RAFT Fellows from around the Bay Area set to share what hands on teaching can do to enhance learning for students and teaching for educators.

RAFT Is On a Mission. For the last four years, RAFT (Resource Area For Teaching) has been building a small but effective group of advocates with its Fellows Program which takes some of the most enthusiastic and inspiring educators — graduates of one or more RAFT Summer Institutes in Math, Science, and Innovation, a series of intensive professional development workshops in hands on teaching — and invites them to share what they learned with their colleagues.

As Greg Brown, RAFT Director of Education explained, “Our Fellows are a vital part of the RAFT cycle of learning – we share creative challenges with them, and they share practical insights with us.”

With the adoption by most states of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) which includes changes in student assessments, hands on teaching provides students with learning-by-doing experiences. Engaging hands and brain in learning provides the added boost for students to truly comprehend concepts which can build confidence in their learning abilities, encourage skills like critical thinking and creativity, and contribute to “keeping it real” for them. Best of all, RAFT shows teachers how to do hands on teaching for pennies per student with readily available materials.

This year, 20 very diverse educators were chosen as the 2012 RAFT Fellows and joined the ranks of 39 previous Fellows. Amongst this year’s Fellows are educators from pre-school to high school, classrooms to museums. Some have 30 years of practical know-how and others are freshly minted with plenty of energy and new ideas. What they all have in common is a strong commitment and desire to share a teaching approach with alignment to national standards and the ability to keep students engaged and enjoying what they’re learning.

RAFT Fellows complete assignments over four months and share their proficiency in hands on teaching in demonstrations with colleagues and students. Impact assessments on student learning is documented and added to a growing library of best practices in hands on teaching.

Meet a couple of the 2012 RAFT Fellows:

Sara Bourbour – After completing a degree in Political Science, Sara decided to go back to school to become a science teacher! Sara reflected, “If I had been exposed to science in school the way RAFT advocates it, I would have had more confidence to major in it in college initially. It’s important for science to be accessible to students, and for students not to be intimidated by it.”

Jill Slagter – Jill works at the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco. She runs a space called the Innovation Lab which features creative re-use of materials. Jill is interested in integrating RAFT activities into on-going information education programs which reach thousands of students.

Meet more 2012 RAFT Fellows and learn about the Summer Institutes.

Resource Area For Teaching’s (RAFT) main focus is to inspire, engage and educate all children through the power of hands-on teaching. RAFT is doing this today with some 10,000 educators, who teach both inside and outside the classroom. RAFT’s products (Activity Kits & Idea Sheets), services (professional development and mentoring) and low-cost teaching supplies enrich and improve the education of over 825,000 young people each year.

RAFT Member and science Educator Pritha G. Roy, winner of RAFT Teacher Award at the Synopsys Science & Technology Championship

RAFT awards science teachers from Challenger – Middlefield, Granada Islamic, Magnolia Science Academy, Merryhill, Milpitas Christian and Springer schools whose students used hands-on techniques and repurposed materials in the Synopsys Science Fair projects.

San Jose, CA (April 11, 2012) – Resource Area For Teaching (RAFT) recently recognized six science educators whose students use recycled materials in creative and resourceful ways and/or used hands-on learning elements in their project at the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science & Technology Championship (SSVSTC).

Tini Raman of Challenger School in Middlefield Palo Alto, Sumizah Qureshi from Granada Islamic School, Matt Karakas, from Magnolia Science Academy in Santa Clara, Pritha Roy from Merryhill Schools in Milpitas, Lindon Richards from Milpitas Christian School and Dough Core from Springer school were given one year free RAFT membership in appreciation and encouragement for using hands-on methods of teaching in their classrooms.

Dr. Pritha G. Roy, Lead Technology and Science teacher at Merryhill Schools says, “I was really honored to get the award from RAFT and this was my first time getting this award. Not every child is an auditory learner. There are different types of students. To have the concepts stay with them for a lifetime it’s always better to teach using hands-on methods. This way they can do things on their own and also feel connected to the topics during the learning process!”

By using hands-on methods of teaching, educators foster 21st century skills – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity- that students need, to be successful through their lives. Hands-on activities also encourage a love of learning and motivate students to explore and discover new concepts.

Greg Brown, Director of Education at RAFT, explains the process for selecting the award winners. “Choosing recipients for the RAFT prize is always a challenge – every teacher who sends a student to the Science Fair deserves recognition. RAFT looked for hands-on projects that used everyday materials in innovative ways. We noticed that the entries from schools like Granada Islamic and Merryhill included many creatively ‘re-purposed’ materials. We saw evidence that the students had learned a great deal, and we were impressed by how well they could explain their experiments. Their teachers definitely earned this award!”

