“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”  ― Gloria Steinem

“The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.” ― Emily Dickinson

The ImagineIT is a year-long, multi-stage project that starts during the summer session (July 13, 2016) and continues through to the end of the spring term (May 2017).  What exactly does it mean to ImagineIT?  Through this project you will develop a plan of action for addressing some STEM content using technology – technology is not the overriding focus.  You start from the big ideas in your discipline and then work back to the solutions (a part of which could include technology).

…the ImagineIT project is the opportunity to deal with issues your students face in the STEM disciplines and then to put your plan into action!

In general, here are the three main stages of the ImagineIT project that you can expect over the course of the year:

Let’s now focus on how we will begin the ImagineIT journey this summer.  Over the course of the summer semester we will explore a variety of topics and issues related to teaching and learning in the STEM disciplines and the potential of educational technology to transform learning. This includes ideas such as the value of disciplinary learning, misconceptions that people may have, the importance of understanding the aesthetic aspects of teaching and learning, backward design, performances of understanding, and the role that technology (particularly the TPACK framework) plays in the educational process. We would like you to keep all of these readings, assignments, activities and presentations in mind while planning for the upcoming year.  Of course, each of your projects will be different, depending on a range of contextual factors:  audience, content to be covered, situational constraints and so on. So your project should be designed to fit your professional work and responsibilities.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that this is NOT a project you are doing to merely complete the requirements of the fellowship. This is for real.

We also ask you to aim high and take some risks. Making change happen is not easy. But in choosing to become a MSU-Wipro STEM & Leadership Fellow, you have shown that you are not interested in the status quo. Aim to do something transformational. We recognize that many of you are already doing things that are innovative and effective within your different areas of STEM curricula.  However, the best teachers are continually evolving their practices, developing and redeveloping their lessons, units, and pedagogy for constant growth and innovation. See this project as an opportunity to do that.

During the summer, you will move through three key phases in the development of your ImagineIT.  The three key phases are:

Please click on the following links to read about each of the phases in detail that you will cover in Summer.

1. Phase 1: Idea Generation
   1. i-Image
   2. i-Video
2. Phase 2: The Big Idea
3. Phase 3: Action Plan

In the fall and spring semesters… we will do the following. Further details of these will be provided at a later date. Broadly, however, this is what we are looking forward to:

• Conduct Focus Group +Teaching Demo (deliver 1 to teachers and 1 to students) by mid-October
• Short report on Focus Groups (what changes were made to ImagineIT and what were not): Early November

• Implement one round of ImagineIT (through fall semester)

• Report on First Round Implementation of ImagineIT: Early December
• Implement second round of ImagineIT (through spring semester)

• Proposal around ImagineIT submitted to CPS Technology conference: TBA (typically in April/May)
• Documentation of process: Ongoing updates on ImagineIT progress