HP Catalyst Academy Fellows Grant

What excites you about participating in the pilot cohort of the HP Catalyst Academy Fellows program? While my Office of STEM Education Partnerships (OSEP) delivers professional development opportunities to over 300 teachers annually, this is still done primarily in a traditional, face-to-face modality. Thus, while we are pleased with our impact, we are still limited to serving teachers in the geographic area around our campus. The HP Catalyst Academy Fellows program is exciting because it provides an opportunity to expand our reach globally as well as to collaborate with other Fellows doing similar work. What STEMx teaching innovation(s) would you like to share with other teachers and faculty around the world? There are two innovations we would consider as top candidates for sharing. First, we have remote lab tools and materials and are in the process of adding two new online labs (an X-ray diffractometer and a water quality testing instrument) – see www.ilabcentral.org. Second, we currently have a growing suite of materials for grades 9-12 that focus on computational thinking across the STEM disciplines (see http://ct-stem.northwestern.edu/). Describe your experience to date with developing, delivering, facilitating, and/or participating in online learning: I have worked at the forefront of the e-learning and online learning fields for many years. I have worked with leading universities—including Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Columbia, and Northwestern—on the design, development, and deployment of innovative online professional masters and non-credit programs, undergraduate courses, and blended offerings. I advised Northwestern University on the design of their online professional masters and non-credit programs as well as online K-12 courses for gifted students offered by the Center for Talent Development. I am a member of the board of directors of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (www.inacol.org).