The participants were the first to partake in the program’s revised virtual, shortened development curriculum. The teachings were also streamlined to integrate storytelling, self-efficacy principles, contemplative practices, and race dialogue. The 28 participants also represented one of the program’s largest class.

With support from the Office of the President, Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (IDEI) launched the Leading Women@Tech program in 2016 to facilitate women’s professional development and academic and administrative leadership, and to build a community of leaders across the Institute who will advance a culture of inclusive excellence.

“One of the top five most valuable skills in demand in the country is leadership,” said Pearl Alexander, executive director of IDEI’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Engagement and the program’s principal director. “We’ve all seen the importance of good leadership capacity unfold over the past year of navigating unprecedented challenges. The curriculum was revised to provide emphasis on self-awareness, self-efficacy, and mindful leadership. These skills support all leaders in resiliency and effectiveness in the most difficult of times. The program will focus its efforts in 2021 on engaging the entire existing community in practice of mindful leadership, intercultural dialogue, and opportunities for mentoring.”

Guest facilitator Lani Peterson and Swami Jaya Devi Bhagavati, founder and spiritual director of Kashi Atlanta – a community yoga and service program center – led the participants through a morning of virtual experiences, including meditation and storytelling and listening exercises. Participant April Howze, director of Georgia Tech Research Institute Accounting, shared, “Because of this program, I am learning how self-efficacy works in tandem with my faith. I understand the importance of connection and that life is better in community. I’ve learned how to be more mindful; I now meditate and take daily purposeful pauses.”

Peterson, a psychotherapist, executive coach, and facilitator with expertise in storytelling as a leadership skill, guided the cohort through an exercise to practice this skill by sharing a personal leadership story that has inspired them throughout their program journey which began last September.

Participants reflected:

I am worthy; I am more than enough.

I am confident.

I am more connected.

I am confident in my voice; I will be heard.

I appreciate living in the moment.

“These reflections are powerful insights that demonstrate who the women have become and ways they will influence those around them to experience the workplace culture,” Alexander added. “We are fortunate to be able to offer this unique development opportunity for women who are already doing incredible work at Georgia Tech. As with prior cohorts, these are individuals whom we expect to continue to rise and distinguish themselves in roles at the Institute and beyond.”

The fifth cohort participants were: Meltem Alemdar, Rosa Arriaga, Yolonda Cameron, Christine Conwell, Linda Daniels, Malynda Dorsey, Caroline Dotts, Jamie Fernandes, Gina Gonzales, Erika Gravett, Joy Harris, Nasrin Hooshmand, April Howze, Susie Ivy, Daurette Joseph, Shelese Lane, Jennifer Leavey, Morgan McCombs, Sebnem Ozkan, Dori Pap, Etta Pittman, Jamie Ready, Anne Rogers, Chris Sanders, Olga Shemyakina, Iyonka Strawn-Valcy, Emily Takieddine, and Kate Williams.

For more information on the Leading Women@Tech program, visit www.diversity.gatech.edu/leadingwomenattech. 

Since October 2019, more than 5,700 students, faculty, staff, alumni, campus partners, and community leaders provided input via surveys, in-person meetings, workshops, informal sessions, and webinars. They shared varied perspectives, aspirations, and dreams to help shape the future of the Institute.

The steering committee worked in tandem with the visioning and collection process to analyze volumes of raw data and provide the building blocks for the Institute’s new mission, vision, and values, and strategic impact theme areas.

Members of the Georgia Tech community are encouraged to visit strategicplan.gatech.edu to review the draft of the foundational narrative, vision, theme and values and beliefs that will ultimately shape the strategic plan. There, you can submit feedback through March 20, and learn more about the process, the data collection and analysis methodology, and next steps.

Applying to a Working Group

Starting now in Phase two — goal setting— working groups will cluster around six strategic themes. Applications are currently being accepted for any who are interested in serving on one of six themed working groups.

The strategic themes are as follows:

1. Amplify Impact: Embrace our power as agents of change for the public good and concentrate our research and learning efforts on identifying and solving the most critical and complex problems of our time, locally and globally.
2. Champion Innovation: Champion our leadership position as an engine of innovation and entrepreneurship and collaborate with other public and private actors to create economic opportunity and position Atlanta and Georgia as examples of inclusive innovation.
3. Connect Globally: Strengthen our role as a hub of worldwide collaboration and build a global learning platform to expand our reach and amplify our impact.
4. Expand Access: Empower people of all backgrounds and stages of life to learn and contribute to technological and human progress.
5. Cultivate Well-Being: Strengthen our culture of wellbeing and create an environment of holistic learning where all members of our community can grow and learn to lead healthy, purposeful, impactful lives.
6. Lead by Example: Lead and inspire by example by creating a culture of deliberate innovation in our own practices and by being an example of agility, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.

The working groups will meet between March and May, and work to identify goals, objectives and measures of success necessary to bring those themes to life. The groups are expected to meet on a regular basis, with time commitments expected to be between four to six hours each week.

Interested working group applicants must complete the Institute Strategic Planning Working Group Application Form by Wednesday Feb. 26, 2020.

Questions can be sent to strategicplan@gatech.edu.

Excel at Georgia Tech was founded in 2014 by Professor Terry Blum, Tedd Munchak Chair in Entrepreneurship and faculty director for the Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship (ILE) in the Scheller College of Business. The four-year program is designed as an inclusive postsecondary educational (IPSE) program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Excel students are integrated into many aspects of the undergraduate student experience, and with the support of same-aged peer mentors, they strengthen their independent academic, social, fitness, and cooking skills. Upon completion of the program, students receive two separate certificates: Academic Enrichment, Social Fluency, and Career Exploration; and Social Growth, Leadership, and Career Development. Since inception, the program has been organizationally housed within the ILE, with curriculum and certification support provided by Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE).

The organizational move follows the recommendations of a small institutionalization task force convened by Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Rafael L. Bras in Spring 2019. The task force, chaired by Steven Girardot, associate vice provost for Undergraduate Education, spent several months assessing program objectives and meeting with campus stakeholders including faculty and staff from GTPE, the Scheller College of Business, Student Life and Campus Services, Enrollment Management, Undergraduate Education, CEISMC, and the College of Sciences, as well as members of the Excel Student Advisory Board.

“The task force affirmed that the Excel program is well-established and thriving,” said Bras. “The program is exceptional and has become a part of Georgia Tech’s fabric as an institution. This move to a centralized unit will allow us to best ensure its long-term security, sustainability, and success.”

Excel is one of nine IPSE programs in Georgia and represents one of more than 270 similar programs at colleges and universities across the United States. The first cohort of Excel students began in Fall 2015. As of the last academic term, 38 students were enrolled. In May 2019, seven students received certificates, representing the program’s inaugural graduates. Notably, the program has achieved 100% placement of graduates into employment opportunities, compared to an average of approximately 60% by other programs.

As CEISMC, under the leadership of Executive Director Lizanne DeStefano, takes programmatic and curricular elements of the program, GTPE will continue to contribute to the program’s business operations. While newly aligned organizational operations within CEISMC will commence immediately under a transition plan, a physical move will take place at a later date.

