INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY IN STEM EDUCATION

Students have access to the Internet at their fngertps via e-tablets and smart phones. However, the STEM felds are struggling to remain relevant in students’ lives outside the classroom. In an efort to improve high school science curricula and to keep students engaged in the classroom, we developed a technology-rich bioengineering summer program for high school students in grades 9-12. The program utlized touch screen technology in conjuncton with hands-on experiments and traditonal lecturing to create an entertaining, relevant, and efectve classroom experience.


INTRODUCTION
In elementary school classrooms fve years ago, children were struggling with cursive -atemptng to make the graceful curves and connected leters that teachers claimed would be used in high school and postsecondary educaton (Wallace & Schomer, 1994).Although cursive came in handy 100 years ago when all legal documents were hand writen (Supon, 2009), the world has largely turned to new and progressive technologies -rendering those difcult cursive leters almost obsolete.Recently for English classes, teachers have created websites dedicated to their curriculum (Dunn, 2011), while students submit essays online to prevent plagiarism and seek out supplemental material to augment their course work (Baek & Freehling, 2007).In a world where technology is ever changing through innovaton, STEM classrooms appear to be lef behind (Pitler, 2011).The challenge for STEM educators in the coming years is to answer the age-old queston: How can students with very litle motvaton or interest in STEM be engaged in the classroom?
A brief survey of what students are doing in their free tme points to one soluton to this problem: electronic devices.With four generatons of iPads out, new smart phones every month, and beter laptops every year, students are actvely engaging with hundreds of thousands of new touch screen applicatons (or apps) (Freierman, 2011).With such technologies available, students are less willing to sit in a classroom and atempt to decipher complex chemical formulas, equatons, or abstract concepts.
Using a paperless classroom model, the program taught students about the fronters of bioengineering through a combinaton of lectures, classroom actvites, case studies, practcal laboratory exercises, and research techniques.Each week focused on a diferent disease, diabetes, cancer, and HIV/AIDS, and each student was expected to decide upon a topic of research.The students conducted and presented independent research projects at the end of the four weeks based on what they had learned.

OBJECTIVES
The overarching objectve of the research was to investgate how incorporatng "paperless" technology would beneft educaton and increase an interest in the STEM felds.By incorporatng a curriculum that focuses gradually on students learning independently rather than relying on textbooks and lecture-based learning traditonally utlized in STEM classrooms, students were to increase their understanding of topics covered as well as create an independent research project to present at the end of four weeks.

