College and Career Connections: Women in STEM, with Dr. Carolyn Colley, Science Instructional Facilitator

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Carolyn Colley, Science Instructional Facilitator at Sartori Elementary School in Renton, Washington. Dr. Colley shares insights and strategies for integrating more STEM education into the classroom, even if you are not a math or science teacher. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and her ideas are sure to get you thinking about how you can integrate STEM concepts into your daily teaching routine. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Dr. Carolyn Colley 0:00 I think different people would have different definitions of what high quality STEM education means, but at the very least, being able to feel confident that, hey, I have this question, I can go figure out an answer, and letting students have a little agency to empower them to solve these questions.

Rena Clark 0:14 The topic for today's podcast is College and Career Connections: Women in STEM, with Dr. Carolyn Colley, Science Instructional Facilitator. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org. Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I'm Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:14 I'm Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:41 And I'm Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 0:56 And we're here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Student 1:00 Education is our passport to the future.

Rena Clark 1:05 Our quote for today is one of the belief statements from our sponsor organization, AVID. They state, "We believe every student needs opportunity knowledge." So why don't you drop some knowledge on us, Paul and Winston, and respond to this quote.

Winston Benjamin 1:24 For me, it's one of my favorite things that I learned a few years ago: this phrase, "You don't know what you don't know." So sometimes it's easier to walk through the world acting as if you know, but sometimes it's just getting some new information, a verb or verbiage or some sort of information about career paths. I think it can help someone make better decisions. So the opportunity knowledge is an important thing. So sometimes we got to know more to do more.

Paul Beckermann 1:56 Yeah, because knowledge is power, in my mind. If you know what's behind the door, then you're more confident opening that door, because you know what greets you on the other side. And I think the same thing goes for teachers, too. It's one of the reasons we're doing this series of podcasts on college and career connections. The more options that we're familiar with as teachers, the more doors that we can show our students, and hopefully the more options that they'll have, too.

Rena Clark 2:21 Yeah, it's been a really fun series talking to all of our different guests. Today I'd like to welcome Dr. Carolyn Colley. Welcome.

So, Dr. Colley is currently the science instructional facilitator at Sartori Elementary School here in Renton, Washington. And through this role, she develops elementary science curriculum, facilitates teacher professional learning to better support student science learning, and making connections with their experiences about the ways our natural world works.

Prior to this position, she earned her PhD in curriculum and instruction, with a focus on elementary science education, and facilitated a lot of professional learning opportunities around ambitious science teaching practices, which we'll talk a little bit more about. But welcome again, Carolyn, and if you could just give, you can either add or tell us a little bit more about your background, but really, we want to know what really led you to become a science instructional facilitator?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 3:24 Yeah, sure. Thank you for having me. And my story starts out with me rebelling against ever wanting to be a teacher. I come from a family of chemists and engineers and science teachers and elementary teachers, and I witnessed the lives of the teachers of my family, and I was like, "No, not for me," and I could not escape my destiny, apparently.

So I actually started my university program as an architecture major, and then, luckily, they had a mentorship program, and so working with my mentor as a STEM career connection, that was really helpful, because I realized that the in-school architecture work I was doing was similar, but not exactly like what my life might be like as a professional. And I was like, "This may not be the best fit for me," and I was really glad to have that career mentorship.

I switched majors and ended up teaching elementary school, but still applying the creativity and problem solving and design work that I liked about architecture. It's just now it's more like learning architecture and curriculum design and things that.

I started my teaching career in Texas as a bilingual fourth grade teacher, and was in the classroom for several years, and I didn't realize how much other people were not teaching science. To me, it made perfect sense. I love science. Growing up, I had a great—my parents lovingly tortured me with lots of science opportunities outside of school. And having that experience, kids love science, and so I would make it fit throughout the day, and kind of invent these integrated things to help meet our ELA minutes, also working on science things.

I was like, "Wait, why aren't other people doing it? It's almost the easiest thing to teach, because you have the most buy-in from students, because they're into it, right?" And so that actually made me look for the district level instructional coaching position in the district I work for in Texas, and to just really get more information about what was not working, that teachers would just avoid it or not teach it, or barely open their materials, or whatever.

