OSE STEM Camp Marketing Strategy
Some business leaders have noted that people tend to identify the "why" moreso than the "what" when making decisions.
Video Script
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_3t_97giFOtqJ4ExPZdYeVEilCRhMmu0IWLLpBCrG-0/edit
Promotion Venues
Strategies
Call for teachers who are grossly dissatisfied with standard curriculum and would like to have a different option
Venues
- Twitter STEM groups
- STEM FB Groups
- Linked In
- State STEM Education Associations
- National STEM education Associations
- Corrupt rich country government's looking to do a branch
- Dr. O'Toole from Guyana
- Connections in Trinidad / Colombia / Belize / Liberia / China
- Blogging / Vlogging
- Kansas City Maker Faire
OSE STEAM Camp - Why?
The world as it is now
The world's citizens tend to participate passively in local and global affairs. They feel that their contributions do not matter and that other people will take care of managing the direction in which our emerging global society is heading.
The world as we would like it to be
The world's citizens take an active role in local and global affairs. They feel that they belong, have an important role to play and find other like-minded collaborators with whom to strive for the betterment of society.
How will we get there?
Education is at the core of positive and beneficial transformation: "Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures and enable mankind to benefit therefrom" -Bahá'í Writings The OSE STEM Camp, then will provide participants with a space to develop their personal and interpersonal qualities for societal transformation in the context of a dynamic and shared technological space.
The Educational Process
Coherent
Our world has become too fragmented. In education, learning is divided into different disciplines with few links between them. This creates an overwhelming task for those wishing to learn as the sheer number of concepts to grasp becomes unorganized and unmanageable.
A coherent educational program addresses this challenge by providing an underlying organization to the curriculum which arranges the concepts learned around a central unifying theme. Further, collaborators in this process naturally choose to specialize and form interdisciplinary teams. Thus, no individual feels pressure to assimilate an excessive amount of content while the group collectively learns the content, sharing their insights and skills with others. While this is a natural way of operating in a business, the educational systems of the world adhere strongly to the fragmented approach thereby depriving the students of deeper understanding and rich outcomes.
Transformative (/Empowering)
A quality educational program should successfully transform the way that its participants act and think. Many attempt to achieve this through indoctrination. The students' opinions are often formed by the teachers. One common example concerns the topic of creation vs. evolution. Some "scientifically minded" teachers would tend to dismiss all religious views, deeming them "unscientific", and promoting such views in class as "fact," thereby taking the thought process away from the students. There is value in having the students understand, weigh, analyse and appreciate different viewpoints. When they finally develop a set of beliefs it will be based on careful thought and reflection, not the mere repetition of teachers' statements. The transformation of a true educational program thus comes from developing the skill to independently seek the truth and apply it. Cycles of action, reflection and consultation are created whereby collaborators continuously refine their understanding and apply it, developing further experience with which to modify understanding.
Meaningful (/Community-connected)
Naturally, in creating cycles of action, reflection and consultation, collaborators in an educational program gradually change and modify their views based on experience, transforming their communities along the way. Education must have meaning for the participants. They should take part in deciding on the nature of the educational activities to be undertaken. Connecting educational programs to the community is an essential component. The fact that an activity stands to make a difference for others acts as a powerful motivator and lends to the transformative aspect of the process. Community connections also provide a context to the learning, helping students and teachers to prioritize those concepts that stand to make the biggest impact for others. Traditional curricula are arranged in such a way that this is difficult to achieve. The range of learning outcomes is limited compared to the vast knowledge of humankind. It is also highly fragmented. This makes connecting meaningfully and sustainably to the community all but impossible for most educational programs. An effective educational program addresses these challenges by broadening the range of curricular pursuits and connecting them to an integrating theme or factor, thereby enabling meaningful community connections to be developed and sustained.
We need your help!
Enacting the above vision of education will not proceed without concerted and sustained efforts of many people. The Factor e Farm STEAM camp is a great place to begin! Based on the above elements, the Factor e Farm STEAM camp features a curriculum that gradually developed through community interaction and input and features the integrating vision of Open Source Ecology - to contribute to the development of a peaceful and prosperous global society made up of informed, inspired and engaged citizens.
