{"id":40996,"date":"2018-08-31T09:46:29","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T13:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/?p=40996"},"modified":"2019-11-05T15:44:13","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T20:44:13","slug":"umaine-alum-puts-his-research-into-practice-at-old-town-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/2018\/08\/31\/umaine-alum-puts-his-research-into-practice-at-old-town-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"UMaine alum puts his research into practice at Old Town High School"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken Akiha researched effective teaching styles for his thesis work<\/a> at the University of Maine to determine how teachers engage their students for entire class periods.<\/p>\n

Now, as an Earth science and computer science teacher at Old Town High School, he can apply his findings to his own teaching style.<\/p>\n

Akiha\u2019s research had an important goal: discover how educators can reduce the number of students leaving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields as undergraduates.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep students engaged from bell to bell.\u201d<\/h3>\n

According to Akiha, who received a Master of Science in Teaching<\/a> from UMaine in 2017, there is a drop in student enrollment in STEM careers at the college level, which leads to a loss of employable people for STEM careers.<\/p>\n

In a college setting, lecture-style classes dominate introductory courses. Akiha wondered if students transitioning from the K-12 interactive-learning style were finding this method of teaching to be difficult to engage with \u2013 and causing students to leave STEM majors.<\/p>\n

His thesis suggested educators increase collaboration between middle school, high school and university instructors as well as create long-term professional development that promotes more active learning for STEM classrooms.<\/p>\n

The RiSE Center implements this strategy with the NSF Teaching Fellowship Program<\/a> \u2013 a Robert Noyce Scholarship Program of the National Science Foundation. Akiha is a fellow of the program, which supports teachers by providing STEM educators courses and extensions such as financial support and mentoring. He witnesses his research benefiting his community, first-hand.<\/p>\n

From Earth Science to Computer Science<\/h3>\n

Akiha has now developed another passion: educate more students in computer science locally, nationally and beyond. When he realized the lack of opportunity for students to learn computer science at his school, he added the specialty to his resume. Now, there is an Advanced Placement (AP) course developed under his guidance for Old Town HS students — which he hopes will grow and become offered in schools throughout the state.<\/p>\n

He encourages other teachers to learn how to teach computer science, and hopes more computer science experts will enter the field as teachers. Akiha dreams of this program expanding statewide \u2013 retaining jobs in the industry here in Maine.<\/p>\n

Akiha hopes the cultural issue of tending to see STEM careers as only for \u201cgeniuses\u201d or \u201cgeeks\u201d will soon be a thing of the past and more students will seek out these careers \u2013 and stay in them.<\/p>\n

Female students represent nearly 50 percent of the enrollment in his AP course this fall \u2013 something Akiha says is gratifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cLosing STEM careers really hits home for me,\u201d said Akiha \u201cSo, I\u2019m really proud of this program.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his research and the support of programs such as the RiSE Center\u2019s NOYCE fellowship, perhaps more students in Maine \u2013 and beyond — will stay engaged from kindergarten through college.<\/p>\n

\n

Media Contact: Christel Peters<\/a>\u00a0207.581.3571<\/p>\n

More on the RiSE Center is online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ken Akiha researched effective teaching styles for his thesis work at the University of Maine to determine how teachers engage their students for entire class periods. Now, as an Earth science and computer science teacher at Old Town High School, he can apply his findings to his own teaching style. Akiha\u2019s research had an important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1286,"featured_media":40997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"65","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"UMaine alum Ken Akiha continues to live and work in Maine at Old Town High School, putting his research into practice and promoting STEM 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Ken Akiha researched effective teaching styles for his thesis work at the University of Maine to determine how teachers engage their students for entire class periods. Now, as an Earth science and computer science teacher at Old Town High School, he can apply his findings to his own teaching style. Akiha\u2019s research had an important goal: discover how educators can reduce the number of students leaving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields as undergraduates. \u201cKeep students engaged from bell to bell.\u201d According to Akiha, who received a Master of Science in Teaching from UMaine in 2017, there is a…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Grad Student Spotlight<\/a>, IMPACT Newsletter<\/a>, Research News<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"","url":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/author\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":571,"label":"Grad Student Spotlight"},{"value":94,"label":"IMPACT Newsletter"},{"value":65,"label":"Research News"}],"post_tag":[{"value":126,"label":"Education"},{"value":150,"label":"RiSE Center"},{"value":101,"label":"STEM"},{"value":90,"label":"UMaine Alumni"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/281\/2018\/08\/KenAkiha2-1024x736.jpg",1024,736,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/author\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":571,"name":"Grad Student Spotlight","slug":"grad-student-spotlight","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":571,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":553,"count":23,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":571,"category_count":23,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Grad Student Spotlight","category_nicename":"grad-student-spotlight","category_parent":553},{"term_id":94,"name":"IMPACT Newsletter","slug":"impact-newsletter","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":94,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":112,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":94,"category_count":112,"category_description":"","cat_name":"IMPACT Newsletter","category_nicename":"impact-newsletter","category_parent":0},{"term_id":65,"name":"Research News","slug":"research-news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":65,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":226,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":65,"category_count":226,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Research News","category_nicename":"research-news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":126,"name":"Education","slug":"education","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":126,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":5,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":150,"name":"RiSE Center","slug":"rise-center","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":150,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":101,"name":"STEM","slug":"stem","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":101,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":90,"name":"UMaine Alumni","slug":"umaine-alumni","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":90,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40996"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43762,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40996\/revisions\/43762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}