So I ended up there for a few years, and then looked at grad school, because I felt this was a bigger problem. So I ended up at the University of Washington, as Rena said, for my Master's and PhD. Part of the reason why I applied to UW was because of the very original version of ambitious science teaching that I found on their very first website, and it was mostly for secondary teachers.

And I was like, "Hey, this approach to phenomena based instruction"—this was before NGSS or right on the cusp of NGSS being released—"there's these practices, and this is what my instruction is missing." This phenomena base, getting kids into it and real-world connections, and not just making models and memorizing vocab, which I think at the time the Texas standards were really geared towards. But anyway, so this was it. So I'm up here. And then after my PhD, this job came available. And I was like, "It was a job made for me. This is great." So I've really been enjoying the last six years.

Winston Benjamin 6:32 That's awesome. I'm glad to hear a little bit more of your background, which I know a lot of, since we were students together at the UW while we were getting our PhDs together. So I feel I can ask you this question, and it is not going to be a reach, because I know that you've done extensive research in science and education. So can you explain the core principles of effective science teaching and how they can be applied in elementary classroom? You mentioned that the original work that the UW did was with secondary. What are some of the information that you've learned to apply and how can it be applied to elementary classrooms?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 7:12 I think it applies similarly. A big core of the ambitious science teaching practices hinges on creating a classroom learning culture that invites students to listen to each other and build and refine and revise ideas together and have these public models out, here's our tentative thinking, and this many of us agree with it, and this many of us think that that's probably not what's going on, but we're not sure what's going on.

So these were the tenants of the secondary work. And then in elementary, I was like, "It's almost easier because you're with the kids all day," and especially at the school I'm at right now, "Students as sense makers" is a central tenet. So I would say a core principle of science teaching is treating students as sense makers. But to be honest, at least at our school, that's a core tenet of all of our teaching. So it's really, in a way, it's easy, because students know what to expect, no matter what they're learning, is that we are creating this curiosity about our learning, wanting to go deeper, asking each other questions, or asking questions of a phenomena or of a resource, "Wait, does that sound right to you?" Just this questioning: "How did that get here? Why did it change?"

I also think curiosity is core, both students' curiosity and teachers' curiosity. So teachers who can get curious about student thinking, curious about—noticing how students are piecing things together and what their logic chain is, and, "Wait, if I gave you this much this bit of information that we had later in the unit, now what would that do to shape your thinking?" So just helping working with teachers to pay attention to the and noticing what students are coming up with.

So I'd say a core principle is creating this classroom learning community where students are accustomed to listening to each other, taking risks with ideas, and doing so in ways that grow and revise ideas together, because often those conversations surface, "Okay, we figured out this part, and this is actually what we need to figure out the next part," or, "Hey, can we get data on this?"

I wouldn't have thought this would happen. It was just one of those moments in a classroom. A kid hands me a sticky note—a third grader hands me a sticky note. I framed it. It's behind me. And it says, "We need data on sea ice thickness." And I was like, "I'm sorry. Wait, what just happened? An eight year old asked, what is happening right now?" And I think it was that curiosity in that building. And I'll talk a little bit later, I think, about my views on looking at data as an integrated practice and data science, and also that career connection plays in there too. But I don't think I would have gotten that question had we not had these years and structures of building this kind of a community together.

Paul Beckermann 9:51 As you're working with teachers, what are you seeing as some of the biggest challenges that they're facing when it comes to teaching STEM?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 9:58 So I think in my broader work, professional learning work I've done with other schools and regions and states, and even some to the degree here as well, but lots of teachers, especially elementary, may not have had a strong or interesting science learning experiences themselves, but yet they recognize they don't want to replicate how they experience science in school.

For me in third and fourth grade, I have these distinct memories of Round Robin reading our textbook to answer questions at the back of the chapter. But I knew that wasn't what science was because I had these home experiences with my parents. Or for engineering, it's this one and done, cookbook challenge that isn't really related to the world that the students are experiencing. So it feels kind of artificial.

