Putting Educational Innovations into Practice.

Western Regional Noyce Conference, Fresno, March 2014

Conference Title:

Challenging Ourselves in a Digital Age: How Blended Learning Principles and Practices Can Improve STEM Learning

Conference Focus:

Blended Learning

The Challenging Ourselves in a Digital Age mini-conference will focus on specific principles and practices of blended learning in STEM. Within this focus, Noyce Scholars/Teachers will engage in three different sessions demonstrating different principles and practices of blended learning in secondary education. Additionally, each Scholar/Teacher will participate in the Tech Challenge aspect of the conference. A Tech Challenge is a way for educators to focus on one specific concept, topic, lesson activity, or standard and challenge themselves to enhance their instruction through the integration of technology. Throughout the conference, there will be time set aside in each presentation and during breaks to work on your individual Tech Challenge. We will also be using Twitter to post and share our learning throughout the conference. Make sure to arrive on Friday night since we will have a STEM game night from 7-9pm in the hotel!

Tech Challenge:

The conference organizers are challenging you to focus on ways to enhance your instruction with technology. Pick ONE STEM concept, topic, lesson activity, or standard that your are interested in integrating with technology and bring this idea with you to the conference. Throughout the conference, you will have time to work on your Tech Challenge, both individually and collaboratively, and explore how you can integrate technology and improve student learning (e.g., student reasoning, collaboration, argumentation, etc.). The Tech Challenge is meant to be a creative, innovative, purposeful, collaborative, and fun way to dive into ONE STEM topic of your choice.

Twitter:

We will be using Twitter throughout the conference to share important conference information and our learning over the two days. Please sign up for a Twitter account if you don't already have one. Use this help page to get you started--make sure to read the entire page first before you start the sign-up process. Remember to save your username and password! http://support.twitter.com/articles/100990-signing-up-with-twitter.

Here are a few Twitter resources as well if you are interested: