Please take our readership survey ...
We want to be sure INNOVATOR is reaching you in the most readable format and with the best possible content. Please let us know your preferences and what you think by taking our brief online survey. You'll be entered in a drawing for a $25 gift card for helping us improve. Just be sure to add your email address at the end of the survey to enter the drawing. We'll be selecting four winners.
|
|
|
School's success; student's success
Christy Debnam graduates next week from James Kenan High School in Duplin County, one of 31 traditional high schools across the state that have adopted innovative approaches during the last few years in partnership with NC New Schools.
 By Christy Debnam
James Kenan High School changed my life. It helped me become a successful leader, a stronger student and a better person. My Honors English IV teacher once said, "Make a difference." Like several of my teachers, she also showed us how - for ourselves, for our classmates and for our community. They gave us the tools we need to succeed. When I graduate next Monday, I know I'll feel proud of what I achieved and who I've become. More respectful, more opinionated, more outspoken and more confident. But I'll also feel proud for my school, which also changed and became a better place. My mother wanted me to go to Duplin Early College, which my older brother attended. She and I both knew it was a great school, but I wanted something different. I wanted to play sports, and I just didn't think early college would make a difference in my education. I have no regrets about my decision. After 9th grade, we returned to a school where it seemed everything had changed. Our principal, Mr. Holton, set a whole new tone for the school. I remember him telling us, "No matter what you did in middle school, you can start over here with a clean slate." Those words stuck with me and played a role every year I was in high school. He gave us new opportunities, like lunch-and-learns, to get involved in new things, to broaden our horizons and to grow. In class, our teachers started to emphasize more group work and more collaborative group work with other students. We had more discussion type work, and the teachers were lecturing less. I can remember one of my history classes, where instead of a whole lecture about the Holocaust, we were part of the lesson. We did more hands-on learning. The teacher was getting us engaged in ways that made the lesson stay with us. Read more ...
|
Early colleges show strong results
North Carolina's early colleges achieved a graduation rate of more than 97 percent in 2014, based on school-reported data from 59 of the schools with graduating cohorts this year.
 Of the 2,000 graduates of early college high schools, 1,183 of them -- 59 percent -- earned associate degrees or two years of transferrable credit, the schools reported.
|
|
Carnegie backs regional schools in NC
Some students travel more than an hour each way to attend the Northeast Regional School of Biotechnology and Agriscience in Plymouth, a unique regional high school that draws students from five largely rural  counties in the area. The school, which has just concluded its second year, gives students the opportunity to focus in science, technology, engineering and math fields, or STEM, while participating in hands-on research with working scientists at the Vernon G. James Research and Extension Center. The Carnegie Corporation of New York is providing $350,000 to NC New Schools to continue its work with the school and for the development of a new planned regional aviation-focused STEM charter school in Elizabeth City. The Northeast Academy for Aerospace and Advanced Technologies will demonstrate STEM education based upon connections to aviation-linked business as well as community colleges and universities. The Carnegie foundation helped support the initial development of the Northeast Regional School of Biotechnology and Agriscience with a $500,000 grant in 2012 to NC New Schools, a key partner with the state's first regional high school. Learn more about the school in this recent video. The additional funding from Carnegie Corporation for the biotechnology and agriscience school is being used to develop the school  into a model for professional development for study visits by educators from other schools in the region and state. The new grant will also be used to provide all staff members at the school with professional development in the effective use of personal digital learning devices for instruction. The grant is also aimed at positioning the regional schools as drivers of statewide policy change and to serve as models of effective instruction and innovative school design.
Tony Habit, president of NC New Schools, said that both schools are critical to the economic development of a region constrained by limited opportunities.
"These STEM schools will provide students with the opportunity to thrive in an increasingly competitive world," Habit said. "In every corner of North Carolina now, students need to be adept at problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and effective communications. STEM education gives students all those skills."
Read more ...
|
|
|
NC STEM online resource launched
North Carolina now has an innovative web site linking citizens to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education resources throughout the state and nation.