APPROACH
For the last two years, two groups of students in 9th through 12th grade from various New York City schools partcipated in a paperless summer science program in which technology was fully integrated into science educaton.This program aimed to educate high school students about health related topics including diabetes, cancer and HIV/AIDS while encouraging them to conduct independent research.The four week program ran from July-August for a group of an average of 18 students (the number of students who partcipated in the program varied from year to year, but overall atendance never waivered from week to week).Each topic was introduced by a technical lecture.Once the students were given the background informaton, laboratory experiments were conducted in small groups.Aferwards, students and instructors discussed the results.Using what they learned from the lecture and lab, students were then given classroom actvites to complete based on the course curriculum (Table 1).For our curriculum, classroom actvity is defned as experiences involving students manipulatng their knowledge by partcipatng in discussions, creatng presentatons, assessing case studies, watching videos, and topic related games/actvites.At the end of every week, students were given an evaluaton of the module to determine whether or not they had increased their understanding in the STEM feld covered and their interest level in pursuing a STEM feld as a career afer high school.In this way, the modules could be evaluated by data provided by students.The frst week of the program was focused on basic lessons on epidemiology and diabetes as well as an introducton on how to make science presentatons.The purpose of the frst week was to introduce the students to a concept that they were familiar with (diabetes) and to outline the expectatons of the summer program from an academic standpoint.In doing so, students understood the concept of a paperless classroom and self-directed learning.The second week focused on cancer in which the students read The Immortal Life of Henrieta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010) and discussed the progress of biomedical research over the past 50 years as well as the ethical implicatons of patent consent.The second week helped reinforce the paperless classroom model of teaching.Students were able to discuss more complex topics like cancer while beginning to research the topics that they wanted to focus on by the end of the summer program.In additon to lectures on cancer biology, causes, and treatment, two guest lecturers also visited the classroom to talk about academic and industrial research.The frst lecturer was a professor at a university while the second was a practcing and researching physician at the NYU Langone Medical Center.The third week of the program was based on HIV/AIDS in which the science of AIDS, epidemiology, biochemistry and technologies to combat it were discussed.The students visited the Internatonal AIDS Vaccine Initatve (IAVI) site in order to establish the relatonship between what they were learning and academia/industry.The site visit allowed the students to apply their knowledge of new technologies to ensure the safe, efectve development of AIDS vaccines (the goal of IAVI).In order to understand the social and historical background of AIDS, the students viewed a movie ttled "And The Band Played On" (Spotswoode, 1993).This movie, based on a nonfcton book, discusses the discovery and batle against AIDS.Students used it to explore the impact of AIDS in the politcal, social and scientfc communites.The third week curriculum fnalized the paperless curriculum.The students utlized fewer lectures and more actvites, labs, and site visits to learn about HIV and AIDS.Utlizing the evaluaton of the modules (Figures 1-2), it was possible to see that the paperless classroom model was a success because students increased their understanding of the STEM topics while challenging themselves.The fnal week of the program was dedicated to the students using technology and resources provided to them (Table 2) to research the topics they chose at the beginning of the program.At the end, students presented to each other and then to a panel of third party judges who evaluated their presentatons.An overall theme of the program was to engage students in and outside the classroom using technology where they were constantly required to partcipate.The lessons learned from the classroom actvites, videos and online resources provided students the tools for independent study and successful self-learning.By the end of the summer, the students created independent research projects, culminatng with a formal oral presentaton of their research.At the beginning of the program, students seemed daunted by the sheer amount of informaton about to be presented to them.However, a combinaton of hands on actvites, interactve websites, and videos made the material digestble and engaging.The students were exposed to various methods of teaching the same material, reinforcing what they learned.In doing so, the paperless curriculum model provided an alternatve to the paper and pencil, lecture-based classrooms that are traditonally utlized in STEM classrooms.By selfdirectng the learning for the fourth week of the summer camp, students were able to perfect their research skills and strategies and produce a high-level independent research projects instead of relying on lecturers.Afer using all of these tools, if students had questons, wanted to share the informaton they learned, or wanted to explore more, they partcipated in an educatonal blog set up for the program.The blog was run internally using school servers and Google Docs, so it would be a safe online community only accessible by the students and teachers.Students were able to submit assignments online, post links relevant to classroom lessons, and host discussions about classroom material and extracurriculars.Students also stored their research on the blog in team folders so they could have access to the informaton regardless of where they were.Helpful videos and links to academic journal artcles were posted regularly.Links and questons meant to begin student discussions were posted and moderated by the teachers, but were largely contributed to by the students.None of the blog work was mandatory, but incentves (such as jokes and funny videos) were emailed to students who partcipated.

Resource Descripton
In additon to the online tools, students were encouraged to remain in contact with the guest lecturers who visited the classroom.The students contacted instructonal mentors who were graduate students for more informaton about the topics covered and research questons.This access to scientsts on all levels (from graduate students to physicians/scientsts) allowed the students to directly engage with those working on the cutng edge of bioengineering in the feld of research.This combinaton of virtual and in person interactons emphasized the importance of actve engagement in the classroom.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The evaluaton for modules 1 and 2 on diabetes and HIV/AIDS respectvely resulted in 100% of the students understanding the topic (Figure 1).While 7% of the students expressed that the 3rd module on cancer did not improve their understanding of it, a 93% majority indicated that they gained insights into cancer (Figure 1).As there was much to cover for the cancer module due to the complexity in terms of types and pathways to cancer, the students suggested that the lesson plan be extended beyond the single week.For the fnal independent study/research project, all of the students as demonstrated by the 100% response improved their understanding of their selected research topic.In literature, the percentage of students (specifcally those in control groups) indicatng sustained interest were below 80% (Kim, Chacko, Zhao & Montclare, 2014), suggestng that the students in this program had a high level of positve response.This was also corroborated by the judges' evaluatons of their presentatons (the grading rubrics can be examined in Tables 3-5).They commented that the students were able to not only efectvely artculate scientfc concepts and research studies but also respond to challenging questons during their presentaton.

Sequencing of informaton
Informaton is organized in a clear, logical way.It is easy to antcipate the next slide.
Most informaton is organized in a clear, logical way.One slide or piece of informaton seems out of place.

