You’ve Got the POWARR! An Integrated Approach to Literacy and STEM

Location

Seguin

Focused Area

Youth-At-Risk in Urban Settings

Relevance to Focused Area

This proposal relates to Urban Settings Focused Area, because the strategy being featured in the presentation has been implemented many times with students in an urban school setting. In fact, this teaching strategy was created specifically with the intent to help students in urban settings learn to become better writers in their STEM courses.

Primary Strand

Academic Achievement & School Leadership

Relevance to Primary Strand

This proposal relates the selected primary strand in that it features a teaching method that allows students to be more successful in the core academic areas. Although STEM is mentioned, the strategy could be used in any content area.

Brief Program Description

In this highly engaging session, participants will learn to use the POWARR Method© to encourage increased use of literacy in STEM courses. The POWARR Method© is a collaborative approach to writing, which requires students to evaluate their work through questioning and justification and can be implemented manually or electronically.

Summary

When challenged with inquiry-, problem-, or performance-based learning tasks, many students have trouble organizing the information gathered from research and data collected from experiments, in order to properly analyze and communicate the results of their learning. The POWARR method ® was designed to assist students with organizing and communicating information gathered from research-based and hands-on learning experiences. The POWARR method ® is a collaborative approach to writing, which requires students to not only evaluate their own work, but also the work of their classmates, by requiring students to question each other and provide justifications for their contributions. Given sample data, participants will practice using this method and produce exemplars that can be used to model the POWARR method ® with their own students. In this highly engaging session, participants will learn to apply the POWARR method ® to any STEM lesson and how to use it to encourage increased use of literacy in their STEM courses.

Evidence

The teaching strategy described in this proposal has been field-tested in both public school classrooms and summer STEM programs. The strategy has been adapted for students of varying levels of academic performance and has been adapted for use in traditional classrooms, as well as those in which students have electronic devices.

Format

Individual Presentation

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Marquita S. Blades is a professional educator with 16 years of experience as a high school science teacher and manager of national STEM programs for high-achieving high school students. During her time working with public school districts, she also served as a curriculum & assessment developer, and professional learning facilitator. Dr. Blades earned a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies in Broad Field Science from Georgia State University, a Master of Science in Technical and Professional Communication from Southern Polytechnic State University, and a Doctor of Education in Instructional Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Blades is currently a full-time educational consultant and the founder of The Mediocre Teacher Project. Her consulting firm offers prescriptive solutions to learning institutions and individuals by offering professional development programs, curriculum and assessment development, and conference development and programming services. She is also the host of The Dr. Marquita Blades Show, an internet radio show that explores current issues in education. When she is not working, Dr. Blades enjoys reading, cooking, and traveling with her husband.

Start Date

10-27-2017 12:30 PM

End Date

10-27-2017 1:45 PM

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Oct 27th, 12:30 PM Oct 27th, 1:45 PM

You’ve Got the POWARR! An Integrated Approach to Literacy and STEM

Seguin

In this highly engaging session, participants will learn to use the POWARR Method© to encourage increased use of literacy in STEM courses. The POWARR Method© is a collaborative approach to writing, which requires students to evaluate their work through questioning and justification and can be implemented manually or electronically.