I'd say one big challenge is helping teachers build a vision, especially elementary teachers, build a vision for what's possible with students, and then helping them kind of create their path from, "Here's how I'm facilitating instruction now," "Oh, that vignette, that video clip, that—that's where I want to be. How did that teacher get there?" and plotting out a course of things to try and incorporate in, and that this is an ongoing, multi-year journey, requires networking with other people, finding resources like podcasts and webinars and vignettes and books and video clips to just help kind of broaden a vision of what you want for your students, and kind of moving forward together.

Since NGSS came out, more and more cases and vignettes have been shared, and short videos. So through the ambitious science teaching website, they've got several, or this book that recently came out called Rise and Thrive with Science. It's Pre-K through fifth grade science and engineering, has some great vignettes and student transcripts and things just to kind of help call out ways to foster a community of learners and have them really digging into the science practices in three dimensional ways that also foster their identities too.

Paul Beckermann 12:01 So I'm curious, as you've worked with teachers, do you have any success stories of where you've worked with a teacher and kind of the light bulb went on and they really switched to a different way of teaching that was successful for them?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 12:14 Yeah, thinking about that, I was like, "Wait, three different stories came to mind." So I'll try not to tell all three. But the similarity is, they all started at a different place.

One teacher had a very the older school vision of what counts as science learning, "Oh, they know the words, they sound right," they had a lot of vocabulary. And then I would push this teacher, and I'm like, "Well, what does that really tell you about what they understand?" And so we kind of went down that path. And then she was like, after a couple weeks of working with her in her classroom, and she had this moment of, "Oh, so just because they use the word doesn't actually mean they know anything." I was like, "I mean, they know something, but is it the type of knowledge that we're wanting to aim for?"

Dr. Carolyn Colley 12:56 So that was kind of when the light bulb moment of when we're working on sense making, how to help also move the teacher into sense making with students, rather than it feeling like we're doing science to the students, or teaching at them rather than going with them.

I think when I'm coaching in my current position, I really like to position myself going alongside and joining in with the teacher and being curious with that teacher about what their students think about a given phenomena or unit of study. And then that kind of lays a foundation for what instructional practices we might work on together, and knowing that talk is such an important piece of talking and listening. We will be focusing on listening next year, to each other, to build on, and respond to, and not just wait for your turn. I think is really important.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 14:00 So I'd say one of the teachers that I worked with the longest, I've known her now for, I don't know, over 10 years, but she was one of the first teachers I worked with in grad school, moving out here, and she's told me before, she's like, "I changed how I'm a teacher because of you." And I'm like, "Okay, I won't take all the credit, because we did it together, right?"

But her just noticing when she was playing the "Guess What's In My Head" game, she asked a question, was expecting a specific answer and then hunting for it. And just working on shifting that to, "Well, what if you phrase the question like this? Let's see what happens." And so then I would be taking notes, which is one thing I do is take data on whether it's talk or something else, participation, and then we look at data together. And that was just something that really helped. With her, we started with questioning, whereas with another teacher, I might start a different place.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 15:02 So, but with discussions, for your listeners out there, if that's something they're working on, I do love this book. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Hands Down, Speak Out. It's K-5 with math and literacy examples, but I think it easily fits science examples too. And by creating this discourse community, it takes the teacher out of it, which is very freeing, because teachers, we have enough going on to try to facilitate and manage, and look at this and think about what our next step is, and are we really listening, or are we just moving forward? And it kind of gives us the space to really listen to what kids are talking about too. So that's one reason, and it has some mini lessons that I've worked with teachers on too. So I think that that's a nice support. What else?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 15:53 Oh, I did want to mention one more thing, that it's a success story, but in reverse, I don't know, in a way, it had broadened my practice as a teacher, this bi-directional impact.

So one of the things I try to do when I'm coaching is spend extra time in teachers' classrooms that isn't during the science block, because teachers have amazing routines and expectations that translate easily to science. They're not science specific, but they foster science learning.

One of which was this entry task routine this teacher had. I worked with that for math. There was a warm-up question, and kids would do their warm-up question, then turn and talk, and then the teacher would select a discussion leader, and they would go under the dot camera and put their strategy up, and then the class would come sit at the carpet, and they had this whole interactive discussion with their math. And I was like, "What if we did that for science?"

