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September 2016

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welcome back to schoolBLOSSOMS To Provide Lessons that Encourage Project-Based Learning
PBLMIT BLOSSOMS will initiate a new focus to provide math, science and engineering teachers with lesson resources that lend themselves to Project-Based Learning. Using lessons already in the BLOSSOMS video library and new lessons developed to follow the PBL pedgagogy, teachers will have access to resources that connect their students with life outside the classroom and address real world issues. A major goal of these PBL lessons will be to give students a more integrated understanding of the concepts they learn, helping them make connections across different subjects and also equipping them with important skills they will need during their lives. Each PBL BLOSSOMS lesson will provide a step-by-step guide for teachers, including session schedules, standards covered, additional online resources and more. This PBL initiative will be available on the BLOSSOMS website starting in January, 2017.

High School Student Shares BLOSSOMS Lessons and More With Fellow Students in India
India ArticleI happened to come across the MIT BLOSSOMS website while searching for world-class online enrichment opportunities over the net. This free resource has over 175 math and science videos for teachers for use in high school classrooms. However, I got interested in these videos as the topics were closely related to our high school curriculum. I was pretty excited to have discovered this online treasure and started watching these videos on my own, at my home, one by one. Now I am one of those high school students who has been truly enriched by this free online educational resource. I find MIT BLOSSOMS videos a great supplement to our high school curriculum as they help in visualizing the theoretical concepts and relate these concepts to real world applications in a simple yet elegant way. The concepts are clearly explained and can be understood even without the help of anyone else. Read full story.

BLOSSOMS Holds Training Workshop for Instructors at Universidad Tecmilenio in Mexico
TecmilenioIn late August, BLOSSOMS kicked off Phase Two of its partnership with Universidad Tecmilenio in Mexico. More than 35 instructors from the university’s 29 campuses gathered at the campus in Monterrey for a three-day workshop on utilizing and creating BLOSSOMS video lessons. Universidad Tecmilenio is a private institution and is part of the Monterrey Institute of Technology. It provides degrees at the High School, Undergraduate and Masters levels. Instructors at this university are already familiar with the BLOSSOMS video pedagogy since Phase One of this partnership involved the Spanish subtitling of about twenty BLOSSOMS lessons. Tecmilenio administration has found the BLOSSOMS "Teaching Duet" pedagogy to work very well with its Blended and Online learning approach across 29 campuses. For this reason, they are eager to have their instructors learn how to develop new lessons based on this unique video pedagogy.

 
Back to School STEM Resources from MIT

From MIT BLOSSOMS: Search here for BLOSSOMS lessons on specific STEM topics.

From the MIT EDGERTON CENTER: Search here for STEM enrichment curriculum modules.

From “Behind the Scenes” at MIT: Search here for two-minute videos relating concepts from textbook chemistry to current MIT research and applications in medicine, the environment, and energy.

From MIT Professor Gilbert Strang: Search here for Prof. Strang’s Linear Algebra Class Lecture Videos.

From MIT OpenCourseWare “Highlights for High Schools”: Search here for materials created specifically for those in high school, as well as resources collected from the MIT curriculum that can be used by those in high school.

From MIT K12 Videos “Science Out Loud” Series: Search here for STEM-topic videos made by MIT students.

From BioBuilder: Search here for curriculum material on biology and synthetic biology.

From the MIT STAR Program: Search here for innovative and intuitive teaching tools for the Life Sciences.

Look for these BLOSSOMS
Lessons Coming Soon

Sneeze“The Science of Sailing”

“The Physics of a Sneeze”

“Energizing Physics”

Meet an MIT BLOSSOMS Teacher

PhotoBill Andrake has been a classroom science teacher, mainly at the middle school level, for over thirty years. His educational background and passion is in the study of marine biology and thus he often looks for ways to bring ocean science into his curriculum. Additionally, he feels this brings relevance and meaning to his lessons as he teaches students who live in a seaside community. His BLOSSOMS lesson, “Will an Ice Cube Melt Faster in Fresh Water or Salt Water,” is the most watched lesson on the BLOSSOMS YouTube Channel.