Resource Area For Teaching’s (RAFT) main focus is to inspire, engage and educate all children through the power of hands-on teaching. RAFT is doing this today with some 10,000 educators, who teach both inside and outside the classroom. RAFT’s products (Activity Kits & Idea Sheets), services (professional development and mentoring) and low-cost teaching supplies enrich and improve the education of over 825,000 young people each year.

Affordable and accessible RAFT (Resource Area For Teaching) materials help Stanford University student make educational hands on Activity Kits to effectively engage children with special needs.

San Jose, CA (March 20, 2012) – Krystal Le, a sophomore at Stanford University recently worked with RAFT to develop new hands-on educational activity kits for kids with autism. The project – ‘Spin a Story’, targeted building RAFT Activity Kits to help stimulate the student’s tactile senses and effectively communicate their needs. Le’s inspiration for this project came from her experiences with her younger autistic brother. “My brother is incredibly brilliant, but he has difficulty communicating even basic thoughts,” she said. “Thus, coming to Stanford, I knew I really wanted to design a product that would help him and children facing similar challenges, express themselves. Working on a project with RAFT has been a wonderful first step toward realizing that dream.”

Le worked on this project as part of her winter quarter ‘Perspectives in Assistive Technology’ class. The Stanford course, taught by instructor David Jaffe, encourages students to learn about the design and use of technology that benefits seniors and people with disabilities. “These are low technology projects that are sometimes more successful than high-tech”, says Jaffe. “As this is a course rather than a company, the priority is on the academic engineering process but students do come up with prototypes that can later become marketable products!”

Based on her research on educational tools for kids with special needs, Le had two objectives: one to build effective hands-on learning tools and second, make them inexpensive so it’s accessible for a wider audience. “It’s remarkable how expensive educational tools for students with autism can be. I have found flash card sets that cost $400 dollars! There definitely is a need for more products on the market that are effective and fun but also affordable and accessible to teachers and parents.” This Mechanical Engineering student worked with RAFT and Hope Technology School to brainstorm activities that would meet these requirements and appeal to the needs of the students.

Her final prototype using RAFT materials provides several simple ways for students to express themselves. A mixture of three activities – sequencing, storyboarding and sorting – the ‘Spin a Story’ activity kit encourages students to initiate their own thoughts with a variety of textual and visual prompts. The materials used in the kit include magnetic sheets, stickers, plastic bottle caps, and blank flashcards – materials that are commonly found and easily upcycled.

Resource Area For Teaching’s (RAFT) main focus is to inspire, engage and educate all children through the power of hands-on teaching. RAFT is doing this today with some 10,000 educators, who teach both inside and outside the classroom. RAFT’s products (Activity Kits & Idea Sheets), services (professional development and mentoring) and low-cost teaching supplies enrich and improve the education of over 825,000 young people each year.

RESOURCE AREA FOR TEACHING (RAFT) RECEIVES $10,000 DONATION FROM FLEXTRONICS FOUNDATION TO FACILITATE HANDS ON STEM EDUCATION

Singapore, February 15, 2012 – Resource Area For Teaching (RAFT) and Flextronics announced today that Flextronics Foundation has donated $10,000 to support the core component of RAFT’s Education program – creatively repurposing materials donated by local businesses into pre-packaged Activity Kits that facilitate hands-on learning of Math and Science.

RAFT’s mission is to transform teaching by creating engaging hands-on educational activities that inspire the joy and discovery of learning. RAFT works with more than 10,000 educators in the classroom, home-school settings and, after-school and community-based programs. RAFT’s products (Idea Sheets and Activity Kits), professional development services including mentoring and educational workshops, and low-cost teaching supplies enrich and improve the education of over 825,000 young people each year.

RAFT Activity Kits are based on 655 curriculum-aligned RAFT Idea Sheets that cover a range of grade levels and subjects. The Flextronics Foundation has awarded a total of $25,000 in grants to RAFT since 2008.

Mary Simon, Executive Director, RAFT spoke on this occasion, “We are grateful to Flextronics support of hands on education and RAFT.”

“Education is one of our primary funding initiatives because it has such a significant, residual impact on our communities, both locally and worldwide. We fully support the work RAFT does toward science and math education, and we are proud to support such an important cause,” says Thomas Ezrin, senior Vice President, human resources at Flextronics.

The Flextronics Foundation supports a range of community development efforts including initiatives that improve education.  The Foundation was established in 2002 and serves as a catalyst for positive change in communities around the world. Click here for more information about Flextronics.