Dr. Carolyn Colley 16:30 Because it wasn't happening during science. I was like, "What if we had this prompt about, maybe we put a model up there for kids to critique, or maybe we put up two answers we heard in class yesterday, and had kids say which one they agree with and why?" And then that gave that teacher some confidence. "Oh, wait, I can teach science. This isn't some scary thing, or some activity thing, there is this deeper discussion to it." So I just wanted to share that success story of now that's part of my toolkit as an educator too. So it's this bi-directional influence.

Rena Clark 16:35 I love that. One thing that I know from personal experience and with my own children, that you do really well is you help involve community members in bringing STEM education to your school. So I'd love to hear more about that, and maybe if you could share some examples of some successful community partnerships that have really enhanced STEM learning in your building.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 17:00 Sure, and since you know, if somebody catch me, if I miss something, but I think not having lived in the Renton community—I live a bit north—so really trying to get to know the community and the assets that are here, and just keeping my ears open.

So if I listen to a podcast and someone's like, "Oh, I'm based out of Seattle," I'm like, "Are you now?" Or I hear a webinar, and they're like, "And I love speaking to young people about what I do," and I'm like, "Who is this person? Let me email you." So legitimately cold emailing is a tactic, and through that, I've gotten several guest speakers who keep coming back. I was like, "They are so generous with their time," but just trying to tap in and finding the people that are passionate about their work, whether they're grad students or retired or somewhere in between, that are willing to come out and share artifacts with their with students and show them the tools they use. And it's even better when they go with the units that they're learning about.

So in third grade, one of the guest speakers we've had now come out two years in a row, goes with our weather, climate unit. And one of the things students were doing were looking at tree rings as a time machine for storing weather and climate data, and analyzing tree ring samples. And this nature quantitative ecologist came and brought her tree samples. And so then the kids were like, "Wait, this is what this looks like in real life," and "It's not a photocopy. Let's look at the and Where was your tree from?" And it sparks all this conversation.

Rena Clark 18:25 So I'm actually going to make the connection right here, because Eileen Ettinger was actually our last guest.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 18:31 Oh, that's funny, because she—can I reveal that she is our guest speaker? The web of connections, yes, which is funny, because world I know. Well, it's only because her husband, I worked with him in the district, and he mentioned that his wife was in Papua, New Guinea. And I was like, "What is she doing there? Oh, doing some tree ring sample." I'm like, "Excuse me, what now? Does she like talking to children? Can I pull her into?" Anyway, so that she's lovely.

And then I've also had some AI programmers who I caught on a webinar, and they work remotely. So I was like, "Hey, would you mind zooming in and talking to our kids?" Because she was doing this data analysis for whale scientists, and our third graders had just studied whales and whale populations, and so even though she came to talk to fourth graders, the kids remembered that unit.

And then she also used her AI programming skills with her current project was on land cover. So the fourth graders were studying landslides and permeable versus impermeable land. And so she was speaking to how they were using satellite images and coding to help the scientists work on understanding the problem, so that the engineers could then take that data. And it was this great through line. And I was like, "You never know what. What's going to spark a kid." So I was like, "Something in there might have gotten one of our kids excited." You never know. Usually it's rave reviews, and their thank you notes have very cute things in them. But Rena, did you have...

Rena Clark 19:50 I just wanted you to talk a little bit about Power Hour.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 19:53 Oh, that wasn't something I was thinking about. But yes. And so one thing that started doing the first year that we opened was called Power Hour, and it's Promoting Outstanding Wellness Education for our Ravens, which is our mascot at our school, and it was for fifth graders. It is for fifth graders, and it's one hour a week for about—there's usually two courses a year, so it's two eight-hour courses, so about 16 hours a year. It's not super long, but it is something fifth graders love, and it's a preview of electives. So they look at the offerings, and they give their first, second, third choice.

So we put them in these classes, and they can learn different things. Rena has taught one before, like cardboard arcade, so looking at Kane's arcade and making their own design for a game that then other students in the community can come through and play at the end.

