FIRST and Obama's Innovation Strategy

[ebarker]

You have heard of the three 'r's.

We are talking about the three 'I's.

Last April Dr. Karan Watson gave the keynote speech on the Engineer of the Future 2.0 at Olin University, Dr. Woodie Flowers followed with his speech on educational reform, and then at FIRST Conferences our team presented on FIRSTsteps, which is based in part on work by Clay Shirky.

We talked a lot about institutional barriers, getting around them, coordinating responses to the 'institution'. Karan talked at length at institutional change.

The Three 'I's are:

a) initiate
b) implement
c) institutionalize

200,000 students, 85,000 volunteers, and about 18,000 teams of FIRST have accomplished (a) and (b)

We have to accomplish (c). It will have to become the policy (budget and direction) of the institution (local schools, boards, boe, state boe, etc) to support robotics and other STEM activities.

Having the government directly pay a stipend to mentors may open up a whole can of worms

The award gets paid to teachers, not mentors. Art pointed out a lot of interesting stuff but... I'd keep that stuff in the thread and out of a presentation. Pretty 'wonky' stuff and it isn't necessary in an executive presentation. There are a few slides that explains that in pictures in seconds.

Originally Posted by TNT101

The teachers at my school get extra pay for coaching sports.

It isn't a scientific study but my travels tell me that the 'institution' telegraphs the message to teachers that robotics isn't important because "we are not going to pay you to do this". "We will pay you to coach the ball kickers, the horn blowers, and the thespians, but not the robotics folks." The institutional message has to change.

I'm just wondering why our representative isn't part of this caucus.

Any Congressman can attend the briefings or join the caucus by contacting one of the co-chair offices list here They do not have to actually join the caucus but can if they like.

How about funding to mentors period?

At risk of kicking off a whole new debate I'll put forth what I think the model for robotics should be.

At our school things like the competitive marching band, football, and other stuff is paid for by booster organizations. The teachers receive stipends for their additional efforts. There are part time staffers that support some of these organizations that are paid for by booster, not the schools. Everyone else is an unpaid volunteer parent/mentor.

This model works well and have been around a long time and is likely to be unchanged and also likely to be cited as an example of how to run a program.

The robotics competition (using Dean's sports model) is a co-cirricular activitity that reinforces classroom learning. It is NOT an extra-cirricular activity IMHO. The distinction is important. The presentation to the institution is important. An army of institutional warriers have deemed the cirriculum to be the most important thing they have and our activity is co-cirricular reinforcement, not some little club spinning off into space.


Back to FIRSTsteps, coordination & collaboration.
Without getting into the Phd stuff on the flat space of social networking and policy wonking......

If we can craft an intelligent proposal for legislation and policy, and get 100+ mentors to undersign it and we give it to the caucus that will be a powerful statement. One of three things would then happen.

a) they accept it
b) they reject it
c) or worst of all - they send it out for study.

Calling all mentors !!!

Ed

PS - see Corky the Robot clean up the lake right here

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[rsisk]

If your or someone you know would like to present to a caucus member please email me for more information. The list of caucus members are below. You can present what ever you want but I would ask to do a presentation very similar to what we did. It is an executive level presentation that moves quickly and takes only about 15 minutes after introductions are done.

ebarker, do you have links to your executive level presentation? Would love to adapt it for our use if that is OK with you.

Thanks