Kania Greer
Teacher education faculty create a makerspace for students
Prior to the recent opening of the Re-Creation Room, a makerspace in the College of Education (COE) on the Statesboro Campus of Georgia Southern University, faculty members from teacher preparation programs Ariel Cornett, Ph.D., Regina McCurdy, Ph.D., and Montana Smithey, Ph.D., were individually collecting materials such as empty milk cartons, paper towel rolls and fabric scraps and temporarily storing the materials in their homes, offices, and even trunks of their vehicles as they implemented their own makerspace activities for their education classes.
The faculty enlisted the help of Kania Greer, Ed.D., coordinator of the COE’s Center for STEM Education, and the makerspace quickly transformed from an idea to a reality. After upcycling old shelving, frames and materials she could find, Greer passionately took on the project and transformed a former computer lab on the third floor (room 3157) of the College of Education classroom building on the Statesboro Campus into a bright, fun makerspace that was fully operational by the start of the fall 2022 semester.
“It’s neat because a lot of people are aware of the maker movement in regards to DIY [do it yourself] such as crafting and home improvement,” explained Cornett. “The pandemic made this even more of a day-to-day reality as we were quarantined in our homes and learning more about how to enhance our living spaces. However, makerspaces have been learning settings in K-12 schools and higher education institutions for a while. The makerspace is distinct from DIY because it provides the opportunity for the creation of a physical artifact representing a concept. You are also taking part in the making with a community of fellow makers, and then, you are sharing that process and final artifact as the concluding stage of the learning process.”
A makerspace may come in many forms, but at its simplest, it includes recyclable materials along with tools that allow makers the opportunity to re-imagine, re-design and re-create projects. Often the goal is a shared learning experience with classmates while building community. The Re-Creation Room, or the “Re-C Room” for short, specializes in providing easily accessible items that could be collected in education settings for project creation.
“A makerspace environment allows us as teachers to utilize students’ existing skills and knowledge,” explained McCurdy. “If all students do is take notes and take tests, not all of their skills are being used or shown off. I like to use this type of environment as a way to help future teachers, by showing them different types of learning and also making sure that all students have access to a space like this.”
When it comes to utilizing maker activities in the classroom, the founding faculty and staff prove that any discipline can get involved. Cornett is a social studies teacher educator. McCurdy is a science teacher educator. Smithey is a math teacher educator, and Greer offers K-20 STEM programming and activities. All four of these individuals have already found the Re-C Room to be of great use for their classes and activities in the first weeks of the semester.
“Makerspaces provide active and high-level engagement,” said Smithey. “Often when it comes to math education, we see passive learners. However, when students can participate in a ‘making’ activity, something as simple as showing what they are learning about teaching math, the level of engagement is almost always 100%. So we are showing our preservice teachers the makerspace as a part of pedagogy, an instructional choice, regardless of the content area you are in.”
Thinking you might want to try out the space, or even donate some materials for the Re-C Room?
“We are hosting open maker days in the Re-C Room where we invite anyone to join us and create,” said Greer. “The next open maker day will be September 13 from 3:30 – 7 p.m., and the theme is Hispanic Heritage Month. We are co-hosting this event with the COE student group Educators of Color.”
Anyone interested in donating items to the Re-C Room can drop off materials to the COE Dean’s Offices, located in University Hall, suite 297 in Savannah or College of Education, suite 1100 in Statesboro.
To reserve the Re-C Room, complete the Statesboro ISRC Lab Request Form here:
Want to see what class is like in the Re-Creation Room? Check this out!
Center for STEM Education challenges Girl Scout camp goers to solve a mystery and think like engineers
This summer, the Georgia Southern University Center for STEM Education partnered with the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia to create a forensics investigation as well as engineering workshop that Scouts are completing at summer camp.
“The Case of the Stolen Eagle Egg” was designed by the Center’s Kania Greer, Ed.D., coordinator, and Mary Thaler, administrative assistant, to provide an interdisciplinary educational experience for the Girl Scouts while coming to Camp Lowe in Savannah, GA.
“This activity is complete with actual evidence from Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia employees and camp counselors,” said Greer. “We wanted to make this experience as exciting and real as possible to ensure the girls had fun while completing experiments, math equations, writing narratives, and learning how to deliver a data-driven theory.”
The Case has four potential suspects, evidence ranging from replica eagle feathers and talons, footprints, fingerprints, fibers and eye witnesses. The participating Girl Scouts will complete activities in paper chromatography, fingerprinting, crime scene documentation, fiber analysis and feather labs that will enhance their skills in deductive reasoning, the scientific process, collaborative investigation, and evidence evaluation.
Once they solve the case, each Girl Scout receives a “Special Agent” Girl Scout badge.
The Center also created an engineering workshop for the Scouts including activities in all three areas of the Junior Mechanical Engineering Girl Scout badge requirements including crane design, rubber band or balloon powered cars and paddle boats.