“The Scheller College of Business has been a wonderful home for Excel for the past five years,” said Ken Surdin, director of Excel. “The faculty, staff, and students of the College have been true champions of the program and its students. But the organizational move to CEISMC does present a great opportunity for the future of the program as we look forward.”

The challenge for Metro Atlanta middle and high school students is to design a technology-based solution to a problem in their home, school, or community. This year's theme is disaster preparedness and response. 25 student finalist teams accompanied by their teachers will showcase their solutions. A public viewing of the showcase will be held between 10:20 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

After the showcase and judging session, the winners will be announced at the awards ceremony. STEM Challenge winners will give brief presentations that provided an overview of their projects. Winners will receive a trophy, and first place winners will receive Micro:Bits microcontrollers to encourage further exploration in STEM.

The Honeywell STEM Challenge is a component of the STEM Teacher Leadership Program (STLP) at Georgia Tech sponsored by Honeywell. STLP is an innovative initiative in software engineering and computing training that provides advanced teaching techniques to middle and high school teachers. Teachers participate in an intensive 4-week summer professional development at Georgia Tech, focusing on computer science principles.

“This program has very much exceeded our expectations. The energy of the teachers and the creativity of the students is so impressive. It is fascinating to see the innovative solutions they pose to address society’s most pressing problems,” said Lizanne DeStefano, executive director of CEISMC.

The teachers are paired with a mentor from Honeywell to provide continued guidance and support throughout the school year. Select alumni teachers are invited back for additional professional development aimed at increasing the depth of Computer Science knowledge and preparing them to become CS certified. These alumni serve as mentor teachers for future STLP cohorts.

This year’s Honeywell STEM Challenge finalist projects include:

“The Kidnapper Bookbag” - Hollis Innovation Academy
“Sex Trafficking Belt Alert” - Booker T. Washington High
“Street Smart Walk Home” - Benjamin Mays High School
“Tackling Obesity with the Micro:Bit” - BEST Academy
“Fight Alert” - BEST Academy
“Trip Wire” - BEST Academy
“Neighborhood Connect” - BEST Academy
“Baby Bath Safety Tub” - Mundy’s Mill Middle School
“Find My Dog” - Mundy’s Mill Middle School
“Safe Walk Armband” - Mundy’s Mill Middle School
“Hearing Impaired Home Systems” - Lovejoy High School
“Survival Food Dispenser” - Smitha Middle School
“Smart Vest” - Smitha Middle School
“Food Protection” - Chamblee Charter High School
“F.A.S.T. Fire and Safety Technology” - Chamblee Charter High School
“Wind Speed Monitor” - Arabia Mountain High School
“The Disaster Tracker” - Arabia Mountain High School
“Safe Exit Light” - Tucker High School
“Disaster Communication Pendant” - Duluth Middle School
“Kidalert” - Duluth Middle School
“The Glowing Guide” - Duluth Middle School
“Pipeline Addition” - Sweetwater Middle School
“MicroBird: Air” - Trickum Middle School
“Micro:Bit Seed” Vault Defender - Trickum Middle School
“Survival Countdown” - Trickum Middle School

Amazon is teaming up with EarSketch, co-led by Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Professor Brian Magerko, and singer/songwriter Ciara for the latest phase of the Amazon Future Engineer program.

The company announced Nov. 20 that students across the country will be able to compete for prizes by using the EarSketch platform to remix a song from Ciara’s latest album, Beauty Marks.

EarSketch is an innovative educational platform created at the Georgia Institute of Technology by Magerko and Jason Freeman, the chair of the School of Music. It is designed to teach students to code in Python or JavaScript through music and creative discovery.

As part of the project, students nationwide will use computer science and coding techniques such as iteration, recursion, and user-defined functions to create a remix with samples from “SET,” one of Ciara’s new songs, as well as sounds from the EarSketch library.

“We are excited to support the innovative and unique work Georgia Tech and EarSketch are pioneering to give students across the country more access to computer science, coding, and music,” Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer, Amazon, said in a statement. “This competition will give thousands of students from underserved and underrepresented communities the opportunity to try something new and fun. It will build their confidence and, most importantly, encourage them to think creatively.”

Since launching in 2011, the free EarSketch platform has been used by more than 375,000 students in all 50 U.S. states and in more than 100 countries.

The National Science Foundation awarded a $3 million grant to the EarSketch team in 2014 and a further $2.1 million in 2018 to add an artificial intelligence-driven “co-creative” to the platform. The project also has receive funding from the Scott Hudgens Family Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Google Inc. Fund of Tides Foundation. It was highlighted by the White House in 2016 among its Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) national initiatives.

The idea of using nature’s examples to develop products and designs that benefit society is the cornerstone of a new project at Georgia Tech that aims to get more high school students interested in engineering.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $3 million effort will put high school engineering teachers in research labs at Georgia Tech for five weeks. The teachers will be embedded with engineers and scientists, working at the forefront of what’s called biologically inspired design, and creating a curriculum for the teachers to use in their classrooms.

“Lots of people think animals and what they do is insanely cool  — and the internet agrees — which means we can engage interest in engineering by making a link to biology as a way to solve engineering challenges,” said Marc Weissburg, project leader and professor in the School of Biological Sciences. “The act of trying to see how an animal might help find a solution to a problem is a very creative process. It challenges the notion that engineering is boring. High school engineering experiences vary widely, but they generally do not include the most cutting-edge topics, like bio-inspired design, which gets people really excited,” he said.

For the next four years, Weissburg will collaborate with researchers Meltem Alemdar, Michael Helms, Roxanne Moore and Michael Ryan at Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing. They’ll create and assess units for 10th, 11th and 12th graders that explore bio-inspired design in the context of problems that are relatable to teenagers.

In particular, the researchers see their approach as a way to reach girls, who may not have considered engineering as a potential career. Weissburg pointed to data from the Center for Digital Education that showed 24% of male high school students expressed interest in engineering. For young women, the number was just 11%.

“Too often, engineering is depicted as applied math and science, which completely neglects how human-centered engineering is,” said Weissburg, who also co-directs the Center for Biologically Inspired Design at Georgia Tech and is a Brook Byers Professor.

The project will generate a curriculum with design and build exercises, background materials for teachers, examples to spark discussion, tests, and other resources that can be used by teachers across the country. Researchers will examine how well the curriculum engages students, particularly those from groups underrepresented in engineering.

“States have different standards, and teacher goals and classes have to be responsive to their unique student audience,” Weissburg said. “Our series of resources, all of which will be online, will allow teachers to easily slot in material that fits for them. It will allow them to talk to us and each other about best practices.”

The research team has partnered with Gwinnett County Public Schools to identify the first group of teachers they’ll invite to participate. Weissburg said that will happen in late Spring 2020.

“Bio-inspired engineering is a unique way of thinking, and so we have to help the teachers understand how to encourage this in their students.”

Fourth-year computer science major Aditya Vishwanath and fourth-year industrial engineering major Amrutha Vasan have developed smartphone-based virtual reality (VR) video content based on Advanced Placement (AP) Biology course material.

