Michelle Lawless

AMSTI Reflection
Professional development
2/18/16
AMSTI is a Math, Science and Technology initiative, which helps
students and trains teachers in these subject areas. AMSTI uses hands on
activity based learning to teach students so they are learning through doing
instead of by pen and paper. AMSTI benefits are improved attendants,
deepens teachers content knowledge and schools who are apart of AMSTI
score higher on standardized tests than non-AMSTI schools.
I enjoyed how this seminar began with us thinking about our
background in math. This allowed me to see just how similar my preferences
for math are to the other girls in my class. When learning about how AMSTI
implements math within the schools they serve, I saw a lot of best practice
strategies such as cooperative learning, asking questions, and giving
multiple methods to solve problems. I agree with all of these types of
strategies because they have differentiation built into them and they allow
students to think on a conceptual level.
I wasnt aware that the new science standards are morphing into
engineering standards, where students are doing more than listening. This
reminds me of our KUD model, where students first know, understand, and
then do. This KUD model is easily relatable to these engineering standards
because students must first know what they are doing, then understand the
concepts, and then do something to make what they have learned concrete.

The first grade simulation we did gave me a deep understanding of this KUD
model, because we went through each of the stages of it. We may not have
gone in depth as first graders would have, but we did successfully complete
each stage of this model.
I think AMSTI is doing exciting things for schools. Learning is different,
but better than when I was in lower grade school. AMSTI allows students to
think in a more conceptual way and then get their hands dirty to really
understand these concepts. I hope one day I work at a school where I am
able to be trained by AMSTI and teach using their fantastic strategies and
resources.