Rewiring Stem Education for the Future

Dr. Chet Nicklas, Black Belt STEM Institute Director, the University of West Alabama

As the director of the Black Belt STEM Education Institute, I have experienced many STEM related opportunities that I didn’t know existed. I like to think that my leadership philosophy is to lead by example, and this philosophy has led to many of these opportunities. For example, any time I am asked to attend a STEM event, career day or teacher training, and my schedule aligns, I make sure to be there. This has resulted in many relationships that have helped me to change the trajectory of STEM and career opportunities in Alabama. Specific recent pivotal experiences include:

1. Robotics Competitions

What started as helping under-resourced schools acquire equipment has turned into the University hosting its first Robotics tournament. This year, we have begun to do school visits every week to help support robotics coaches and teams in their pursuit of a successful robotics team.

2. Worlds of Work

This event hosted students from all over Alabama. “Worlds of Work (WOW) is a nationally recognized, immersive experience, showcasing competitive careers in West Alabama to over 4,000 students. WOW allows students to explore career opportunities through hands-on demonstrations with industry leaders. Taking over Shelton State Community College’s campus for two days, the event draws hundreds of industries to showcase their companies and build their future workforce.

The immediate goals of delivering effective STEM Programs directly helps us with our longer term objectives. We are showing regional impact through our Professional Development options, particularly with our AMSTI Affiliation (https://www.amsti.org/amstiaffiliates). Our robotics initiative has helped us start over 20 robotics team throughout the Alabama Black Belt, and we have visited 19 schools since the beginning of the school year to help them start their teams, organize their parts, and go over coding and game-specific strategies. Sustainability is happening, as the UWA Black Belt STEM Education Institute (https://www.uwa.edu/black-belt-steminstitute/) has become the go-to for all professional development sessions and STEM Opportunities. The trust that has been built with schools, teachers, and leaders in unmatched in Alabama and it is awesome to be able to walk in to schools throughout Alabama and be immediately recognized.

The most significant challenges include time, resources and consistency. We are definitely helping with the resources problem, as we have already purchased equipment for over 20 schools, and we have even gone as far as covering registration fees for robotics teams in the Black Belt. We are also trying to help with time by working directly with robotics teams, scheduling our tournaments during school hours and offering virtual professional development opportunities after school hours.

The consistency problem is still going on, mainly with leadership changes, changing curriculum and picking the correct faculty for STEM opportunities, but we hope to help build up the lower performing schools to help with retaining educators in the area. There are also many grants awarded that the University of West Alabama and other colleges are using to attract more teachers to the state.

Emerging opportunities that we are trying to get ahead of include AI, robotics, Virtual Reality and Drones. We have already conducted drone and robotics training, and we hope to launch AI and Virtual Reality initiatives soon, even if this means finding existing partners.

The best advice I can offer is to never pass up a meeting.

Many times, I have taken a meeting just out of curiosity and it turned out to be something useful. At the very least, it has helped to build my support system and partnerships. Because of my willingness to always say yes, I have met many important people throughout the state, not to mention building lasting relationships with students, teachers, principals, superintendents and other school stakeholders.

Robotics

Virtual Reality

AI

Drone