Kelsey Magaña

Reflection #1 

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At first, I had a challenging time coming up with my S.M.A.R.T goals for my project because I had a lot of different things I wanted to accomplish this year as we started during the pandemic and distance learning. As science lead for my school, I prioritized checking in with my new admin and fellow staff members to offer support with science set-up. I shared district resources, looked at supply deliveries, and shared Mystery Science with our new teachers. I launched our new Earth Science unit from Amplify. I reached out to my Mentoring for Success students to ask if they would be interested in supporting science this year during distance learning. After hearing that my Mentoring for Success students were on-board, I began planning for what kind of supplies I wanted to distribute as part of S.T.E.A. M. Club. We started this club for both First Grade classes, then the club grew beyond First Grade when other interested students asked to join. 

 

What went well?

My principal Mr. Gause, and my grade level team member, Mr. Jeffries were very supportive of S.T.E.A.M. Club. I was able to go to school to pick up items from our new Amplify Earth Science unit to prepare. I gained permission from our fifth grade teacher, Ms. Roque to work with the two students I mentored last year, Vita and Taniyah. I checked in with our school social worker, Ms. Linette about whether or not Mentoring for Success would be happening at our school this year. When I heard the program was not happening for now, I was even more driven to keep in contact with my two mentees. They were also excited to work together and had lots of ideas! Their main goal was to make sure students could do fun projects with take-home supplies. 

 

As a follow up from my offer to support other classes with science, Ms. Tiitch , our new second grade teacher, reached out and asked for help making science journals to go along with their Amplify science unit for second grade. I made over 44 science journals from scratch by printing and holepunching folders before a school distribution day. 

 

For our First grade classes, I made take home kits with building supplies that went along with our Animal and Plant Defenses unit. I designed activities on Seesaw which correlated with this building challenge and incorporated resources from other teachers in SFUSD. 

 

Students were extremely excited and engaged during our building challenge. They worked synchronously during S.T.E.A.M. club and asynchronously through Seesaw. Student leaders from 5th grade did an excellent job visiting S.T.E.A.M. Club and supporting student learning in small groups using breakout rooms. 

 

Thanks to the SFUSD educators connect Facebook page, I was able to learn about Kits Cubed, an Oakland non-profit organization that was making take-home science kits for students during distance learning. 

 

I proposed buying these kits to my Wipro team, admin, student leaders, and Mr. Jeffries. We all agreed that it would be an awesome thing for students to have! When I looked at the price of the kits, I realized it would be too expensive to buy out of funding from Stanford if I wanted to have each student get a kit. So I started a Donors Choose project before Giving Tuesday. 

 

During Giving Tuesday, I was amazed by the outpouring of community support! I was able to raise over $800 for science kits thanks to Family Album’s matching donations. I was thrilled to order these kits, and potentially use Wirpo funds for something different. 

 

Challenges

 

With the word out on Donors Choose that I was hosting a S.T.E.A.M. Club, a parent of a former student reached out to me in support of my project. She shared that she thought her child and others may be interested to join as well. I asked my student leaders what they thought and they agreed that  opening S.T.E.A.M. Club to students from all grade levels sounded like a fun way to support science for our whole school community during distance learning. 

 

This created more challenges as we needed to do broader planning for the club. We began expanding our club right before winter break when I hosted the “animation room” to teach students from all grade levels how to make Thaumatropes. We discussed optical illusions. 

 

Since our Kits Cubed projects were only going to be purchased for First Grade, I had to start planning and thinking of other all-age activities we could do all together when students from other classes joined our club. 

 

This led to us looking toward our community partners such as Mission Science Workshop, Camp Edmo and Mystery Doug for inspiration. We attempted playing Minecraft and Among Us with the larger group, and made a decision to start expanding our club from 30 minutes to an hour as our club gained popularity. 

 

While the club’s growth was super exciting, it led to more planning time and a need for more resources. Our leader meetings needed more structure to maximize preparation time together. We also had not figured out a way to include our class pet guinea pigs. 

Aha Moments 

I did not expect for this project to extend beyond First Grade and to an hour long class every week. I was really surprised that so many students were eager to join on Fridays. I was also surprised at how quickly I was able to raise the money for supplies through Donors Choose. I was not surprised that my student leaders would be growing through this process, but I have been challenged with finding ways to support them as leaders. I realized that I can coach them like teachers and I started using Warm/Cool feedback with them after each S.T.E.A.M. Club session for us to reflect week to week. I am also pleasantly surprised at how engaged students are when they feel like they are the ones who have ownership over this club. 

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Questions 

As I reflect upon this part of the process, I remember having a lot of questions about whether or not the student leaders would be responsible and reliable week to week. It was challenging keeping in contact, especially when they had a lot of family challenges and responsibilities. I also remember wondering how long it would take to have supplies delivered from Donors Choose. For my initial supply distribution, I had to make a lot of deliveries and I struggled keeping everyone on track when they got supplies at different times. I wondered how I could connect our learning to community partners such as Mission Science Workshop and Camp EDMO. I wondered how to measure the leadership progress of student leaders. I knew that I would be gaining a student teacher in the winter and spring and I wondered how to involve her as well.