The content was used for a recent study with students in Cobb County, Georgia, to determine the effectiveness of the new technology in the classroom.

"Seat belts, everyone!"

Nearly 350 high school and middle school students participated in the study, which was approved by Georgia Tech’s Institutional Review Board. The data-gathering portion of the study ended April 9. Although the analysis is not complete, initial results indicate that VR is likely to have positive educational outcomes for students.

“Along with almost a full letter-grade increase in factual knowledge over the control group, we’re seeing high increases in confidence levels, student engagement, and interest levels over the control group,” said Vishwanath who is mentored by Neha Kumar, assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.

For the study, the team worked with Georgia Tech’s Center for Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) and teachers from the Georgia Department of Education for more than a year to co-design and develop the VR video content based on the state of Georgia’s curriculum standards.

“We held design workshops with different groups of teachers, students, parents, and others from across the state with the goal of designing the curriculum using guidelines and recommendations they gave us,” said team leader Vishwanath.

The team collaborated with teachers to create scripts based on AP content, which were then storyboarded and animated for the videos.

"OK bus, do your stuff!"

Not unlike the 1990s children’s show, The Magic School Bus, the 360-degree VR videos take students “inside” of a cell for an up-close exploration. Once inside, a voiceover describes what students are seeing and how the different parts of the cell function. The series of VR videos cover topics including the mitochondria, lysosomes, DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis.

"This is a unique chance for students to experience a cell from the inside," said Kristy Younker, a science teacher at Kennesaw Mountain High School taking part in the study. "Because they are already so comfortable with their cellphones, this technology may help students engage more with the subject matter."

[PHOTOS: See all of the pictures from Kennesaw Mountain H.S.]

Students participating in the study were divided into two groups – one engaging with the 360-degree VR content, the other serving as a control group.

Following normal course instruction for all of the students, the study group – using inexpensive easy-to-use cardboard VR viewers – watched a corresponding VR video for 10-15 minutes each day at the end of class. Students in the control group were asked to read from a textbook that provided the same content, but in written form with images and other illustrations.

"If you keep asking questions, you'll keep getting answers"

“We wanted to demonstrate how affordable this is. The only other technology needed is an internet connection and a smartphone, which most of the students already have,” said Vishwanath.

“We don’t believe that this technology will replace traditional instruction, but we think it may reinforce learning and empower students to ask deeper, more meaningful questions.”

According to Viswanath, the study may be the largest field study of its kind.

“A lot of research has shown that VR has high learning outcomes. But most, if not all, of the current research has been done in the lab with expensive equipment, not in an actual school setting. Very little of what has been done in the past has involved common core subjects like biology,” he said.

The team will wrap up the data analysis in the coming months and then submit the results for peer review. The team is also starting up an entrepreneurial initiative to further explore the potential that VR could have for formal and informal learning in more global, underserved contexts.

Vishwanath is heading to Stanford University this fall to begin his Ph.D. in the Graduate School of Education’s Learning Sciences and Technology Design program. He is also a recent recipient of the prestigious Knight-Hennessy scholarship.

The STEM Teacher Leadership Program at Georgia Tech will create a professional network of teachers from metro Atlanta to serve as instructional leaders to strengthen students’ learning experience in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

The program, which was announced Wednesday, is a joint effort of the Institute and Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company’s corporate citizenship initiative.

Participating school districts include Atlanta Public Schools and the school systems of Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties.

Key components of the two-year program include:

• Four weeks of intensive summer training in software engineering and computing with 25 selected teachers. Teachers will have access to Georgia Tech’s computing research and Honeywell engineers, who will serve as mentors and coaches.
• The Honeywell STEM Challenge, a software engineering competition open to students of teachers who participate in the STEM Teacher Leadership Program. Students will work in teams to solve real-world challenges using software coding and computation techniques.
• An annual STEM Teacher Leadership Program Symposium, where alumni and other teachers and leaders from the metro Atlanta area can attend academic and networking activities at Georgia Tech.

The program will be facilitated by Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC).

“We’re pleased to continue our relationship with Honeywell as part of our vision to be among the most highly respected, technology-focused learning institutions in the world,” said Rafael L. Bras, Georgia Tech’s provost, executive vice president for academic affairs and K. Harrison Brown Family Chair. “Strong students start with strong foundations. Together with Honeywell’s support, Georgia Tech will be able to continue to place strategic emphasis on teachers as they prepare the next generation of STEM leaders.”

Beyond the new program, Honeywell and Georgia Tech already collaborate on job fairs, research projects and other academic opportunities and internships.

“The complexities of today’s connected world require young people to learn new computer science and software skills to solve tomorrow’s problems,” said Jamshed Patel, site leader for Honeywell’s Atlanta Software Center. “By offering new teaching techniques in these subject areas to metro Atlanta teachers, we hope to prepare students to join a workforce where success comes from the ability to logically think through a technical problem and find a way to solve it.”

Along with networked data transfer, memory-centric architectures, improving energy efficiency, and the path to exascale computing, one of the key topics of discussion this year is diversifying the HPC workforce.

Lorna Rivera is a research scientist at the Georgia Tech Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) and part of the Georgia Tech contingency at SC17 this week.

Because her work brings together scientific content, teaching, and equity, Rivera has been invited to participate in a number of panels and workshops on expanding diversity in the HPC community.

In a Q&A with the College of Computing just prior to SC17, Rivera provides advice for HPC leaders and explains why reaching diverse groups requires diverse strategies.

What are some tips for increasing the number of female/underrepresented minority (URM) applicants for HPC positions?

First, recruitment is key. You have to start early, not when a position is opening soon. Be sure to review all recruitment materials for inclusive language. There are lots of resources for how to do this. Some of my favorites are from NCWIT, as well as from the WISELI group.

Some other tactics that have been successful are providing opt-in training on unconscious bias for search committees, and offering incentives to employees for recommending or recruiting diverse candidates.

Once identified, pursue all qualified candidates (underrepresented or not) equally without making potentially detrimental assumptions about their interest level in your institution/organization because of their background.

A really useful idea is having candidates meet privately with an advocate that has no bearing on the search committee decision and that complies with Equal Employment Opportunity rules. This person should go over the organization’s policies and practices without inquiring about the applicant’s family/marital status etc. and answer any work-life related questions. This exchange must be entirely confidential and inaccessible to the search committee.

What are some challenges unique to reaching underrepresented applicants?

What’s unique about reaching female and URM applicants is that the challenges are often within the search committee, not coming from the applicants. This is largely due to a lack of sensitivity and awareness, as well as bias against various URM groups. It’s important to rethink criteria like “qualified” or “excellent.” These criteria should be objective and defined prior to the search. It’s when things are unclear from the beginning that we lean toward biased interpretations of what is “qualified” and what represents “excellence”, like an Ivy League graduate or someone who resembles the status quo in visual appearance, demographics, etc.

What are some emerging strategies and/or best practices for promoting diversity and growing diverse participation in HPC?