One of the ones I'm involved with now is called Scrappy Robots, which I happened to get started because I was at a friend's birthday party, and we got chatting, and it turns out his—one of his dreams was to get kids into robotics, but not with kits, just straight scrappy parts and taking apart broken things and making new things. And so now he's one of our volunteers that comes in and teaches this class with me.

Some other things we've done with that is 3D printing and the Cricut, the cutter 2D design cutting machines, getting kids to think about that. I will tell you, if they were not paying attention to measurement in math before, then they are very cognizant of it after when they've designed something and it prints. And they're like, "That was three," and I was like, "Three millimeters, because it's the small right now." Anyway.

Winston Benjamin 21:30 It seems you're on the cusp of a lot of where STEM is going: 3D printing, to the cutters. All these are the words that I'm like, "I don't know what the cutter is, but I'm going to go with it." Well, you know where we are, Winston, I'm down to complaining. Don't worry about it.

So the question that I have is, where do you see the future of STEM education, particularly at the elementary level? Where do you see that going?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 21:59 Okay, so I guess this answer, I'm open to changing my thinking. I'll say that. But my initial thought is always elementary teachers are often self-contained, meaning they teach all subjects. So if we can come at it with this centering students as sense makers, which is something that our network of schools really focuses on, then I think having this integration piece has a lot of—can get a lot of leverage out of it.

So we still be making discipline choices about how and when to integrate across subjects. But my own journey, for example, one thing at least in the future of our STEM education at my school—I don't know, it's hard for me to think so hugely globally—but I'm on our—we kind of started this journey this year about authentically integrating math and science a lot of time through data analysis, displays and measurement or map analysis, but borrowing routines that they use in math.

So using a slow reveal graph style to understand and slow down, "How are we looking at this graph, and what does it actually mean in the real world?" Or providing students with, "Here's this interview with a scientist who collected that data, or data it," right? So they can see the person behind the numbers, and they can see this person with their tool so they can understand, "Oh, this is how they got the number. Okay, so now we're going to look at the data," and then go, "Okay, so this is what the data is saying, and this is what the data is not saying." We cannot make this assumption, we cannot draw this conclusion, because the data just says this.

So really, the data literacy piece I see as kind of this nice, integrated, it requires reading and listening and speaking when you're learning about the career. It requires some mathematical thinking when you're looking at the data and finding relationships and thinking about, "Well, if this one thing changed, how might that change the data in the future?" And there's the science and computational thinking practice of, "Wait, so if this is the data about this place, what is actually behind the data causing this issue? And what are people trying to do to solve it?"

So I really see integration as key to getting more teachers to try things out in their science instruction, and using more engineering to solve problems or to critique existing designs, which I feel is kind of an easy way in where a teacher's like, "Oh, I don't have six weeks to design and iterate and test and retest." I'm like, "Cool. Do you have two days to have kids read about some different solutions to landslides and compare them? That's still engineering." It's not building the thing, and that would be an extra day or two we could add. But it's still looking at different ways that people are trying to solve these problems, and looking at advantages or disadvantages, or in that case, what data did they use to support their whether or not that solution would actually work? So that's kind of where I'm at right now, this data literacy piece. It doesn't mean I'll stay there and this integration bit. But yeah.

Paul Beckermann 25:02 So what if somebody's listening to this and they're getting fired up? They're like, "Yes, I'm totally sold on this. I want to do this," but they don't know where to start. What would you tell them? How do they get going with this?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 25:15 I'd say start small. I know that sounds weird, but it kind of depends on the kind of person you are, but if you have it, you're listening to this podcast, you're like, "Okay, I'm going to go try." Maybe it's trying a discussion. Maybe it's trying something closer to the practices that you're comfortable with in a different way.

So maybe it's putting up a video of some, if your second grade teacher, bees pollinating a flower. Put up some slow-motion video, let the kids notice, wonder, and then have them have kind of teach them this hands-down conversation. It's a dinner table conversation. You don't raise your hand at your dinner table, unless you are a family of teachers anyway, but you don't raise your hand, right? You have to wait for someone to let you in the conversation and then, or make a space for someone and invite someone else in.

So practicing this listening to and really adding on or responding to each other around something as simple as a video. Or you're out at recess and you notice worms in the dirt in this place, and then it becomes this thing of, "Well, are there worms everywhere under a playground? How could we find out?" And so just kind of opening up opportunities in small ways.

