educators to develop end products useful for the classroom.
“This experience has been an eye-opener about NASA research and all the components that go into it,” said Sarah Wagner, a student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “Before this experience, I felt it was just engineers, but this government agency is much more diverse and covered a lot more areas than I initially thought.”
Natasha Higgins, student at Huston-Tillotson University, agrees. “The impact this program has made is that it’s made me more receptive to change, to get out of my comfort zone, and opened my eyes as to how I can tie concepts together in my classroom.”
For some PSTI participants, the experience was also about lessons beyond the classroom through introductions to various JSC sites, presentations by NASA education specialists, and lectures by subject matter experts.
“Before I came here, I had a little knowledge about NASA because one of my siblings is a science whiz,” said Casandra Hervey, a student from Prairie View A&M University. “As far as the institution, I thought it was only about astronauts, but it’s much more than that. It’s about knowing beyond what we already know on Earth. It’s about going beyond this Earth. It’s about going beyond the moon, going beyond Mars.”
In this year’s PSTI, eight faculty members were able to join the experience with their students.
“I have been extremely excited about our involvement in this program,” said Dr. Loretta Walton Jaggers, professor at Grambling State University. “We have had excellent opportunities to apply and transfer very high level scientific concepts. We have had opportunities to be able to discuss and model these procedures so that we can utilize these types of experiences with our students in the PK-12 setting. It has also been a wonderful opportunity for collaborations with many of the NASA officials.”
“For my students, I’ve seen them grow.” Said David Campos, professor at the University of Incarnate Word. “They’ve gained a lot of information and knowledge about NASA just as I have. And they’ve gained this knowledge through being active participants. And the long-term effect also is that they’ve developed friendships with people from different cultures, different universities, and I think they’re going to be long-lasting.”
For Katie Crysup Sikes, adjunct professor at Texas A&M Corpus Christi and middle school science teacher at Seashore Middle Academy, the experience has been the best of both worlds.
“The best part about this experience is seeing the pre-service teachers explore, get excited, get engaged in hands-on science inquiry learning. They’ve gained new knowledge, they’ve gained great experiences and they’re going to go back to their college campuses and tell teachers we are now hungry, we want to be in this classroom. I’m honored to have been given the opportunity to join this, and I hope that this pre-service teacher workshop continues in the future and, we can get more and more teachers excited about all the opportunities that NASA has to offer.”
Participants are currently conducting post-experience outreach with presentations from NASA personnel. To see these efforts, visit social media sites using #PSTI2014. For more information on the Pre-Service Teacher Institute, visit http://education.jsc.nasa.gov/psti.
Nancy Garcia
NASA Johnson Space Center
PSTI students practice teaching skills at JSC’s DLN studio in front of a green screen. PHOTOGRAPHER: Lauren Harnett
Pre-Service Teacher Institute teachers test balloon or rubber band propelled engines on JSC lunar rock yard. Photo Date: October 20, 2014. Location: JSC Rock Yard. Photographer: Robert Markowitz
PSTI participants learn about new technologies at the JSC Engineering Sandbox. Image Credit: NASA/Joe DeMartin
Former PSTI participant T. Walker performs STEM experiments in the classroom. Image Credit: T. Walker