HPC lacks reliable population data due to its interdisciplinary nature. Unlike traditional science disciplines, it’s hard to put a label on and identify someone in HPC. Right now, lots of the focus within the broader community is on defining and measuring the population in order to generate a baseline for future study. While I too am interested in this and have conducted this type of evaluation for groups like SC, my work extends to identify those that are least well served and ask why in order to improve diversity and equity within a particular context.

Is there anything that Georgia Tech is doing that can be replicated within other institutions?

CEISMC Executive Director Lizanne DeStefano and I work together on many HPC evaluation projects. The findings from these evaluations are being utilized across HPC both domestically and internationally. Our work is quite varied from reducing selection bias in competitive HPC student programs to conducting organizational climate studies of large- and small-scale HPC projects to help improve retention of URM staff/faculty.

What advice do you have for HPC leaders working to build diverse teams?

If possible, partner with or hire someone with demonstrated success in the area to help implement strategies for your group/organization. Culture change takes commitment and is very difficult to achieve doing it as a side job. Proposal requests (RFPs) often include a broadening participation component, but many projects are not adequately prepared. The HPC world is lucky to have a resource like XSEDE that has a strong broadening participation program designed to serve the entire community through partnerships and direct programming.

Despite facing the greatest obstacles and receiving the least support of underrepresented groups, women of color are often overlooked when discussing diversification. How can companies fight against the current trend of taking a one-size-fits-all approach to advancing women and women of color?

As a Puerto Rican woman, this really resonates with me. There is definitely no good one-size-fits-all approach, and companies are likely to miss out on the benefits of diversity if they fail to acknowledge that reaching diverse groups requires diverse strategies.

Developing a strategic plan to address key target populations in a stepped approach is one way of tackling this problem. Groups should try to pilot evidence-based programs and activities with each target population in isolation, and then adapt their programs for other groups. All activities should be closely monitored in order to be responsive to any successes or slippage that may occur.

Documenting these outcomes for the community is also incredibly helpful. We are in the middle of doing this now with an international HPC student-training program. The planning committee wanted to increase the number of female participants in the competitive program, but they were not being rated highly. Our investigation found gender-based selection bias and we made recommendations for reducing it, including an overhaul of the application form in 2016. That year no evidence of gender-based selection bias was found.

Workplace diversity efforts are ongoing, but progress remains slow. How can we increase the urgency and speed up the pace of these initiatives?

Organizations like Georgia Tech are setting a good example by modeling and piloting initiatives so that others can adapt based on Tech's lessons learned and hopefully reap substantial benefits. I personally would not be able to attend SC this year if it weren’t for the childcare grant offered by the College of Sciences. Because I’m able to attend, I will be giving more than 10 presentations this week (some closed/proprietary) on evaluation findings in HPC projects – all of which have an equity and diversity component. Hopefully, this work will add a few drops in the bucket to addressing this massive challenge of moving forward on these much-needed programs.

From lasers to sunglasses, students were immersed into a series of exercises that prompted them to question how conventional optical devices operated. Microscopes zoomed into cell phones to show how three colors in a single pixel can fill our screens with the breadth of color that we see around us. IR signals from remote controls were visualized by cellphone cameras, holographic displays were created using phones as backlights, and underlying principles of polarization described how 3D glasses give us the third dimension we experience in theaters.

The workshop hosted over 200 K-12 students from the broader Atlanta area, reaching as far out as Roswell and Norcross. The "Day of Light" was one of a series of science outreach events held in Atlanta including the 5th Annual Latino College and STEM Fair and the Atlanta Day of Science.  CEISMC–the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing–organized the STEM fair, providing funding for school systems to attend from outside the metro Atlanta area and allowing for the workshop to have influenced a greater sphere of students, especially those from Hispanic and Latin American backgrounds.

Rodrigues, who submitted a proposal for the workshop and was awarded the grant by the Society of Optics and Photonics (SPIE), explained that "optics is a career field that is often overlooked by up and coming scientists, but is extremely prevalent in our day-to-day lives." He goes on to describe how a larger group of people who specialize in the field earlier on in their careers could promote faster advances in optical technologies from telecommunications in fiber optics to future display systems. Only a handful of schools in the United States offer optics degrees, one being Rodrigues’ alma mater, the University of Rochester. Having joined the field himself later in life, he finds himself committed to educating students about the field earlier on in their careers.

Rodrigues was awarded the “Outstanding Service to Georgia’s Community Award” by the School of ECE in 2016 and continues to support the community by promoting the sciences to students of all ages. He would like to thank his team, U.S. Army 1^st Lt. Tejas Pathak; Stefany Holguin and Alex Bryant, Ph.D. students in the School of Material Science and Engineering (MSE); and ECE Ph.D. student Mohammad Taghinejad for their hard work in pulling the event together.

Article written by Sean Rodrigues

Infused with a sense of fun and cooperation, the teams battle it out in the annual Georgia FIRST^® LEGO League (FLL) State Championship Tournament. The atmosphere is electric. Excited, proud, and determined teams have their eyes on the ultimate prize—a coveted trophy made out of LEGOs and bragging rights for at least the next year.

All across the world, FIRST^® LEGO League teams are forming to solve real world challenges that impact society such as animal welfare, food safety, natural disaster preparedness, and healthcare, to name a few. These groups of 9 – 14 year olds use science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills to solve a specific problem. Challenges issued by FIRST^® LEGO League each August consist of three parts: the Robot Game, the Project, and Core Values. Teams design and program an autonomous robot using LEGO Mindstorms technology, develop a solution to a problem and present it to judges, and adhere to core values that foster mutual gain and friendly competition where learning and teamwork are more important than winning.

Georgia Tech and the FIRST^® LEGO League Connection

Georgia Tech has been involved in the FIRST^® LEGO League program since 2002 through the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), FLL’s operational partner in Georgia and Tennessee, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering (WECE). One of two state championship tournaments is hosted by Georgia Tech each year.

There are currently 672 teams in the state of Georgia, making Georgia FLL the largest single region in the country. Many of the teams come from the public school system where STEM clubs, engineering clubs, and afterschool programs engage diverse groups of students hungry for real world engineering challenges. Over the years, the program has been a great feeder for students choosing science and engineering majors in college. Statistics show that among FLL participants 88% are more interested in excelling in school and 87% have an increased interest in going to college.

ECE instructor Tom Collins has been involved with the Tournament almost since its inception. He is the primary recruiter for competition judges each year. The event needs upwards of 30 judges to evaluate teams. He’s seen the program grow over the years and steadily increase in popularity with girls and underrepresented minorities in particular. Overall, 35% of participants in Georgia are female and 37% are underrepresented minorities.

“FLL draws kids towards subjects they might not have thought about and sparks their interest. Not only does it appeal to the science and math loving kids, but it also brings in a variety of students inspired by the fact that it’s an inherently social and creative activity. STEM subjects are just the conduit to solve important problems and be a part of a community—to essentially make the world a better place,” Collins said.

The nuts and bolts of participation

Teams are generally coached by a teacher or parent and include between two and 10 students (most average around six). New teams can expect to pay approximately $900 for team registration, a robot kit of parts, and a Challenge Set (formerly known as the Field Setup Kit). Additional costs for event participation, travel, food, team shirts, and other optional items will vary. Veteran teams will pay less since the robot set can be used year after year.