Award funds were presented to RAFT at a ceremony held on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 in San Jose, California.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day –United Way volunteers honor this day of service at RAFT

Jan 16th, San Jose, CA – On a day when schools were closed to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., nearly 100 volunteers joined United Way Silicon Valley and Resource Area For Teaching (RAFT) to make the holiday a “day on” instead of a “day off” by working to improve local education and lending their support to local educators.

As part of this nationally recognized King Day of Service, local volunteers assembled hands-on Activity Kits and other materials that teachers can use in the classroom to create valuable learning opportunities.

“We are partnering with RAFT today because education is a fundamental building block to a successful life,” said Carole Leigh Hutton, president and CEO of United Way Silicon Valley. “Helping teachers enrich the classroom experience supports United Way’s goals of growing self-sufficient and financially stable families and reducing the ethnic-racial achievement gap in our schools.”

RAFT provides innovative project ideas, and materials to support the idea sheets, hands-on learning Activity Kits, professional development and mentoring to in school and out of school educators.

“We are pleased to work with United Way and our community volunteers on Martin Luther King Day. RAFT transforms teaching through the use of engaging hands-on educational activities that inspire the joy and discovery of learning. Volunteers have been the backbone of RAFT helping us assemble over 50,000 hands-on Activity Kits a year and last year we had over 8,000 volunteers providing their support to educators and students across the Bay Area,” said Mary Simon, Executive Director of RAFT.

On this Day of Service, RAFT also honored two Bay Area educators with the Hands-On Recognition Awards. Ann Shioji a high school integrated Science teacher and Anna Pollock, a physician who changed careers to become an elementary teacher, were recognized for their creative and outstanding work using hands-on activities to engage their students. As Hands-On Recognition Award winners, each will receive two years of free RAFT membership and $100 worth of RAFT Gift Cards. For more information about the Hands-On Award program, go to http://www.raft.net/hands-on-award.

About Martin Luther King Day of service
In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday as a national day of service. On the third Monday of every January, volunteers across America work together to solve local problems.
Dr. King recognized the power of service to strengthen local communities and achieve common goals. He believed service could empower individuals by lifting them up and giving them the power to improve their own lives as well as the lives of others.

About United Way
United Way Silicon Valley works to improve financial stability for local families, and a good early education can help lead a decent wage later in life. To ensure than children have access to quality early learning opportunities, United Way partners with parents, community-based organizations, and schools.  For example, United Way’s Early Literacy Program pairs adult volunteers with kindergartners to help them with reading and early literacy skills. United Way’s High School Mentoring program provides mentoring and tutoring to at-risk students who are part of Breakthrough Silicon Valley.
For more information about United Way Silicon Valley, visit www.uwsv.org.

RAFT participates in growing the next generation of science innovators with NYSCi

Jan 17th, San Jose, CA – Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT), a non-profit organization that has been promoting hands-on interactive learning for 18 years, shared it’s expertise on hands-on teaching methods at the “Design, Make, Play: Growing the next generation of science innovators” workshop held at the New York Hall of Science (NYSCi) January 13-14.

NYSCi in collaboration with O’Reilly Media hosted a two-day workshop last weekend to discuss the potential for making, designing and engineering hands on activities in formal and informal learning environments and to build evidence that these alternative programs engage kids in learning.

The seminar brought together scientists, engineers, technologists, learning science researchers, makers, educators and representatives from federal agencies and educational philanthropies to consider how the do-it-yourself mindset can catalyze innovation in Science, technology, engineering and Math (STEM) education.

Mary Simon, Executive Director and Founder at RAFT, was one of the attendees who explored the connection of Making to education. RAFT, a pioneer in hands-on education since 1994, has always focused on transforming teaching through the use of engaging educational activities that inspire the joy and discovery of learning. Describing her experience at the workshop, Mary Simon says, “It was a great workshop. We want kids to get engaged and excited about the relevance of STEM in their everyday lives and to reduce the dropout rate. We need kids to be ‘stoked’ about STEM education. This is our focus at RAFT where we make educational concepts fun for kids to learn.”

During the event, participants engaged in project based activities, including design challenges, engineering activities, robotics and making. There was agreement that the culture of schooling is at odds with innovation and that kids need to be empowered with the 21st century skills – critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication.

The weekend ended with a thoughtful discussion on identifying the goals of STEM education and capturing the evidence that these goals are achieved. The workshop contributors also discussed ways to assess learning, looking for evidence of knowledge transfer from one situation to another, content knowledge and the ability to build on ideas.