Champs as Prof.Dev. for Educators

[Carolyn_Grace]

I’m looking to have my district approve attending the FIRST World Championship as professional development in the future. This year I am required to use my personal time to do so (and I only get three of those a year: not a sustainable amount to attend and volunteer annually). I will not unethically use my sick days or call in sick to attend this event, so I believe that my best course of action is to attempt to show that this event is a professional development opportunity. In fact, the reason I became a teacher in the first place is because my passion for education was developed during my time as a FIRST mentor.

I have a few questions for educators and those leading conferences this year. Please keep in mind that I’m looking for solid suggestions and answers. So I’d appreciate if you have no area of experience here, that you not speculate.

Educators:
Are any of you attending the FIRST World Championship, without your team or students, as professional development for your school?
If yes, what did you have to do in order to have this approved by your employer?
What tips do you have for me, to start this process with my own employer?
If you do not have experience here, but also are an educator looking for this opportunity in the future, please let me know. I believe having more than one person work on this can be useful.

Conference leaders:
What materials / topics are you covering that may be applicable to a middle school or high school educator?
Will you have any resources / hand-outs that I could take home with me from this year’s championships, to use as educational development evidence in my district?
I’m an English teacher, looking to earn my Masters in Educational Technology. Conferences related to robot build/strategy probably are not useful in making my case, but what other skills / topics do you believe your conference covers that may be useful?

Thanks for your help.

[rsegrest]

Carolyn,

I think that this is a fantastic idea!! While I am not attending champs consider this correlation:

While the build/strategy aspects of the conferences may not seem to align our summer/winter conferences allow Lego to host workshops focused on learning and implementing the NXT/Mindstorms kits within our classrooms. We get CPEs for those, is there really any difference other than who is hosting the conference?

And I am interested in helping out on this even though I am not attending champs.

Edit:
BTW forgot to add, I am an educator as well

Edit II:
On the FIRST website they post the form below to fill out and get a copy of how they align with your state standards. Hope this helps.
http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/analysis-of-relevant-educational-standards-report

[sanddrag]

I am attending without a team as a professional development conference. I put it in just like I would any other conference request, and I gave them a copy of the Conference Schedule (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FIRST_Place/Workshops_and_Conferences/2015-FIRST-Championship-Confererences-Schedule.pdf) and Conference Abstracts (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FIRST_Place/Workshops_and_Conferences/2015-FIRST-Championship-Conferences-Abstracts.pdf).

Unfortunately, to be counted for salary advancement, the conference must be associated with an accredited university post-graduate program. Many other conferences I've attended are free or a minimal cost to attend, and then you may elect to purchase official units on a transcript. Most conferences I've attended offer between 1 and 3 semester units. A recent example is the UC Davis C-STEM conference I attended.

I'm hoping FIRST can find a university to set this up with for 2016 and beyond, to help our educators advance both professionally, and financially.

[Wetzel]

I'm not an English teacher, I am the district coordinator for Career and Technical Student Organizations, so my justification for travel is easy. It's even easier this year because 2914 earned a slot. For me, it's in my basic job description: support our FRC teams.

For PD, you need to be able to tie the talks back into the classroom. You know what your district is pushing as current initiatives, try to tailor to those initiatives. We have fairly new NAF Academies here in DC, and they are really big on industry partnerships. Building relationships with industry is part of the reason we will send teachers to professional conferences as PD. It's important for our teachers to stay relevant with current standards and the direction that industry is headed so our students will be prepared for the workforce. I'll certainly get to talk with industry in St Louis.


The Conference Abstracts are here, just in case you haven't seen them.
http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FIRST_Place/Workshops_and_Conferences/2015-FIRST-Championship-Conferences-Abstracts.pdf

[rsegrest]

I'm not an English teacher, I am the district coordinator for Career and Technical Student Organizations, so my justification for travel is easy.

Emphasis mine and this makes me happier than you know!! I am also under CTE and the STEM folks in my area tend to discount what we do because we do not restrict our team membership to the already identified STEM/AP kids.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Thanks for the links, especially the one to request information about aligning FIRST with standards. That was useful.

I knew about and have already viewed the abstracts. As a VC at the event, I won't have much time to actually attend any of the conferences this year, so I'm hoping some of the conference leaders can share their resources / handouts still.

[Mr. Tatorscout]

Conferences related to robot build/strategy probably are not useful in making my case, but what other skills / topics do you believe your conference covers that may be useful?

Thanks for your help.

Why would conferences related to strategy not be useful? As teams build a match strategy or a pick list, don't they have to follow a process of making a claim and using evidence to support their claim and form a reasoned argument for why a particular match strategy or pick alliance would be the most effective one? Don't they have to apply rhetorical skills when they are talking to other teams about why they want to use a particular match strategy? If you look at the common core standards and next gen science standards they have all kinds of references to collecting evidence to support claims.

Any conferences on how to prepare for judges would fit within common core with respect to written and spoken communication.

I don't know what grade you teach, but if you could collaborate with a science teacher who has Newton's laws in his/her curriculum this game is a phenomenal game for showing Newton's Laws and angular momentum. It should be renamed "DANG IT, NEWTON!!" You could be taking videos and pulling out clips of the the stacks as they fall, spew out of rotating robots, tip out of fast stopping robots, of the difference in stability between the tall stacks and the short stacks, the instability of containers on the different sized stack...the list is endless.

The following workshops look like they have potential for developing curriculum/lessons. The mentor discussion has potential for helping you develop your skills in the art of teaching. A great mentor has a lot of the same characteristics as a great teacher.


In 100 Words or Less: Tips for Writing Grants -

Leadership Boot Camp: Training Your Students in Key Leadership Skills

Big Bacon Theory of Image and Marketing

How To Be a Successful FRC Mentor

Good luck!

[Michelle692]

I am attending without a team as a professional development conference. I put it in just like I would any other conference request, and I gave them a copy of the Conference Schedule (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FIRST_Place/Workshops_and_Conferences/2015-FIRST-Championship-Confererences-Schedule.pdf) and Conference Abstracts (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FIRST_Place/Workshops_and_Conferences/2015-FIRST-Championship-Conferences-Abstracts.pdf).

I'm a teacher, and I did this last year - similarly, I just submitted it as I would any other conference request. When talking with my boss about it, I also explained that though the conference does not go on for all the days of champs, I'd spend the remaining time going around and talking to mentors/teachers from other teams, which is incredibly valuable, and something I never have time to do when I'm attending any events with my team, so it was worth it for me to have the chance to go by myself.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Unfortunately, to be counted for salary advancement, the conference must be associated with an accredited university post-graduate program. Many other conferences I've attended are free or a minimal cost to attend, and then you may elect to purchase official units on a transcript. Most conferences I've attended offer between 1 and 3 semester units. A recent example is the UC Davis C-STEM conference I attended.

I'm hoping FIRST can find a university to set this up with for 2016 and beyond, to help our educators advance both professionally, and financially.

This would be a great push for having robotics be recognized in school districts more prominently.

Does anyone have suggestions on universities that would be a good fit for this?

[Richard Wallace]

Does anyone have suggestions on universities that would be a good fit for this?Brandeis? Purdue? Georgia Tech? Kettering? Southern New Hampshire?

These are just the first few that come to mind as being already engaged with FIRST.