SD Innovation Labs STEMx Conference

1. Aligning Education to Problem-Based Learning and Community
Annalies Corbin PhD., PAST Foundation
Dan Guericke, Mid Central Educational Cooperative

2. My work at SDIL focuses on
COMMUNITY VOICE
Knowledge Capture: Understanding You
PAST ethnographers use a set of methods that
identify issues, success, and constraints to help steer
policy and drive successful transformation.

3. Through the South Dakota Innovation
Lab (SDIL), STEM experts provide
professional development to rural and
Native American educators, regardless
of their geography or local resource
limitations. By combining school efforts
for efficiency and celebrating every
community's uniqueness, SDIL helps
schools create a 21st century
curriculum while embracing cultural
diversity.
South Dakota Innovation Lab

4. Who is South Dakota Innovation Lab?

5. Cultural
Strategy
Community-based
Relevance
Instructional
Strategy
Transdisciplinary
Problem Based Learning
Delivery
Systems
Projects, Cohort Planning,
Professional Learning Communities,
SD STARS, Common Core
Every School has an
Instructional Strategy, a
Cultural Strategy, and a
Delivery System.
SDIL promotes
What are our strategies?

6. What are the benefits of membership?
•Develop, promote, and utilize innovative, and replicable approaches grounded in
research to improve STEM education with measurable learning outcome
•Provide professional development opportunities to enhance teacher and learning
in STEM content areas
•Advance capacity of student critical thinking skills to address 21st century job
skills
•Create sustainable partnerships between K-12 education, post-secondary
institutions, businesses, and community organizations supporting innovative
STEM education
•Promote STEM literacy within high risk populations leading to more students
pursuing STEM education and careers through tailored learning pathways
•Demonstrate the relationship between school improvement initiatives and the
implementation of TPBL as a means of achieving greater student academic
success
A shared common vision ensures that all SDIL schools:

7. How do we make it happen?
• Share resources
• Participate in The Sanford PROMISE program with Sanford
Research
• Join weekly Virtual Brainstorm where teachers join the
statewide cohort bringing forth and solving problems together
• Work with PAST STEM Coordinators in
intensive All-day professional development at
regular intervals throughout the year
• Work with PAST STEM Coordinators when
they make school visits

8. Problems > Projects > Product
Designing Transdisciplinary Problem-Based Learning

10. STEM is simply good education
STEM: the main ascending axis in education that supports
knowledge, innovation, and student success.
STEM is a delivery system for education,
drawing on the strengths of scientific
methods and technology to help
students improve critical thinking and
problem-solving skills using a systems
approach.
STEM is a holistic or transdisciplinary
approach that weaves together all school
subjects in order to better understand a
relevant issue and develop solutions to
associated problems.
STEM is content, it is a delivery system, and
it is a transdisciplinary approach, making
STEM much larger than simply the sum of
its parts.
STEM is an acronym for Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Math.
However, STEM refers to far more
than these four content areas.
STEM is rooted in critical thinking and
problem-solving. It is a systematic
approach to learning that results in
multiple, creative solutions.

11. Initiatives, Strategies & Delivery

12. What does it look like in the classroom?
Engaging
Relevan
t
Transdisciplinar
y
Authentic
Rigorous
Replicable

13. The aspiration of
educators is to
deliver rigorous
and relevant
knowledge
through
engaging
methods or
pedagogy.

14. Using a TPBL
instructional
strategy embedded
in a cultural
relevance that
resonates with
community and
geography, students
undertake problems
that mean
something to
them.

15. SDIL teachers are
learning facilitators.
Students become
critical thinkers,
collaborative and self-
reliant problem-
solvers tackling real
world issues, through
a systems
approach.

16. TPBL projects link learning
to life and are holistic in
their design. Whether
building a home for
your community or a
better cow, or a
butterfly garden, these
projects prepare
students for navigating
the real world.

17. STEM TPBL projects
are readily aligned to
all educational
standards including
Common Core, Next
Gen Science, and
Oceti Sakowin.

18. STEM TPBL projects
promote authentic
audiences that instill
students with
confidence.

19. SDIL teachers, students
and community
partners are changing
the fundamental
nature of education in
South Dakota by
integrating STEM
literacy throughout all
learning.

20. Redefining the Rural Schoolhouse
By combining resources, celebrating community
uniqueness, and taking advantage of technology,
SDIL helps rural schools create a 21st century
curriculum that works for our children, in our home
towns.

21. How do we Know it Works?
20 Districts
Multi-School
Professional
Development
329 Teachers
On-site and Virtual
Support
6,705 Students
Locally Relevant
Problems that
Students can Solve
244 Convenings in 2012

22. How do we Know it Works?

23. How do we Know it Works?

24. How do we Know it Works?

25. How do we Know it Works?

26. How do we Know it Works?

27. What questions do you
have?

28. Thank you for joining us today, if you have
further questions or would like more
information, please contact us
Mid-Central Educational
Cooperative
Dan Guericke
Exec. Director
SDIL Exec. Director
PAST Foundation
Annalies Corbin, PhD
President & CEO
SDIL Board of Directors
Sanford Research
Jill Weimer, PhD
Associate Scientist
SDIL Board of Directors
www.sdinnovationlab.org
annalies@pastfoundation.org
Dan.guericke@k12.sd.us