And then, honestly, careers are a great way in. So it's in most of the units, I try to find short videos of careers. Nova had a good series for a while, Secret Lives of Scientists and Engineers or something, right? And they have these little clips, and I do try to pick women, and often women of color, to showcase, just to kind of lift and have our kids see themselves in those positions.

It was funny because actually a third grader asked me yesterday if boys can be paleontologists, because it just so happened that all of the examples I had were women. And I was like, "Oh, absolutely. Wait, did we just change a paradigm?" Anyway, so it was great. And actually, I think I'm going to end up, a lot of second graders want to be entomologists, because we got some live insects that to go with a literacy unit, honestly, and now I'm building some science lessons to go partner with the literacy unit that we got. So yeah. So I just think that career thing too. And it could be, "What do you think of this career? Could this be something you're interested in?" So it doesn't have to be super big.

Paul Beckermann 27:30 Yeah, that's great. I love that wonder piece too, because you can incorporate that into almost anything.

Rena Clark 27:37 And I feel so much of what you're saying is alluding to this, this next question, so maybe you can just add on, and before I will, thank you. My own daughter has talked about girl power scientists, seeing herself as a scientist, never doubting it, which was definitely not something I had growing up. So I'm forever grateful just even for that personal connection for my own my own children.

And if our listeners, maybe you've kind of figured it out. Something Carolyn, you do so well, is all the phenomena you're talking about are really based locally. So you've talked about, we live Pacific Northwest in the Orca whale populations, and we do have landslides that you're talking about in our own playground. What's going on? So those type of experiences. But what are some ways beyond that, or maybe with that, that we really can ensure that all students, regardless of their background or their circumstances, have access to high quality STEM education?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 28:38 Yeah. I mean, I will say, normally I don't like to shout out having rules in place as a "yay, we have a rule for this." But I was thinking about that. And the first thing I thought of was actually having the requirement for 15 STEM clock hours to get your certificate. And I know sometimes not all STEM PD is created equal, but at least it creates if the teacher didn't already have this need. Maybe they teach social studies, and you're like, "I don't need STEM, blah, blah, blah." But maybe then they go to the STEM thing, and they're like, "Wait, no, I could. I could have kids collect data with their micro bits, and we could pretend we're penguin populations, and they talk to each other," and then it's like, "Oh, these pink..." Anyway. There's a whole lesson about that. But, so it's, so I do think having that requirement in place at least opens the door so that every student could possibly have something.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 29:32 It's a way in, and so it may not influence everyone, but having that communicates the importance that all K-12 students or teachers have some kind of STEM connection or a relationship.

I would say another thing that for teachers interested in that—and I hope all teachers are making sure all of their students have access to high quality STEM education—would be looking for cadres. OSPI ran a couple integration science integration cadres over the last two years that I found very useful in my thinking about how to shape connections between subject areas. I found the most successful units in our buildings have been ones that had the reading and writing unit in a slightly different but similar context, and then kids would be making connections between the science concepts and the ELA research they were doing. And then or just joining organizations, listening to podcasts this one and other ways, just to keep that keep the possibilities open.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 30:42 And for me, it's I'm always collecting information, and sometimes I don't use it. This year, it's just percolating. It's just sitting back there, and other times it comes in a flood. It's like, "Oh, I'm totally going to do that. Let's go."

So just and then using your critical eye, I will say not all STEM lessons. If it says it's STEM, and then it's a macaroni life cycle of a butterfly, I'm like, "Is that STEM, or is it a craft that might help a kid remember the names of the stages, but is that really our goal in what we're trying to achieve?" So just having that critical eye when looking at lessons online, and not necessarily going for something easy and cute, but thinking about, "Well, what would a kid really care about or be interested in doing?"

Dr. Carolyn Colley 31:37 So, I think, keeping students centered, looking for the problems and issues or experiences in your community. You might walk by this tree, I walk by the same tree every day when I enter my building, and I have noticed that it sprouts leaves and drops leaves more than twice a year. I want to take more data, because I was like, "What is with this tree? What is signaling it to drop leaves? Why is it so different than the other trees? Does this really matter to my life? No, other than I walk by it every morning, and I'm like, 'Why are you different?'" Anyway.

