CWU Teach STEM students find inspiration, motivation in project-based learning

As part of Central Washington University’s celebrated Teach STEM program, students are often afforded opportunities to observe a wide variety of contemporary classrooms, in order to help them shape their own visions of what their future classrooms might look like.

Through the STP 406 capstone class for Teach STEM majors, a group of aspiring teachers took a trip to the West Valley Innovation Center (WVIC) in Yakima last quarter, at the invitation of an alumna.

“We focus on project-based learning, so we provide opportunities for our students to experience and get excited by what that can look like at an actual school,” said Science and Mathematics Education Department Chair Alyson Rogan-Klyve, who led the trip. “Fortuitously, this year Kendra Bourne reached out to us to invite us to the WVIC, where they’ve worked really hard to bring project-based learning to life.”

Bourne (’22), herself a Teach STEM graduate with a focus on physics, has spent the last three years working to deliver on a school-wide vision of project-based learning implementation. Now that the initiative is in full swing, she was excited to welcome a class of future teachers.

“We work hard to do a real application of project-based learning, so we were excited for them to come visit and see what that looks like in practice,” Bourne said of the February 27 event. “We got to show off what our rotations look like, as well as a typical day in the classroom.”

Project-based learning reimagines the role of the teacher, from a gatekeeper of information that must be memorized to a partner and source of learning as students work to complete projects designed around real world applications.

Teach STEM senior Cris Galvan Zamora thought he knew what he was in for at WVIC, having taken project-based classes in high school himself, but the outcome of the visit was not what he expected.

“I was extremely wrong, because at WVIC, they do cross-disciplinary kinds of projects, which is way different from what I had experienced,” Galvan Zamora said. “They really show their students how all of their subjects are connected to each other.”

At WVIC, students might approach a hands-on STEM project through a historical lens, exploring how modern tools such as saws and drills were developed even as they use them to build their projects. As part of the visit, Teach STEM senior Andrea Lancaster was amazed by the know-how of one health-oriented student, who hopes to pursue a career in medicine.

“All of her classes revolved around doing some kind of health science,” Lancaster said. “She knew all the nerves in the human body, and could tell you how a specific cadaver had passed away and what ailments had afflicted them when they were alive. She was in ninth grade, which was just so impressive to me.”

Both Galvan Zamora and Lancaster are student teaching this quarter, and both plan to implement what they’ve seen at WVIC into their own classrooms. Bourne hopes that the school’s example can help better prepare future teachers for the classrooms they expect to be leading someday.

“I think it really opens their eyes to what education can be,” she said. “It’s a lot of work to do the projects and keep the kids engaged, but once it’s built, it’s more valuable for the teacher and the student, and especially the relationship between the two.”

For Rogan-Klyve, being able to work with alumni to keep the Teach STEM curriculum relevant to modern classrooms and inspire students to keep innovating is at the core of what makes the program special.

“It’s so exciting and fulfilling to see Kendra take all her experience and education from CWU and bring it into her community to support young people and give them a future they might not otherwise have had,” she said. “To close that loop with our students, who then in turn get to see a possible future of their own is fantastic, and it helps us stay connected with our alumni in the process.”

Lancaster came away from the trip feeling more inspired than ever to make a difference in the lives of her future students.

“I just really hope that I can touch all of the students’ hearts and make sure that everyone who comes into my classroom leaves with the feeling that they are able to learn,” she said. “I hope to instill in them that failure isn’t the end of the road, but the beginning of learning.”