Robots are judged based on design, uniqueness, and programming. Incorporated into these criteria is the team’s strategy for playing the game. Each game consists of 10 - 14 “missions” that could include activities such as retrieving an object on the field, pushing an object to a specific location, or dispensing a part. With only two and a half minutes to complete as many missions as possible, the team has to use critical thinking to decide which missions to tackle based on level of difficulty and the points that can be earned.

Successful teams progress from their Regional competition to a Super Regional and then to the State Championship. Winners from the Championship Tournament converge at the World Festival, which features teams from around the world.

Alumni become volunteers

The Championship Tournament at Georgia Tech needs over 80 volunteers on the day of the event. Roles such as judges, pit managers, technical advisors, referees, and many more are required to keep the event running smoothly. A large portion of the volunteer roles are filled by Georgia Tech students. In between building and resetting fields and coordinating course builders, volunteers act as supporters and entertainers to the kids who one day may fill their shoes.

“The energy and sense of excitement in the place is extreme, so showing off my dancing skills (or lack of them) to keep waiting teams entertained seemed like a fitting volunteer role,” said electrical engineering major Noah Daugherty.

Daugherty has volunteered for multiple FLL events over the past two years, but he has been involved with FLL since his freshman year of high school. Many volunteers and coaches are alumni of the program themselves and keep returning to their LEGO Robotics “family.”

Local teams seek statewide acclaim

Of the nearly 700 teams in Georgia, one such team is the Grovebots from Atlanta’s Oak Grove Elementary School. The team is currently made up of four fourth graders and three fifth graders broken into three different parts: project, programming, and building. The builders work closely with the programmers on the robot itself. The rest of the team works on a complex science project based on the theme for the year. This year’s theme of Animal Allies inspired the Grovebots to use infra-red cameras and software to identify “hotspots” of animal activity on the school grounds. The objective was to give guidance to exterminators on places to avoid in order to help save the bluebird population.

Being on a successful FLL team requires a lot of work both during and after school. Eirinn Lucas, who is a programmer for the Grovebots, had to undergo a competitive tryout process to join the team. Only half of the kids that tried out made it after answering questions about teamwork and leadership and presenting a skit.

The time commitment is no small matter. In the weeks leading up to the first regional competition, the Grovebots teammates were spending two to three hours of regular class time in addition to time after school each day in preparation. In their case, the hard work paid off: the Grovebots won Best Robot Game and Best Overall in both the Regional and Super Regional competitions. Once they got to the State Championship Tournament at Georgia Tech, they found themselves competing alongside the top teams in Georgia – many of which included 7^th and 8^th graders. They earned the 24^th best Robot Performance Score out of more than 300 teams statewide which meant Eirinn and her teammates “got to swagger all over the school” because they were the first team in Oak Grove history to make it to the State Championship.

The team will continue improving on their robot and learning new skills as well as training younger students to take the place of those who depart. The important part of the experience has been the ongoing learning and teamwork that are hallmarks of FLL.

Ryan Lucas, Eirinn’s father, saw firsthand the benefits of his daughter’s participation. “I witnessed some points of frustration when the robot just wasn’t working the way they wanted. But the rewarding part was seeing Eirinn and her cohorts push through and find the solution. If invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, it’s heartening to see her learn to deal with the perspiration,” Lucas said.

And the hard work today could lead to a high-paying and fulfilling career in the future. Eirinn, who wants to come to Georgia Tech and study engineering one day, now has great experience and a launch pad into the Institute—where effort, innovation, and fun go hand in hand.

She and two classmates from North Oconee High School in Bogart, Ga., came up with the concept for “Melanomapp,” an app to educate, prevent and diagnose melanoma. Their idea was for people to take pictures of moles on their body, and an algorithm would determine whether they changed shape and color over time. The app would also connect patients with dermatologists.

The team’s idea won Georgia Tech’s 2014 InVenture Challenge, which encourages K-12 students to identify real-world problems and test solutions while exposing them to engineering and entrepreneurship. It is an extension of the Institute’s annual InVenture Prize, which awards cash prizes and fosters students’ interest in innovation and startups.

The K-12 competition changed Johnson’s education path.

“Georgia Tech was not on my college radar at all, but after the InVenture Challenge there was nowhere else I wanted to go,” said Johnson, who is now in her second year at Tech studying biomedical engineering. “It was pretty amazing that Georgia Tech was open to giving me experiences in research and entrepreneurship when I was still in high school. Who does that?”

The InVenture Challenge was piloted during the 2012-13 school year at just two schools. This year more than 2,000 students from more than 60 schools participated, said Roxanne Moore, a Georgia Tech research engineer who runs the program.

From that group, 82 teams will be on campus Wednesday to compete in the K-12 InVenture Challenge State Finals. The main event is from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom. Winners will be chosen at the elementary, middle and high school levels for first, second and third places.

As part of the program, teachers receive training and lesson plans on how to introduce engineering and entrepreneurial concepts into their classroom lessons. The students pitch their ideas to Georgia Tech faculty and researchers and get feedback.

“In high school we never did engineering, so this was my first engineering project and first business projects, and I loved everything,” said Chunqing Lu, a second-year biomedical engineering major at Tech and one of Johnson’s teammates. “It was a chance to be innovative and creative.”

The 2015 InVenture Challenge winners also attended North Oconee High School, and two members of team now attend Georgia Tech.

Nick Rupert and Carlton Winstead designed ChemHelp, an app to help students visualize the more difficult concepts of chemistry.

They continued to work on the app last year taking a startup course through the CREATE-X program, a Georgia Tech initiative to enhance and support entrepreneurship programs for undergraduate students.

“Overall, I feel like my participation in the high school InVenture Challenge and CREATE-X have helped me grow and learn a lot about business in the real world, and how to take an idea from concept to a tangible product,” said Rupert, a computer science major.

Who knows, maybe one of these students will win the InVenture Prize down the road. 

In Georgia, the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) is leading the march toward this vision with help from a recently awarded $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). CEISMC is the Georgia Tech College of Sciences unit dedicated to educational research and enhancing K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in Georgia.

CEISMC will use the grant to develop and implement a program called CAPACiTY, for Culturally Authentic Practice to Advance Computational Thinking in Youth. It has partnered with Fulton County Schools and Gwinnett County Public Schools for this program. The $2.5 million grant will be used over the next three years to develop curriculum materials, train teachers, and conduct research on student learning outcomes. 

CAPACiTY will revise the first course in Georgia’s high school information technology (IT) career pathway—Introduction to Digital Technology (IDT)—to increase its relevance and accessibility. It will create learning contexts for the IDT course that are relevant to students who are underrepresented in computer science, especially African Americans, Latinos, and women.  The program aims to encourage these students to continue on a computer science trajectory, says Marion Usselman, associate director for development and educational innovation at CEISMC and principal investigator (PI) for CAPACiTY.

