Center for Innovation in STEM Education
The Center for Innovation in STEM Education (CISTEME) will be housed and co-located at the Science Museum of Virginia, coordinating our research and impact efforts in collaboration with their outstanding resources, staff and facilities.
Mission
Inspire all students to make sense of and contribute to the world in which they live through hands-on investigations and innovation in STEM.
Vision
Empower students, particularly those from underserved and underrepresented populations, and the teachers who serve them to engage in high impact trans-disciplinary STEM learning experiences and become aware of similarly aligned STEM college and career opportunities.
Goals
- Build capacity, knowledge and skills through innovative strategies needed to close the skills gap and prepare the STEM workforce of tomorrow both for college and career ready students and support an informed citizenry that will be making critical decisions on local and global issues in STEM.
- Cultivate teachers’ skills through effective models and strategies through “trans-disciplinary” STEM instructional materials and pedagogy informed by a cross-section of educational, corporate and foundation leaders.
- Build a vibrant network that includes educators, businesses, post-secondary institutes, non-profits and community leaders across Virginia to scale and share the learning.
- Infuse culturally relevant and sustainable educational pedagogies closely mapped to specific STEM content and examples for classroom application across the disciplines to support under-represented minority and historically marginalized student populations in STEM education.
- Contribute to the research base in culturally relevant STEM education through external research funding to deliver the goals and objectives for CISTEME.
Activities
- SOE facilitates STEM discussion with White House advisor
- SOE hosts summit to set STEM blueprint for the future
- SOE, Life Sciences awarded $447,000 NOAA grant
- Dr. Byers named to Virginia STEM Education Commission
- Dr. Byers, SOE grad interns help with FIRST Tech Challenge
- SOE awarded $375,000 VDOE grant
- Dr. Byers, VDOE STEM director lead effort to populate Go Open VA OER portal
- Learn more about the OER portal
- Dr. Jones' research on the the maker movement and its impact on K12 education and STEM
- Dr. Edmondson's collaboration with the VCU College of Engineering to bring the Rams Go Solar event to VCU
- Dr. Bae receives $1M grant to improve STEM learning
- Dr. Dabney's work on Impacts of STEM Experiences on Informal STEM Learning
- Dr. Mueller coordinates STEM in Sports day for RPS students
The VCU School of Education's Center for Innovation in STEM Education forges stronger collaborations and cross-pollination across VCU to secure research-based grants in STEM education. For example:
- Collaborating with VCU Life Sciences at the VCU Rice Rivers Center and the Center for Environmental Studies with our Bivalves as Ecosystems Sustaining Treasures (BEST) in Bay Watersheds NOAA BWET grant. (Read more)
- Collaborating with Virginia Tech, George Mason University, James Madison University, and the University of Virginia in our 4VA STEM grant: Development of a Blueprint for the Virginia STEM Ecosystem. (Read more)
- Collaborating with the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) for our K12 Curriculum Mapping Project in cooperation with the VCU OSE. (Read more)
- Collaborating with VDOE for our Aces Over ACSE: A Winning Combination for Advancing Computer Science Education in Virginia (AOAVA). (Read more)
The CISTEME also:
- Designs and delivers innovative STEM professional learning opportunities for in-service teachers via district partnerships with high needs schools in the surrounding vicinity of Richmond.
- Informs our efforts via an Advisory Council that consists of local, regional and national experts in STEM from across the continuum of formal and informal education, corporations and non-profit foundations.
- Serves as a broker of the latest research-informed STEM teaching and learning practices, supplementing our local reputation and prowess with national expertise to complement our own.
Questions?
- Al S. Byers, Ph.D.
- Interim Director
- (804) 628-2056
- byersas@vcu.edu