PEI’s fiscal year ends on June 30th and the past 12 months have been big. For one thing, our staff has expanded to 20 part-time and full-time employees – a new record! Another first: the highest-ever percentage of workshop participants sent us documentation showing they’d implemented what they’d learned with their students.
It’s been an inspiring and busy twelve months. Here are a few highlights.
By the Numbers
1361 workshop participants (1,036 FieldSTEM, 325 Clime Time)
622 schools (426 FieldSTEM 196 Clime Time)
246 school districts served (136 FieldSTEM, 90 Clime Time)
36 counties
25 community partners
101,582 students potentially reached (73,565 FieldSTEM, 28,063 Clime Time)
Implementation and Broadening of Scope
It’s one thing to attend a workshop; the next step is using what you’ve learned with students. In the past year, two things were different.
For the first time, PEI facilitators experimented with broadening the scope of Solutions Oriented Learning Storylines (SOLS) workshops to include multiple storylines instead of focusing on just one. The SOLS Festival of Trees workshop explored a variety of storylines with a common thread of forest education. Of the 37 teachers who attended, an astonishing 70% implemented those storylines in their classrooms. A mid-May Phenomena-Based Teaching with SOLS workshop attracted 70 participants and had a waiting list longer than the workshop capacity.
“This FieldSTEM Educator Workshop was amazing. The learning experiences and interactions with these colleagues from all over Washington were incredible. Thank you for taking the time to really teach us about these field experiences and providing people who do them often to help build our confidence.”
— Workshop Participant
Feedback
As always, PEI collected post-workshop evaluations from educators. We will have a full analysis of the composite data later this year but for now, here is a sampling of what they told us:
“I appreciate the help and support. I truly implement every class I have taken. Thank you for your time, PEI!”
“This FieldSTEM Educator Workshop was amazing. The learning experiences and interactions with these colleagues from all over Washington were incredible. Thank you for taking the time to really teach us about these field experiences and providing people who do them often to help build our confidence.”
“Taking kids out of the classroom to learn can be intimidating as it may be a management nightmare. Being reminded of the power of outdoor learning gives me more initiative to do it!”
“I like how this course is specific to Washington. It had some great resources that were actually relevant to our area.”
Thanks to all participating educators, schools, districts and community partners for bringing the FieldSTEM model to life. This work doesn’t happen without you!