Annually, we share our 10 most-read tales. Not surprisingly, lots of this 12 months’s Prime 10 targeted on revolutionary methods to have interaction college students, digital sources, and on-line and hybrid studying methods associated to post-pandemic instructing. This 12 months’s seventh most-read story focuses on a Hero Awards winner devoted to STEM training.
One among three eSN Ok-12 Hero Awards winners and nominated by Bluum, Kim Leblanc was chosen for the revolutionary STEM studying initiatives she champions in her district and for her college students.
Standard knowledge would say that economically deprived colleges throughout the nation would want to assume twice earlier than making a significant funding in know-how. Nonetheless, not all districts in that predicament have a know-how director like Kim Leblanc.
Calcasieu Parish Faculty Board is the fifth-largest college district in Louisiana, resting within the southwest a part of the state. In whole, the district serves 29,500 college students throughout 60 elementary, center, and excessive colleges. It’s a one hundred pc CEP district, which implies that each pupil is eligible free of charge lunch primarily based on the financial poverty information submitted to the federal authorities.
Nonetheless, Calcasieu Parish Faculty Board’s Chief Expertise Officer, Kim Leblanc, has developed a system for offering the kind of know-how in lecture rooms that one would solely count on in prosperous colleges.
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Meet the 2022 Ok-12 Hero Awards winners!
Behind Kim’s management, Calcasieu Parish carried out an intensive wants evaluation earlier than buying greater than $4.1 million in know-how and know-how skilled growth with federal funds below Title I and Title IV to implement the know-how throughout the current curriculum.
The funding included 400 3D printers and the skilled growth essential to advance STEAM (science, know-how, engineering, arts and arithmetic) training, most of which got here without charge to the district. It is also growing a STEM bus with enjoyable technological devices to boost pupil studying
“Expertise is repeatedly evolving, so we have to give all of our college students equal alternatives to succeed,” Kim stated. “We wished to supply them the applied sciences that enhanced their vital pondering, collaboration and creativity in order that they’ll compete each academically and within the trendy workforce.”
Calcasieu Parish’s Coaching Tech Heart, led by Kim, was already instrumental in introducing new know-how to its lecture rooms, together with robotics and a computing gadget for every pupil and instructor. Armed with a philosophy to “make it occur within the classroom,” Calcasieu Parish and Kim are dedicated to making ready its college students for STEAM careers, illustrated by its investments in pupil design competitions, summer season tech camps and the STEM bus. The scholars are already using the 3D printers in lecture rooms to unravel real-world challenges and develop 3D designing abilities inside tasks.
Laura Ascione is the Editorial Director at eSchool Media. She is a graduate of the College of Maryland’s prestigious Philip Merrill School of Journalism.
