MSTA Presentation Reflection Papers

By
Denedra Shepherd
March 22, 2016

It was very nice attending the MSTA conference. I felt honored to be there. It was my
very first visit to the Lansing Center. As a graduate from Michigan State University, one would
think I had been there before with the university being just minutes away from the center.
However, I had a great experience that I will remember for a lifetime!
I conducted a mini-presentation of a science inquiry lesson titled, "Saving Trees and
Keeping the Environment Clean" that went really well, at the Lansing Center on Saturday, March
5, 2016. I had several visitors and each one of them had positive constructive feedback to give to
me. Men, women, they all had something nice to say about the lesson. Some of them even said
that they wouldn't mind trying the lesson out with real students in their own classrooms. I
thought that would be great and their students would really enjoy the experience.
There were a few things that went well during the presentation. One of them was my
voice level. I believe that my audience could hear me clearly. This is very important, because if
my students cannot hear me then how will I verbally communicate with them? Also I made good
eye contact with my audience. I was very conscious of making good eye contact. My goal was to
help visitors feel appreciated and important. This is also a goal for me as a developing teacher I
want all of my students to feel appreciated and important. Lastly, my enthusiasm was sufficient. I

purposely tried to be very energetic and interested in my own lesson to help my audience feel
positive about my lesson and interested in it as well. I did this by speaking clearly, cheerfully,
and by keeping a pleasant look on my face, smiling, at the same time.
However, there was one thing that I would have changed or done differently during my
presentation, that is my speed of speech. After maybe the third or fourth visitor came around, I
noticed I started to repeat myself more often, talking at a faster pace, and kind of got a little dry
with my presenting. I felt more like I was trying to remember what I said previously rather than
focus on the dynamics of the lesson. Next time I would not try to say exactly what I said before,
instead I would focus more on the lesson, and focus on speaking not too fast or too slow but in a
way in which everyone is able to effectively follow me and comprehend what I am saying.
Science Teaching Workshop Report
Saturday, March 5, 2016, 10:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
Creative Engineering in STEM Using Design Thinking for Problem Solving
Hosted by R. Charles Dershimer, U of M - School of Education
and Christopher Patten, Henry Ford Learning Institute
The workshop that I attended at the MSTA conference was titled, Creative Engineering in
STEM Using Design Thinking for Problem Solving, hosted by R. Charles Dershimer from U of
M- School of Education and Christopher Patten from Henry Ford Learning Institute. The
workshop began at 10:00AM and ended at 11:45AM. I was there for the entire time. I
participated in a hands on learning activity. I was instructed to pair up with someone. I
interviewed my partner and my partner interviewed me. After gathering information about our
partner's feelings, to find out what our partner's needs were, we wrote down ideas and drew
pictures to demonstrate a solution to meet our partner's needs. Then, we were given materials to
build the solution that we drew.

Each partner was given a booklet with the heading, "Design Thinking Challenge". The
booklet consist of several pages. The first page was titled "DRAW" and it included a large space
to draw "the ideal way to be identified at school". The second page was titled "START BY
GATHERING EMPATHY". We were instructed to interview our partner and take notes on the
interview. Next, we were instructed to conduct a second interview to uncover more about our
partner and to write that information down as well. The third page was titled, "REFRAME THE
CHALLENGE" where we captured findings by writing down the following: the things that our
partner is trying to do or needs, and insights or new leanings about our partner's
feelings/perspective. The next page was titled, "GENERATE ALTERNATIVES FOR
GATHERING FEEDBACK" where we sketched three radical ways to meet our partner's needs.
On the next page, we were instructed to share our three sketches with our partner and ask them
which one was most supportive of their needs and which one was less supportive of their needs.
Lastly, we were given materials to build and create a tangible "something" that our partner could
interact with. My construction was a teacher and a couple of students, where the teacher was
instructing students to work on a hands-on activity together. The person that I interviewed said
the he never liked hands-on activities in school and preferred lectures, so I encouraged him to
design lessons that involved more hands-on activities for students to engage in to promote
learning. After building, we formed a circle with everyone at the workshop and shared our
solution, tangible object, and got feedback.
The workshop presented new information to me, was well organized, included a hands-on
activity, was valuable for teachers and developing teachers, and the grade level appropriateness
of the information was sufficient. The presenters began by defining engineering and talking
about common misconceptions people have about what engineering is. It was very interesting. I

always believed that engineering had to do with building or constructing something, but it is in
fact more about ideas. After learning about engineering and misconceptions that people
commonly have about engineering we were challenged to participate in a hands-on activity,
described above. Every portion of the activity was timed and well thought out. The activity was
developed using the design process, that is, empathy, define, ideate, prototype, feedback, and
reflect, very much targeted to science or STEM standards. The presenters talked about how their
design process aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. It was very similar to the
STEM lessons we have been exploring in class. For example, the engage portion of the 5E's the
presenters talked about very much how important it is to first engage students in the introduction
of the lesson. Even more, the presenters focused on the explore portion. They really focused on
how important hands-on activities are for promoting real learning and understanding for k-12
grade level students.
Overall, the overall quality of the workshop was great. The length of the workshop was
sufficient and the information was very beneficial to me.