The web site, www.ncstemcenter.org, serves as a one-stop shop for resources, information and activities serving North Carolina.
The site is the creation of the NC STEM Learning Network, a project of the NC Science, Mathematics & Technology (SMT) Education Center. The project advances science, technology, engineering & mathematics (STEM) education in North Carolina.
"North Carolina is blessed with many educational resources, but few places allow the public to access those resources easily and effectively," said Sam Houston, president and CEO of the NC SMT Center. "With ncstemcenter.org, the public now has access to information on science camps, after school programs, funding resources and upcoming events all in one easy to navigate web site."
The www.ncstemcenter.org website provides a comprehensive, searchable database of hundreds of resources that advance science and mathematics education in North Carolina communities. These resources are catalogued by topic, location, group targeted, and other criteria.
In addition to the resource database, ncstemcenter.org includes other useful resources such as:
- calendar of upcoming events
- trends in STEM education in NC and beyond
- links to funding resources
- links to other national databases
The site will also serve as the home site for the NC STEM Learning Network.
|
|
|
|
Meet an Innovator
 | | John Heilmann |
John Heilmann gets excited talking about Bernoulli's principle and how to apply it. He can even sound cool talking about wing design and lift and how airplanes can fly. Maybe not the trendiest topic of teen conversation, but Heilmann's enthusiasm for his career brings engineering to life for high school students whose contact with physics is often confined to the classroom.
Heilmann spent much of his early career focusing on helicopter products at Cary-based LORD Corporation, a technology and manufacturing company that creates adhesives, coatings, motion management devices and sensing technologies. He is currently a global business manager in the oil and gas industry group working with products for drilling in 10,000 feet of water. The company's business is highly technical, but its mission aligns closely with that of NC New Schools: "to transform innovative ideas into long-term value for our customers, employees and shareholders."
During a Summer Institute session about school-industry partnerships and co-teaching, Heilmann served as an industry representative to talk about how high school lessons relate to real-world jobs.
"I looked over the list of math that students need to know and came up with at least a dozen real-world applications," Heilmann said. "The point of the session was to show teachers that industry partners can help make these lessons real. Sitting at that table with teachers, I quickly realized there's a lot of value in things I take for granted."
The following year, Heilmann connected with Laura King, a Wayne School of Engineering teacher who had completed a summer externship at LORD Corporation. She was looking for help teaching a unit on wing design and lift, and Heilmann saw that as a perfect opportunity. He spent a day teaching King's students the math behind the Bernoulli principle, how to apply it to wing design and how it works on everything from Frisbees to planes to race cars.
Getting to teach for a day gave Heilmann a chance to share his passion for engineering with students who were eager to ask questions of an expert in the field. He quickly saw how opportunities like this can really get students engaged.
"I was the kind of kid that naturally tore things apart, wanted to fix things," Heilmann said. "I gravitated toward engineering without needing people to help me get it. But I can't help wondering how many others would have done that too if they'd had someone to show them how what we were learning in school could lead to such interesting careers."
Read more ... |
Data Snapshot
A recently released analysis of U.S. 12th graders' performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows that less than 40 percent of students are prepared for entry level courses in math and reading.
|  | |
|
|
Bertie teacher honored
| Bruce Boller, who teaches science at Bertie Early College High School, is the 2014 winner of the NC Science, Mathematics and Technololgy Center's 9-16 teacher of the year award. The award recognizes North Carolina teachers who excel at improving STEM education in North Carolina.
Students in Boller's classroom are actively engaged in work that does not mimic biotechnology techniques and ideas, but rather create products that are useful in industry. Students are learning on the ground what it takes to produce products that are usable, learning the realities of biotechnology research and development as well as real world techniques and issues related to this work.
Boller has established a number of partnerships and projects at East Carolina University, NC State University and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.
Boller is a National Board Certified Teacher and recently earned his master's degree in science education from NC State University. |
|
|
|
Source: National Assessment Governing Board,