Some informaton is logically sequenced. An occasional slide or piece of informaton seems out of place.
There is no clear plan for the organizaton of informaton.

Efectveness
Project includes all material needed to give a good understanding of the topic.The project is consistent with the driving queston.

Project is lacking one or two key elements. Project is consistent with driving queston most of the tme.
Project is missing more than two key elements.It is rarely consistent with the driving queston.
Project is lacking several key elements and has inaccuracies.Project is completely inconsistent with driving queston.

Use of graphics
All graphics are atractve (size and colors) and support the topic of the presentaton.
A few graphics are not atractve but all support the topic of the presentaton.
All graphics are atractve but a few do not support the topic of the presentaton.
Several graphics are unatractve AND detract from the content of the presentaton.

Font formats have been carefully
planned to enhance readability.
Font formatng has been carefully planned to complement the content.It may be a litle hard to read.
Font formatng makes it very difcult to read the material.

Spelling & grammar
Presentaton has no misspellings or grammatcal errors.
Presentaton has more than 2 grammatcal and/or spelling errors.

Cooperaton
Group shares tasks and all performed responsibly all of the tme.
Group shares tasks and performed responsibly most of the tme.
Group shares tasks and performs responsibly some of the tme.
Group ofen is not efectve in sharing tasks and/or sharing responsibility.Motvatons for the students to enter the STEM felds also improved over the course of the program.While 86% of students responded afer the frst week of the program that the diabetes lesson inspired them to work or study in a related feld, 14% of students noted that STEM felds were not of interest to them at all (Figure 2).However, by the end of the program during the week on presentatons, 100% of the students indicated interest in STEM felds..In fact, 86% of the students were motvated to pursue a STEM feld in the future.While the remaining 14% of students were unsure if the fnal lesson triggered their STEM interest, they enjoyed it.Overall, the program resulted in students giving science a chance -the 14% of students who initally were not interested in STEM felds changed their minds because they were engaged and had fun while doing the lessons.
Utlizing videos, artcles, and websites on their laptops and/or iPads also resulted in students using their free tme to explore their specifc interests.Students were exposed to a virtual playground where they were allowed to safely frolic in informaton that would help them gain a stronger understanding of various scientfc topics.These tools encouraged students to conduct their own research by clicking from educatonal link to educatonal link.Thus, if a student began the day trying to learn more about diabetes, he or she could explore the diferent types of diabetes, the current and emerging detecton methods, and factors that complicate the disease within two or three hours without being lectured once!By creatng an interactve community outside of the classroom, students were encouraged to learn and reinforce what they were being taught.These approaches facilitated students to become self-motvated and engaged in the classroom.This required the students to use metacognitve skills, directng them to understand what they were studying and, most importantly, why they were studying it (Schraw, 1998).

CONCLUSIONS
By integratng technology in STEM educaton, the program encouraged students to become self-motvated learners and researchers.For our summer program, we provided students the tools for independent research, study, and learning through a technology-rich lesson plan.The program was interactve to encourage independent exploraton and engagement through labs, lessons and exposure to scientsts.Using the methodology outlined in this paper, it is demonstratably possible for a bioengineering summer program to utlize a technology-rich science curriculum.More signifcantly, the students who partcipated in this program benefted from it.Due to the overwhelming increase in understanding from week to week (Figure 1), the paperless classroom model utlized for these summer programs can be deemed a success.Additonally, the paperless classroom model and the methodology utlized for this summer program also increased the percentage of students who desired to pursue a science-related feld in the future (Figure 2).Most importantly, the percentage of students who had decided that science was not for them decreased from 13% to 0% by the end of the program (Figure 2).The world is not what it was fve years ago -we have undergone a technological revoluton (Collins & Halverson, 2010).Most other facets of educaton -from standardized testng to

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Percentage of students who responded "I Understand This Topic Beter Now" to evaluatons of each week of the program

Table 1 .
Lesson plan schedule for the Course

Table 2 .
Online and Resources Provided to Students for Independent Research

Table 4 .
Sample Powerpoint Slide Grading Rubric

Table 5 .
Level 4 indicates competence in all standards/benchmarks and exceptonal performance in a few Level 3 indicates general competence in all standards/benchmarks Level 2 indicates general competence in most standards/benchmarks with difcultes in some Level 1 indicates difcultes in a majority of standards/benchmarks Sample Presentaton Grading Rubric