The NSF grant will enable CEISMC researchers, led by CAPACiTY co-PIs Meltem Alemdar and Douglas Edwards, to determine the effects of the revised IDT course on students’ mastery of digital technology skills and computational thinking and on their attitudes toward computer science and other IT fields, Usselman says.

Yalanda Bell, executive director of career and technical education for Fulton County Schools, will help facilitate CEISMC’s partnership with Fulton County. “I would like to see Fulton County’s current digital technology curriculum aligned to industry best practices,” she says. “IDT also needs to challenge students with previous exposure to computer science, as well as students who are new to computer science.” These expectations are shared by Bell’s colleagues at Fulton County Schools and her counterparts at Gwinnett County Public School.

The revised IDT course will be launched in August of the 2017-18 academic year at two high schools, one each in Fulton County and Gwinnett County. If successful, the CAPACiTY-developed IDT course may be implemented across Georgia and the nation.

Matt Barr

Science Communications Intern

College of Sciences

“We were asked by the organizer of outreach opportunities – Tracy Hammer – to come, because half of the kids in the fifth-grade class could not make it to the beach,” Kostka said. “So we brought the beach to them.”

This clever solution had many positive outcomes. It advanced Hammer’s goal for science education at Laurel Ridge. It taught Georgia Tech researchers how to explain their work to school children. And it opened the eyes of elementary students to the excitement of scientific research.

Hammer is the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) coordinator and teacher for gifted students at Laurel Ridge. She has dedicated her career to getting young children excited about mathematics and science. “Part of my mission at school is to expose all of the kids to science in as many ways as I can,” she said. “I refused to have our fifth graders staying behind, missing out on the hands-on experience the other kids were getting. So I decided to bring science to the school.”

Kostka came with graduate students Will A. Overholt, Boryoung Shin, and Xiaoxu Sun and undergraduate biology major Kyle Sexton. At Georgia Tech, one research focus in the Kostka lab is biodegradation of oil in the oceans, including oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Kostka and his students study how marine microbes break down oil, how fast the breakdown occurs, and what factors affect the process. Their goal is to learn enough to direct the management and cleanup of contaminated systems, such as the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The beach they brought to Laurel Ridge resembled those sullied by the environmental disaster.

One of Hammer’s goals is for Laurel Ridge to be  STEM certified. The process requires the school to have community and industry partners. To fulfill this requirement, Hammer has been inviting researchers from Georgia Tech, including her husband, School of Biology’s Brian K. Hammer.  

According to the Georgia Department of Education, STEM-certified schools offer an integrated curriculum in STEM “that is driven by problem solving, discovery, exploratory project/problem-based learning, and student-centered development of ideas and solutions.”

To doubters, who may think such a program would be too much for elementary-level students, Tracy Hammer would disagree. “I believe we underestimate elementary school children and their abilities and interest levels when it comes to science,” she said. “The more we offer, the more they want to learn, and the more questions they ask.”

The Georgia Tech researchers engaged the fifth-graders in activities they named “Oiled Beach,” designed by Beth Kostka, wife of Joel Kostka, and a teacher Renfroe Middle School, in Decatur. Working in small groups of six to eight members per group, the school children modeled oil spills, counted bacteria, discussed Gulf of Mexico ecosystems, and watched oil-eating bacteria at work.

“The children were really engaged, had fantastic questions,” Overholt said. “They seemed to really enjoy the two hours we spent with them.”  

Seeing the students’ thirst for knowledge and ability to learn was an eye-opening experience for Overholt.  “The kids were so excited about things that my peers and I take for granted,” he said. “It was very rewarding to see kids so curious about the world around them. I also think it is great practice to talk about our science at the fifth-grade level and still be able to communicate what we do.”

Through these activities led by research scientists, Tracy Hammer moves closer to her goal of getting Laurel Ridge STEM-certified. “When we expose our budding scientists to the world and the possibilities it holds,” she said, “then we can say we are truly doing our jobs as educators.”

She hopes Joel Kostka will return and that other Georgia Tech research groups would visit Laurel Ridge throughout the year.

“I will do it again,” said Joel Kostka. “The kids were very perceptive. I learned that kids as young as those in fifth grade can really understand the oceans and the implications of oil spills. Those kids have a lot to offer.”

Although the “beach” they had did not come with sun and ocean and waves, the children had a great time. “When the others returned from Tybee,” Tracy Hammer said, “the kids who stayed behind were the ones bragging about their experiences.”

Scott Smith

Student Assistant, College of Sciences

Casey M. Bethel, Georgia’s 2017 Teacher of the Year, has spent the past five summers doing research in the College of Sciences through the Georgia Intern Fellowships for Teachers (GIFT). This summer, he will return again to the lab of Raquel L. Lieberman, an associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

An extraordinary science teacher and mentor at New Manchester High School, in Douglasville, Bethel personifies the power of university-school partnerships enabled by programs like GIFT to transform  teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), says Lizanne DeStefano. She is the executive director of the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), the College of Sciences unit that administers the GIFT program.

“For 25 years, Georgia Tech’s GIFT program has been providing K-12 teachers with opportunities to participate in real-world applications in STEM fields, so that they can then pass along learnings and applications to students,” says Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “We are grateful for teachers like Casey Bethel whose commitment to STEM education is helping to prepare and inspire the next generation,” he says. President Peterson himself was a high school mathematics and science teacher early in his career.

The Lieberman group studies, among others, proteins associated with human diseases, such as glaucoma and Alzheimer’s disease. Protein crystallography, biochemical/physical characterization, and computer modeling are some of the methods the group uses to elucidate the structure and functions of disease-related proteins.

On the basis of Bethel’s education, professional experience, and interests, Lieberman thought Bethel would be a good match for her lab and actively recruited him to work with her. She adds that three years of Bethel’s participation in GIFT were supported by her National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award.

Bethel says working in the Lieberman lab vastly improved his teaching and knowledge. The experience enabled him to better prepare his students for college-level courses. More than 50 of his former students have gone into STEM majors and careers, he says; some of them are students at Georgia Tech.

GIFT provides K-12 science and math teachers paid summer internships in research laboratories, where they participate in designing and conducting experiments, interpreting data, and communicating findings. Internships may also take place in industry, where teachers gain workplace experience and learn the skills needed for STEM careers. By working daily with researchers or in industry, teachers increase their content knowledge and find ways to enrich their teaching practices.

At New Manchester High School, Bethel teaches Advanced Placement (AP) Physics, AP Biology, Biology, and Physical Science. As a result of his research experience at Georgia Tech, Bethel, with Lieberman, designed a teaching unit comprising lessons centered on protein structures and their relation to function and disease.

Bethel and Lieberman describe the unit in The Journal of Chemical Education. “The lessons are designed … to make learning more relevant to daily life, and to help high school students engage in and understand advanced topics beyond the typical high school chemistry or biology curriculum,” they write.

Separately, Bethel is helping the advance of basic scientific knowledge. According to Lieberman, he is a coauthor of a scientific research paper that is undergoing peer review.

After having worked with Bethel for five consecutive summers, Lieberman is elated, but not too surprised, that he is now Georgia’s 2017 Teacher of the Year. “He is focused, committed, and passionate,” says Lieberman. “He loves to learn and has a no-nonsense attitude. He follows through on commitments and is highly professional.”