So just things getting kids to be curious. And the tree thing on our campus is interesting because I was like, "These trees are all the same, and they were all planted at the same time, but the ones closest to our building aren't as big and fluffy, for lack of a better word, as the trees down the row."

Dr. Carolyn Colley 32:27 I was like, "Is it because our buses park nearby, so it has more exhaust, and that's bad, or because it's the shade of our building, and it's not getting as much grow time?" Anyway. So just sparking that curiosity, I think, and being open to hearing what kids say, even if at first you think it's silly. It came from somewhere. They may be trying to get a laugh, but run with it. If the kid says something that's kind of silly and kids laugh, be like, "No, but what was at the root of what you're talking about? Because you have some idea there. What are you thinking?" And I just think kids like being heard. They like being listened to and taken seriously. And so I really think that's the first step, and then helping them kind of pursue those questions.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 32:55 I mean, I think what different people would have different definitions of what high quality STEM education means, but at the very least, being able to feel confident that, "Hey, I have this question, I can go figure out an answer. I can go research some things to get myself closer to understanding what's going on here, or to solving this problem I see in my community. What data do I need? Who do I need to ask? Who do I need to get permission from? What materials do I need?" All of those questions, and letting students have a little agency to empower them to solve these questions. So that's probably a slightly rambling answer.

Rena Clark 33:16 You can see, Paul, why I love having conversations with Carolyn. We're so excited. I love it.

Paul Beckermann 33:25 I love the enthusiasm. And so what we're going to do is we're going to take some of that enthusiasm and we're going to dump it into our toolkit.

Transition Music 33:32 Check it out, check it out. Check it out, check it out. What's in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? What's in the tool? What's in your toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 33:47 All right. Toolkit time. Winston, what do you have for your toolkit today?

Winston Benjamin 33:51 I'm going to throw the book Hands Down, Speak Out back into our conversation, because I really like the opportunity for teachers to take a step back and actually listen to students, as we were just mentioned a second ago. Listening to student voice is important, and that's the way you connect their learning to where they're trying to go. So I love it.

Rena Clark 34:10 And I've seen that work out. We did a whole series on that, and it works in kindergarten. So if kindergarten teachers can do it, y'all, we can do it. We can make it happen. I actually think another great tool resource can be the ambitious science teaching.org. They have all kinds of resources that you can get in and look at.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 34:33 And can I piggyback on that one?

Rena Clark 34:35 Go ahead.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 34:35 For a minute, that one has been newly revamped, so people that may have visited it last year, they should come back and visit again. There are some new tools uploaded. A colleague and I just did a series around boosting interactive read alouds by really "science-itizing" different genres, which, if that sounds interesting, you should check that out. So anyway.

Paul Beckermann 34:56 "Science-itizing." That's a new word.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 34:57 It's based on mathematizing read alouds, but it's finding the science within. There might be a fiction story, but there is actually science central to the storyline, right? So we have this idea of a collection of genres. If you're studying water, it doesn't have to just be nonfiction water.

Paul Beckermann 35:15 Needs to be on a T-shirt.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 35:16 I have a Cricut. My kids could make that for me.

Paul Beckermann 35:18 There you go. It's an authentic problem to solve. All right, my toolkit item is self promotion, I guess, for our podcast. We've got a couple really cool past episodes that you might want to check out if you're into STEM education. One is STEM Gems with Stephanie Espy, and another one is Reaching and Teaching Neurodivergent Learners in STEM with Dr. Jody Asbell Clark, a really interesting perspective on how that STEM can really help those neurodivergent learners. Carolyn, you kind of dropped something in the toolkit when we weren't looking, but now you get a formal chance. Anything you want to put in the toolkit—could be a strategy, could be an approach or mindset.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 36:05 To give people a challenge, a toolbox challenge: stop and look at something that you walk by every day and slow down and really look. A colleague of mine made us do this with mushrooms, and now I am very tuned in to where I'm seeing mushrooms. And if you're in the Pacific Northwest, you know they pop up everywhere because it rains all the time, and you're like, "But which kind and which shape and which orientation?" And then I went down this whole mycelium research thing. Anyway, it turns into a thing, but at the very least, just noticing, just practice and notice and wonder. "Why is it like that? Or why does this grow there?" and looking for those patterns in contrast. So I'd like to challenge on that.