“Each activity requires the girls to think critically and creatively to design, create and build projects with simple, household materials,” said Thaler. “They will test their designs and compete against each other to determine which design is the most successful and then evaluate why that design had more success.”
Senior Elementary Education Major Christopher Harrelson is working with the Center this summer to provide support to the Girl Scouts specifically in the engineering workshop.
Interested in partnering with the Center for STEM Education for your organization? Contact stem@georgiasouthern.edu or call (912) 478-8650.
COE’s Greer awarded $15k grant for teacher development
Kania Greer, Ed.D., coordinator of the College of Education’s Center for STEM Education, is the principal investigator on a grant partnering with Evans County to assist 5th grade teachers with the classification of organisms through hands-on collections.
The project, totaling $15,000, was awarded from the FY22 Rural Education Innovation STEM/STEAM Grant from the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) which is a one-year, non-renewable grant used to start or supplement existing STEM/STEAM programs and activities that focus on community and industry partnerships with schools in rural counties within First District and Southwest Georgia RESA regions.
Greer is coordinating development experiences with the elementary science educators and Georgia Southern faculty experts focusing on vertebrates and invertebrate taxonomy, an area of need for the district’s science teaching practices.
Teachers participating in the program have began work with College of Science and Mathematics (COSM) faculty members Steve Vives, Ph.D., Michelle Cawthorn, Ph.D., Lissa Leege, Ph.D., and Kelly Cronin, Ph.D., to discuss plants, birds, fishes, vertebrates and invertebrates. Additionally, Stephanie Luiowski, curator of education at the Georgia Southern Museum, assisted with paleontology of vertebrates with the educators.
Greer will continue to work with the 5th grade teachers to hone their craft using claim-evidence-reasoning skills as well as developing curriculum and lesson plans that the educators can use moving forward from the program.
In the fall, the teachers will participate in internships at Georgia Southern Museum, Center for Wildlife Education, Botanic Gardens, and Herpetology Collection Center to enhance their curricular knowledge.
Georgia Southern receives $1.1M National Science Foundation grant to support development of regional mathematics, science teachers
Georgia Southern University’s College of Education (COE) and College of Science and Mathematics (COSM) have been awarded a five-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program grant with a total intended award amount of $1,199,206 to support dynamic preparation of secondary science and mathematics educators who will be teacher-leaders in high-needs schools.
The grant will focus on developing prospective secondary teachers, grades 6-12, who can integrate authentic, problem-based learning experiences into their science and mathematics classrooms using regional STEM contexts.
The state of Georgia continues to have a shortage of certified secondary mathematics and science teachers, with southeast Georgia reporting more than 200 high school mathematics and science openings over the past several academic years. Gregory Chamblee, Ph.D., principal investigator (PI) and COE professor of secondary mathematics education, explained that this grant provides an avenue to meet the growing needs of the University’s service area schools and Georgia schools in general.
“To meet these content and demographic needs, prospective secondary mathematics and science teachers must learn how to integrate various instructional models and resources in their classrooms,” he said. “Simultaneously, they must be able to assess how these strategies impact their students’ learning and communicate their work to their colleagues. They must develop their students’ critical and creative thinking skills.”
To achieve this, Chamblee and the grant team, composed of COE faculty Amanda (Glaze) Townley, Ph.D., and COSM faculty Gwendolyn Carroll, Ph.D., and Tuyin An, Ph.D., will recruit science and mathematics majors at Georgia Southern, who may not have previously considered a career in teaching, to experience enriched secondary education preparation in sync with their content area.
The NSF-funded program will provide scholarship support to students to earn dual undergraduate degrees in biology, chemistry, mathematics or physics and secondary education. A five-year academic plan has been tailored for students who wish to complete both degrees, including summer internships with the Skidaway Island Marine Extension and community education experiences with the COE’s Center for STEM Education and the University Botanic Garden. Students participating in the program will also have seminar courses during the final three years of their program that will be co-taught by COE and COSM faculty for teaching support in content and methodology.
The program will provide academic funding of $12,500 per year for the final three years of the academic program, which include a yearlong teaching placement, for 18 undergraduate scholars.
“During the yearlong teaching experience, students will be placed in a high-need regional school in Chatham or Evans County,” explained Chamblee. “These school districts are very interested in hosting and, ultimately, hiring the Noyce Scholars to provide opportunities to develop their teaching skills in high-need schools. This will provide our scholars both urban and rural school settings as they develop their teaching skills.”
Support of the program’s participants will continue into their induction years of teaching, with meetings and instructional coaching provided during their first year of teaching. A mentorship model will be developed to allow for graduates of the program in their second and third years of teaching to pair with first-year graduates as cohorts complete the program.
“In five years, 18 Georgia Southern Robert Noyce-funded scholars will become leaders in high-need school districts,” said Chamblee. “They will be well-versed in leading the use of locally-designed experiences to make positive changes in schools and student achievement across the state.”