Through a partnership between the Orange County Department of Education and Orange County STEM Initiative, the Lead STEM Practitioner (LSP) Network includes triads of established and emerging teacher leaders from ten Orange County school districts. Our 30 amazing practitioners represent over 470 years of teaching experience in K-12 education! District teams were selected through an application process, open to those districts that were past participants from Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 of the STEM Ecosystem program. Participating districts for the 2017-2018 school year include: Anaheim Elementary, Brea-Olinda, Buena Park, Capistrano, Centralia, Cypress, Huntington Beach City, Huntington Beach Union, Orange, and Santa Ana Unified School Districts.
Each district team is actively engaging in a collaborative investigation to address a unique challenge within their district. Those challenges span the spectrum from making more purposeful use of existing maker-style spaces to increasing the frequency of use of inquiry-based instruction for STEM. Aside from exploring their area of interest, our practitioners also engage and share in learning experiences related to leadership and advocacy to strengthen their ability to support STEM education in their district and Orange County at large. A recent meeting include a series of advocacy rotations where participants had the chance to hear from and ask questions of leaders with experience with school boards, community groups, and district administration. Conversations have been rich and dynamic within and between LSP teams thus far this year!
The culmination of this year’s Lead STEM Practitioner’s program will include each district team delivering professional development to educators in their district that is specifically designed to address their identified area of need. We look forward to continuing to support our LSP teams on their journeys throughout the rest of the year!
Learn more about the LEAD STEM Practitioners.