While Bethel was gaining knowledge and research experience from his GIFT internship at Georgia Tech, the Lieberman lab also was learning from him.

“Casey is a natural teacher,” says Lieberman. “He is able to explain complex issues to a broad audience,” a skill that many students struggle with, she notes.

“Casey is inspirational,” Lieberman adds. “Students pick up on his infectious enthusiasm and love of learning.”  

As Georgia’s 2017 Teacher of the Year, Bethel will serve as ambassador for all Georgia public school teachers, school systems, and students; speak to various groups throughout the state; conduct staff development activities for other teachers; and represent Georgia in the 2017 National Teacher of the Year competition.

“Couldn’t be more proud of Casey,” Lieberman tweeted when the news broke on May 20.

“We are utterly delighted at Casey’s selection as Georgia’s Teacher of the Year,” says College of Sciences Dean Paul M. Goldbart. “Casey is an extraordinary representative of the K-12 community, inspiring Georgia Tech staff to learn more about high-school teaching and learning strategies as they work with him to support his innovative approaches to teaching.”

Casey Bethel, Georgia’s 2017 Teacher of the Year, Reflects on His Teaching Journey

What got you started in teaching science and the GIFT program?

I grew up in the Bahamas, in a family of teachers. I was told at an early age that because I performed well in science, I had to be a doctor or a scientist. I pursued those careers all the way to graduate school, earning a master's degree in plant genetics from the University of Georgia. However, the work never brought enough fulfillment.

On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed my experiences as a teaching assistant, instructing undergrads. In 2005, I tried teaching, in the DeKalb County School System, at first as a one-year experiment. I found my calling and never looked back.

After a few years of teaching, I hit a wall. I was unsatisfied with my students’ progress. A mentor of mine advertised the GIFT program as a means of broadening my background. I tried it, and I saw immediate results.

Dr. Lieberman welcomed me and made me a contributing member of her team. Every year since 2011, my wealth of knowledge has grown and my teaching practices have improved.

What does the Teacher of the Year award mean to you?  

This award is a huge honor. It serves as validation of the hard work and sacrifices I have put into growing in this career. I hope that it further inspires my students to work hard and pursue their dreams.

What will you do with this award?  

I hope to bring attention to some of the ways we can solve education’s greatest challenges.

It is becoming harder to recruit and retain talented teachers, especially in science and math. I am on a recruitment tour to attract some of the brightest science and math students to join the teaching profession. The challenge of educating the next generation of problem solvers and world leaders is just as important as the race to cure cancer. Teaching is the best way to make a difference.

At the same time, I hope to be an example of how collaboration between universities, industries, and K-12 educators can radically improve the way we teach and prepare students. My own teaching practices sky-rocketed since I formed a partnership with Dr. Lieberman and her research team. Working with them in the summers, I get to see how the concepts I teach in my high school classes are applied to authentic research. Such exposure provides the real-world connections that help me make science more relevant for my students. We need more of these collaborations in every content area.

What is the secret to your success as a teacher?  

The secret is passion. When teachers are passionate about what they do, it translates to their students. Effective teachers are excited to share what they know in a way that draws students in, making them see the value of knowledge. My students and I have a saying, “Information is currency.”

Julmice was an Atlanta high school student and musician when she enrolled in a class called “Music Tech,” which she thought was a music theory course. She showed up the first day only to find out it was a class in programming, a subject that had always felt inaccessible to her.

“It seemed complex, something that was impossible and out of reach. Especially since there aren’t a lot of females in this industry.” 

But Music Tech was an EarSketch class, so there was plenty of music to be made. The inclusion of music in the curriculum was ultimately what piqued her interest. “It was something that made sense. It made me really fascinated by the whole idea of computer science.”

It turned out that Julmice had a passion for both code and music. She completed her EarSkech class and began to study more coding languages on her own.

She signed up for AP Computer Science and began to see the field as a potential career path. “I enjoyed the puzzle, trying to figure out how things worked.”

Read the Full Story:
Creating the Next Code Composers

“Fifteen years later, Hispanics and Latinos have become one of the fastest growing student groups at the Institute. This year, for instance, applications from Hispanic and Latino incoming freshmen increased by 7.8 percent,” said Jorge Breton, director of Institute Diversity’s Office of Hispanic Initiatives (OHI), which is part of the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion. “The Goizueta Foundation Scholarships and Fellowships are one of several programs and initiatives at Georgia Tech that provide pathways to success for our community.”

Since its inception, more than 270 Hispanic and Latino students have been supported by The Goizueta Foundation Scholarships and Fellowships. For this academic year, 18 scholars and eight fellows were selected, the highest number of new awardees to date.  

The Goizueta Foundation Scholarships provide four-year or eight-term renewable, merit- and need-based scholarships for full-time undergraduate students. The Goizueta Foundation Fellowships provide renewable, merit-based fellowships with a stipend of $4,000 for 12 months of full-time enrollment for doctoral students.

Charlene Rincón, a Ph.D. graduate of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, recalled, “I had the great opportunity of being a Goizueta Fellow for four years, and during those years, the fellowship not only provided me with economic assistance, but it also allowed me to meet and interact with people from different disciplines and backgrounds, which had a long-lasting impact in my life.” 

Scholars and fellows participate in various projects and activities to assist in the recruitment, retention, and outreach of Hispanic and Latino students at Georgia Tech. These include assisting with the Focus graduate recruitment program, interacting with distinguished faculty, participating in events such as GoSTEM’s Latino STEM Education Day and Latino College and STEM Fair, and hosting campus visits by middle and high school students to Georgia Tech, among others.

“I am fortunate to participate in events that help young Hispanics see their potential and engage in STEM fields,” said Natalia Wauldron, recipient of The Goizueta Foundation Scholarship and undergraduate student in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “These events are crucial to the betterment of our society.”

The Goizueta Foundation Fellow Kevin Lanza, a doctoral student in the School of City and Regional Planning, remarked, “After attending Goizueta luncheons and planning meetings for Hispanic Heritage Month, I now walk around Georgia Tech knowing that I have a strong, campus-wide support system.”

Along with Breton, several distinguished faculty members serve as role models and mentors to The Goizueta Foundation Scholars and Fellows and assist OHI in its efforts to recruit, retain, and promote the success of students and faculty of Hispanic and Latino origin. Currently, Rosario Gerhardt, professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, serves as The Goizueta Foundation Faculty Chair, and William J. Koros, professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, serves as the Roberto C. Goizueta Chair for Excellence in Chemical Engineering. Georgia Tech’s next The Goizueta Foundation Junior Faculty Rotating Chair will be selected and announced during this academic year.

Georgia Tech is consistently ranked as one of the nation’s top schools for awarding bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in STEM fields to Hispanics and Latinos (Diverse: Issues in Higher Education). 

To learn more about OHI and The Goizueta Foundation Scholarships and Fellowships at Georgia Tech, visit www.hispanicoffice.gatech.edu. 