Paul Beckermann 36:44 You would have liked to have been in my creative writing class, because that's what I told my creative writing kids: "Notice what nobody else notices."

Dr. Carolyn Colley 36:53 Welcome to integrated STEM. There it is. But did you know how amazing mycelium is? Oh my gosh, the networks and then the tree communication. I am now down so many rabbits.

Rena Clark 37:06 So what you're saying is the show where the fungi are going to take over our brains and turn us into zombies is possible.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 37:14 I do know there's some weird zombie—I mean, I shouldn't say weird, fascinating. There we go. We've training our second graders when they studied insects. It's not "Ooh icky," it's "How scientific." So I'd have all these second graders going, "How scientific." But yes, there's definitely some interesting zombie stuff with ants and fungus. Anyway.

Rena Clark 37:34 Yes, we digress.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 37:37 Me? Birdwalk? Never.

Winston Benjamin 37:40 Time for our one thing.

Transition Music 37:42 It's time for that one thing. Time for that one thing. It's that one thing.

Winston Benjamin 37:56 It's time for our segment in our show, where we ask, "What's our one thing?" What's the one thing that's still popping around in your mind that you're trying to walk away with and think about later? Rena, Paul, we'll start with Rena. What are you thinking?

Rena Clark 38:08 I just love this idea of building a vision of what is possible. We've talked about the architecture of design with some of our other guests. I remember talking about this a lot with what was a Catholic talker, but just this idea of building that vision, having that structure in mind, and knowing there's all kinds of possibilities. Paul,

Paul Beckermann 38:29 I'm going to say wonder. I just love that idea of getting kids to wonder and to question and to be curious. That can just lead learning in so many different, really great, authentic directions.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 38:45 And they're so good at it. If you've talked to any three year olds, "Why is the sky blue? Why is that cloud different? What is this for?" Kids are good.

Paul Beckermann 38:55 We have to make sure we don't stifle that before they get to the graduation.

Rena Clark 39:00 They're a lot better than adults often.

Winston Benjamin 39:03 One thing that I really liked is this idea of, going back to our quote from earlier about opportunity knowledge. I really appreciate the idea that non-STEM teachers need to go and do some connection and get some learning about STEM so that they can make connections for students. And as I think about it, what is a food desert? How do you define a food desert? And how does that impact communities that might not be as wealthy or not wealthy, right? So students can take a real-world experience and use math and science as well as ELA, humanities and history to really make sense of their world. Carolyn, I'm going to pass it back to you for what's what's on your mind? What's your last thing?

Dr. Carolyn Colley 39:48 What's on my mind? Oh, so many things all the time. Rena knows me. I'd say, I'm thinking, since it's the end of the year, and everything still feels rush, rush, rush, get things done, just holding that space to really listen. And see students, use their names and just listen to them and not shut them down. And sometimes that feels hard because we're so busy all the time and we feel we have to keep moving along. But all it takes is 30 seconds to be heard, and then the kids, "Okay, I'm with you," you know? So just holding that space.

Rena Clark 40:29 Well, thank you.

Winston Benjamin 40:30 Great one.

Rena Clark 40:31 Yeah, I'm so appreciative to talk to you. Well, I'm always appreciative to talk to you, because you always inspire me and get me pumped up and excited to go do STEM and change the world. Thanks so much, though, for being on our show and sharing that with our audience. I feel like you can hear it come through, just your passion and all the work that you're doing to support educators and children. And we appreciate you, and hopefully we inspire some of you out there to take your next steps and go forward as well. So thank you so much, Dr. Colley.

Dr. Carolyn Colley 41:07 Thank you all.

Rena Clark 41:07 Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 41:11 We invite you to visit us at AVID Open access.org where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 41:26 We'll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 41:30 And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 41:34 Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 41:35 You make a difference.