BLOSSOMS What's New? Spring 2020

New BLOSSOMS Video Lesson Encourages Students to Pursue STEM Studies and Careers in Healthcare
In a new BLOSSOMS video lesson, three young scientists and one young engineer from MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research speak directly to high school students about their own high school and college paths leading into the healthcare field. The four interviewees provide compelling testimonies on the rewarding nature of their work, while at the same time dispelling stereotypes about the STEM field and encouraging women and minorities to feel welcomed into it. Watch the video lesson here.

Next Generation Science Standards Teacher Professional Learning
MIT BLOSSOMS has developed an online “package” of resource materials designed to assist high school science teachers in developing lessons aligned with NGSS requirements. This “package’ is built around five new BLOSSOMS lessons designed to demonstrate NGSS in the science classroom. Accompanying resources include instructional videos, along with directly applicable written guidance. Available on the MIT BLOSSOMS website in April, 2020. Watch one of the new BLOSSOMS NGSS lessons: Variation Is Essential: How Does Variation within a Population Affect the Survival of a Species?

BLOSSOMS Introduces Project-based Learning Units
Five new Project-based Learning (PBL) units will be available on the MIT BLOSSOMS website in April of this year. The goal of these units is to enable teachers new to PBL to give it a try by providing them with all the guidance and scaffolding they will need to successfully lead a 3 to 5-week classroom project. Each PBL unit kicks off from an MIT BLOSSOMS video lesson, providing a solid academic foundation for the follow-on student-led projects. An example of one of the kick-off BLOSSOMS lessons is The Surprising World of Complex Systems.

BLOSSOMS@Home Available Online for High School Students

The BLOSSOMS program is pleased to provide tangible, one-week projects based on our BLOSSOMS lessons, requiring participants to email back to us a short project report. A student participant is directed to watch and think about the one or two BLOSSOMS video lessons involved in the assignment, try to answer questions asked within the videos, and then write a brief report addressing new challenges we pose. MIT staff will read submitted reports and provide feedback by email. Superlative submissions will be recognized in an appropriate way. See what we have to offer here.

Chinese Students Out of School Used BLOSSOMS Video Lessons

MIT BLOSSOMS and Peking University’s Graduate School of Education teamed up to offer 32 Mandarin-language interactive BLOSSOMS STEM video lessons to high school students and educators in China who were at home due to the virus and eager to learn. The videos could be accessed via WeChat, a popular messaging app in China.

Students’ comments
“Watching BLOSSOMS lessons is like playing video games that many boys like. It arouses your interest and desire for challenges.”

“BLOSSOMS lessons focus on student’s critical thinking. It cultivates the learner’s active participation.

Teachers’ comments
“BLOSSOMS lessons demonstrate to us teachers how to apply problem-based learning approach in our own class.”

“Comparing to the lecture-based method that we normally use in China, BLOSSOMS are definitely more attractive to students. It helps cultivate them into active learners.”