MSP in the virtual times: A digital success story
The start of Fall 2020 has been unexpected for all of us and we have been trying to function as “normally” as we can. Accepting the new normal with the ongoing health crisis, the Medical STEM program (MSP) has been successful at implementing the cancer education curriculum virtually across five new second grade classrooms. Moving the program online required all the paperwork and books to be made digital and the staff meetings were conducted via zoom. Veteran TAs Angelina Crittenden,Yvonne Hernandez, Eduardo Lopez, Haig Manoukian and Jisu Kim have reimagined online learning and excelled at teaching the MSP curriculum this semester.
Going virtual with a very hands-on, and supply-driven set of lesson plans was tricky, but thanks to the creative MSP team, we transitioned the lessons to online teaching by hand-picking lessons that were feasible for students and staff to implement with no special supplies in an at home setting. Continued funding and support from Dr. Martin Kast of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine of USC and Dr. Dieuwertje Kast from the USC Joint Educational Project, helped us buy necessary supplies for each of the lessons and ship them to the TAs’ home addresses for teaching. With fewer teaching days this semester, we taught the basics of the science of cancer by choosing lessons from the Oncology, Nutrition and Genetics units and created youtube video resources for easy dissemination. All of the lessons were centered around teaching the science of Cancer and talking about diseases in general. The TAs used creative techniques to gauge and retain knowledge on the taught topics.
We also had some amazing speakers this semester including Dr. Ghecemy Lopez, John D. Carpten, Stacey Finley, DJ Fernandez, and Jamie Decker.
In the past year and a half, continued support and interest in MSP from our partnering LAUSD schools and their teachers–including Miss Robles, Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Nakama at Vermont Avenue Elementary and Miss Finnin at Lenicia B. Weemes Elementary–has been key in envisioning and implementing the virtual program in classrooms. This semester has been special as we welcome Miss Kim at Dr. Theodore T. Alexander Science Center School (CSC) into the MSP family! One of the teachers, Mr. Nakama, had this to say about the program: “My students have had 2 outstanding teachers in science, Yvonne and Jasmin. They have brought a tremendous amount of excitement and energy into the class with their energy and interactive games and presentations. This has resulted in the students embracing science. The best part is that you don’t see any students shying away from science. No one is “scared” of science at this stage, and that is what you want to see.”
Jisu Kim preparing to teach about nutrition to her second grade students.