K.I.D.S. Club and STEAM Workshops are on Saturdays once a month from September 2019 through April 2020. Each Workshop runs from 1:00 - 4:00 PM. More information can be found on the CEISMC website, ceismc.gatech.edu/kidsclub

Interested applicants should email Tabitha Lowe at Tabitha.Lowe@ceismc.gatech.edu

The Georgia Tech Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) is seeking dynamic individuals for its 2019-20 Innovators-in-Residence cohort.

Duration: June 1, 2019 to May 31, 2020

Innovators partner with teachers at metro Atlanta K-12 schools to develop and implement quality Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics (STEAM) curriculum. Innovators will work to create student-centered projects, as well as support engaging STEAM-focused after-school programs.

For more information contact: Alba Gutierrez alba.gutierrez@ceismc.gatech.edu

For more background on Innovators-in-Residence, read about the 2017-18
Innovators at: https://b.gatech.edu/2nhH1Dd.

Apply online at: https://bit.ly/2VJZhnL

Duration: May 28, 2019 - August 2^, 2019, 40 hours/week

Eligibility: At least one year of college

CEISMC Intern’s role will include, but not limited to: 1) checking students in and out with parents when they arrive/leave campus, 2) supervising groups of students throughout daily activities, 3) taking students to Georgia Tech’s food carts for lunch and monitoring them while eating, 4) taking students to various locations on campus for tours and lectures, 5) supervising students during recreation time at the Georgia Tech Campus Recreation Center, 6) keeping track of student meal cards, 7) assisting instructor during parent presentation every Friday, 8) fulfilling tasks associated with the day-to-day in-office operations of summer camps, 9) completing a summer-long deliverable at the end of internship.

This year’s summer intern project will include the creation of a video project that can be used to market the Summer PEAKS program to students and families.

Questions: Katie Guzdial - katie.guzdial@ceismc.gatech.edu

To apply:

Send your resume, including your qualifications and/or relevant coursework, to Katie.guzdial@ceismc.gatech.edu

That is why Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating, Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) is a regional partner of Code.org, a nonprofit founded in 2013 that seeks to expand access to computer science for K-12 students. Together, CEISMC and Code.org offer professional development sessions that help K-12 teachers who often have little or no background in CS prepare to offer CS courses at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

In these sessions, CEISMC provides support to Georgia computer science teachers and trains facilitators of the Code.org curriculums, which are publicly available online. The training alleviates fears that many teachers may have of teaching a subject they do not have much experience with.

Once enrolled in the program, teachers come to Georgia Tech for a five-day intensive summer workshop. After the workshop, the teachers receive additional long-term support through quarterly just-in-time follow-on training sessions.

Last year, CEISMC trained 70 teachers statewide. The center aims to establish teams of Code.org facilitators across the state so that Georgia Tech remains a hub for professional development, but travel does not hinder educators from other parts of the state from receiving CS education support.

The professional development offered by CEISMC will also indirectly help teachers prepare for a new required certification test that the state of Georgia has introduced for computer science educators.

Chris Thompson, director of CEISMC’s partnership with Code.org, believes that computational thinking is a fundamental skill that is demanded even in fields outside of computer science. Students can be introduced to this kind of thinking by learning about algorithms.

“You use algorithms in mathematics, in diagramming a sentence, in writing a story,” Thompson said. A common way to introduce students to the concept of algorithms is by breaking down the steps of making a sandwich. Mapping out that process helps students apply algorithms to other subjects.

“You learn to think logically; what are the individual steps, what order and sequence do things have to happen in? If you make an algorithm and it doesn’t work, you have to go back and debug it and find out what your problem is,” Thompson said. “Those are all skills that benefit a student whether they become a computer scientist or not.”

Computer science also opens up new avenues for students to express themselves creatively. Thompson cites surveys demonstrating that many children want to learn computer science in school, and that their parents want them to learn it, too.

“The demand is out there,” Thompson said, “so if it benefits students, why not find a way to give them an opportunity to learn it?”

Code.org has evolved and expanded in the last five years. It now has partners in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, and its curriculum is used in over 180 countries. With this growth, Code.org partners have transitioned to a fee-for-service professional development model. The curriculum remains free for any teacher or school to use. Fees collected by CEISMC in the future will allow the organization to continue offering professional development opportunities to teachers throughout Georgia. Scholarships are available to schools with high numbers of underrepresented minorities or free and reduced lunch students.

These trainings are critical not only because they support computer science teachers, but also because both Code.org and CEISMC place a particular emphasis on expanding participation of  students who are girls or underrepresented minorities in STEM.

“Equity is a big piece of what Code.org looks at,” Thompson said. “There are factors in the curriculum that are designed to make it equitable and appealing to students. It doesn’t matter what your background in computer science is; it tries to put everybody on a level playing field.”

Many teachers also find the Code.org curriculum appealing.

“Code.org’s platform is the most complete I have ever used and has made teaching computer science not only easy, but very enjoyable,” said John McDonald, a technology teacher at Rossville Middle School in Northwest Georgia. “CEISMC has been a leader in education within the state of Georgia for many years and it is no surprise that they have brought such a quality program to the educators in our state.”

Thompson believes Code.org is a great resource for equitable computer science education; however, he also advises teachers and schools to use the computer science curriculum that works best for their individual needs – whether it is Code.org or another curriculum. CEISMC is available to provide support to teachers and schools no matter which CS curriculum they choose.

Applications are open for slots in the CEISMC Code.org professional development sessions that begin in summer of 2019. Middle and high school teachers can find application information here.

Written by: Rosemary Pitrone - CEISMC Communications

This collaboration will remain in effect for the next five years and will open the door to the sharing of data, teaching and assessment resources, as well as the exchange of personnel between Georgia Tech and Tokyo Tech.

“We are excited to work with our colleagues at Tokyo Tech’s CITL to further our work in reimagining higher education,” said Steve Harmon, director of education innovation for C21U and associate dean of research in Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE). “We believe that it is important to bring a global perspective to bear when looking at the forces shaping colleges and universities today and in the future, and in determining how to respond to them. The innovative work going on at both Georgia and Tokyo Tech provides a real opportunity to go beyond what we are each capable of individually, and to enable real progress in creating the technological university for the 21st century.”

Just as C21U provides a “living laboratory” for educational technology research, design and implementation at Georgia Tech, CITL provides Tokyo Tech learners with transformative education by leveraging technology to “continuously improve the quality of education methods and capabilities” at one of Japan’s top-tier engineering and science universities. This fitting partnerships will provide both Georgia Tech and Tokyo Tech with the opportunity to collaborate on timely projects in the areas of educational learning environment and course development, new methodology for learner data analysis and quality assurance, and other innovative online learning research projects.

“The Center for 21st Century Universities is taking a leading role in envisioning the future of higher education in the world,” said Jun-ichi Imura, director of CITL. “We are thrilled to establish this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and to collaborate with C21U as we work together to promote innovations in STEM higher education.”

You can learn more about Tokyo Tech’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), on their website. Find out more about C21U’s role in education innovation research and global ed tech collaborations such as these by visiting the C21U website.