WA-STELLAR network continues statewide teacher development work

The Washington STEM Teachers Engaging in Leadership, Learning and Research (WA-STELLAR) program has been hard at work helping science, technology, engineering, and math teachers across the state find connection and collaboration with each other since its inception in 2022.

The second annual WA-STELLAR stakeholder summit was held August 16-17 at CWU, and the group is looking forward to an Equitable STEM pathways event on campus on October 25, inspired by feedback received at the summit.

The recent stakeholder summit focused on bringing in partner teachers, along with their school administrators, to help deepen districts’ understanding of the work being done by their teachers and their peers to move STEM education forward.

Emilie Hancock, an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education and WA-STELLAR Co-Principal Investigator, believes the statewide forum went a long way toward accomplishing those objectives.

“The goal of the institute is to bring together teachers, leaders, and administrators to work on problems of practice,” she said. “This year’s theme was project-based learning, and we got so much valuable insight into what that means to our partnered educators around the state.”

Project-based learning grounds classroom material in real-world scenarios. The August summit was a partnership with Pacific Education Institute (PEI), a nonprofit that focuses on advancing place-based learning as a way of helping partner teachers find ways to bring these projects into their communities. Their work helps students form connections with their surroundings in the process.

PEI Regional Associate Director Megan Rivard sat on a panel for the event, and she sees project- and place-based learning as essential in creating the kind of ground-level community engagement that quality educational programs demand.

“When kids first get into the classroom, they see their mom, dad, aunts, uncles, and other treasured adults as knowledge keepers, and as valuable sources of information,” Rivard said. “When we’re working with communities, those are the people you should bring into the classroom to help be educators, or bring students to visit at work and see what makes the community run. It’s impossible to make a ‘one size fits all’ approach to that, so our relational model is very important.”

Fifteen school districts were represented by partner teachers, principals, and administrators at the recent CWU event. Summit Valley School District Superintendent and Principal Kristina Allen said she was excited to see the degree to which WA-STELLAR supports the teachers in its network.

“What made me very happy to see was the amount of support our teachers are offered,” she said. “As they’re coming up with their projects and going through them with their students, they know that they’ve got a network to call on. We’re a very small school, so for any of my teachers, having the opportunity to discuss where we’re at and where we’re going goes a long way. Sometimes we’re able to do that with our neighboring districts, but to be able to join the conversation with other teachers in similar situations across the state is going to be a big help.”

The WA-STELLAR program is administrated by CWU and is funded by a six-year, $1.5 million Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship grant from the National Science Foundation. Master Teacher Fellows, the teachers who participate in the program, receive access to networking and professional development opportunities like the annual stakeholder summit and this month’s Equitable STEM pathways event, plus an annual stipend of $10,000.

The work is centered around diversifying and expanding upon common teaching practices in a culturally responsive way. Two years into the program, Rivard sees it doing just that.