What began in Naperville Community Unit School District 203 could not stop there. Faculty from the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment interacted with around 200 students in 2021 and 2022 to observe how working with LEGO educational robots might stimulate
Read morePhotos: ETRA at STEM Fest
Several representatives from the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment staffed Booth 33 at NIU’s STEM Fest 2022, held Oct. 15. “Our VR and AR educational games were a great hit!” Chair Wei-Chen Hung said. “Kids and parents stood in long
Read moreETRA Graduate Student Association sees benefits of community, communication
Student-Centered. Experiential. Research-Informed. Inclusive. Collaborative. Innovative. The Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment’s Graduate Student Association (ETRA GSA) meets all of these values of the college’s Strategic Action Planning Framework – and more, including informative. Made for and led by students,
Read moreSTEM Read Summer Institute prepares educators to bring books, curiosity to life
Melanie Koss donned a headpiece that gave her deer ears, reclined motionless on a couch in the Gabel Hall Learning Center, closed her eyes and played the role of a deceased doe. And that wasn’t even the strangest sight at July’s NIU
Read moreLearn-IT explores future of teaching tech
Science fiction fans call May 4 “Star Wars Day” – as in, “May the Fourth Be With You” – but that particular Saturday this year centered on science reality for 120 regional teachers and instructional technology specialists. NIU’s Department of Educational Technology,
Read moreNIU to improve math content knowledge for teachers from Rockford, Sauk Valley
Northern Illinois University has received a $1.6 million grant from the Illinois State Board of Education to provide professional development in math pedagogy to 160 teachers from Rockford and the Sauk Valley area. Grant dollars also will fund the development of online
Read moreSTEM Read Institute sparks educators
Macy Gray’s journey as a teacher began at Mayatan Bilingual School, a non-profit in Honduras where she taught sixth-graders. When she returned to Illinois this summer to begin a new job this fall teaching sixth- and seventh-graders at Chicago’s Altus Academy, the
Read moreSTEM Read Summer Institute to teach educators to transfer books ‘off the page’
Bringing books to life – transporting an author’s words and worlds from typewritten pages into physical spaces – marvelously rouses the passion for reading within young readers. Just imagine your excitement if you learned that Tad Lincoln had lost his famous father’s
Read moreLEARN-IT conference exposes educators to instructional tech
Advances in technology come so quickly and frequently that it’s nearly impossible to stay on top of the latest innovations and applications. Yet for teachers, and for IT professionals who work in schools, the integration of technology to enhance learning carries a
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