innovationIOWA Weekly 4.30.20

If you aren’t a parent yourself, just ask one on Twitter: The new home-schooling normal has not been an easy road for many. For elementary school teachers, adjusting lesson plans to a Zoom screen with a gallery of tiny faces peering back might just be the challenge of their careers.

Although Yen Verhoeven couldn’t have known it before the pandemic hit, her company Qi Learning Research Group was perfectly positioned to help elementary teachers adjust their STEM curricula to distance learning.

Qi Learning is designed to offer vetted digital resources for teachers learning to personalize instruction toward the student, from a distance. Verhoeven launched the company in April 2018 and graduated through the Iowa State University Startup Factory program that year. Qi Learning also received a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges grant, which Verhoeven used to launch the company’s first free resources library for teachers who needed assistance leading STEM topics in a way that taught students soft communication, theorizing and research skills, rather than a fact-first approach.

"If I go into a class … and all that teacher does is serve macaroni and cheese, it’s no wonder that you get kids who won’t eat it. Then you’re going to get kids who eat a little bit of it, and then you get kids who just dig in," Verhoeven said. "When I’m teaching teachers how to teach [online], I provide them with a large variety of resources for people to choose from. … I’m not saying you have to eat from all templates. With resources, you’re providing a buffet, and everybody gets a plate."

Once distance learning came into effect, Verhoeven and her colleagues moved quickly to transition the company’s STEAM Cafe platform from simply supporting STEM professional development to guiding all elementary teachers who needed to adjust their classes to a distance learning delivery -- including offline, for students without broadband access.

STEAM Cafe is helping teachers develop their class time into challenges -- such as encouraging students to cook with their parents, or sort laundry into categories and report back to the teacher on the skills they learned.

"We encourage teachers to do nontraditional things. Send a postcard to your students, or send a picture of you," she said. "The biggest issue with online learning is you’ve got to reestablish your face-to-face connections again."

To Verhoeven, the pivoting point for her company was the recent Elementary STEM Con held online. More than 4,000 teachers participated and received links to the video series Lesson Planning for Distance Learning, which Verhoeven’s team had quickly developed in March as school districts nationwide began closing classroom doors.

"Finally, people got to see us," Verhoeven said.

Moving forward, Qi Learning is developing a series of workshops -- with titles such as "Disaster-Proof Your Teaching" and the yearlong program "Fierce and Fearless STEAM Teacher" -- for instructors and, soon, a summer program for home-schooling families seeking to bolster their student’s STEM skills before returning to classes.

The price for these instructor-focused programs may be a barrier -- at least one upcoming program has an expected cost of $3,000 -- so Verhoeven is looking for opportunities to sponsor teachers going through the programs.

"I want teachers to be able to prepare for anything," Verhoeven said. "Teachers can’t pay for this out of pocket. If there are sponsors that are willing to fund them, we would love that. We’d love to open this up to Iowa. … This is for rebel teachers who are unstoppably committed to changing the world."

IN THE NEWS

Rantizo launches sanitization spraying for stadiums, sports arenas
Agtech startup Rantizo, primarily known as a drone spraying service for row crop farmers, is launching stadium and sports arena drone spraying services to help large-scale event vendors with sanitization efforts, the Iowa City company announced this week. Sports organizations or open areas needing to be sanitized will be charged an initial setup fee, as well as a per-unit price determined by area or number of seats. After a location is mapped, repeated applications can be made in between events, Rantizo said in a statement. More information can be requested online.

Rocket Referrals launches online ‘market’ for cloth mask donations
Rocket Referrals has launched a new website to connect U.S. residents in need of a reusable cloth mask with mask makers, the company announced in a statement. Maskhelpers.org launched on April 18. In the first week, people have mailed more than 1,500 masks to 500 families nationally, according to the company. Anyone who would like to donate masks can sign up online; mask makers are responsible for covering the costs, but have the option of requesting materials and postage to be donated through the website. MaskHelpers recommends makers use regular USPS postage stamps to mail masks or schedule contactless delivery.

Frank J. Ross Boys & Girls Club recognized as STEM Scale-Up program awardee
The Frank J. Ross Boys & Girls Club was announced as a STEM Scale-Up program awardee by the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council for the 2020-21 school year. The program will provide club members with the opportunity to learn and explore the engineering design process through the STEM in Action program by hand2mind, beginning in fall 2020, the club announced this week. The Ross Club is located within Moore Elementary and serves 150 students between kindergarten and fifth grade.

ONE GOOD TECH READ
COVID-19 has blown apart the myth of Silicon Valley innovation

MIT REVIEW: "The frustration in Marc Andreessen’s post on our failure to prepare and respond competently to the coronavirus pandemic is palpable, and his diagnosis is adamant: ‘a failure of action, and specifically our widespread inability to "build."’ Why don’t we have vaccines and medicines, or even masks and ventilators? He writes: ‘We could have these things but we chose not to — specifically we chose not to have the mechanisms, the factories, the systems to make these things. We chose not to ‘build.’’"

IN OTHER NEWS: Supreme Court rules Georgia can’t put the law behind a paywall after the state licenses official copy of law to LexisNexis (ARS TECHNICA); Google Meet video conferencing now free for anyone with a Google account (VERGE); Does anyone feel like saving electric scooters? (CITYLAB).

By Emily Blobaum | Visual journalist

The orders to close came in waves. March 17: all bars, restaurants, gyms, theaters and gaming facilities. March 22: salons, spas, barbershops, tattoo parlors, tanning facilities and pools. March 26: bookstores, clothing and shoe stores, home furnishing stores and cosmetic shops. April 6: malls, amusement parks, bowling alleys, libraries, zoos, campgrounds and playgrounds.
Small businesses, which rely heavily on foot traffic from local residents and visitors, are being hit particularly hard.

In a survey conducted by the Greater Des Moines Partnership with 600 respondents last month, 62% of Des Moines metro organizations said they’ve made operational changes in response to the pandemic. When asked about the biggest concerns surrounding COVID-19, 89% mentioned the impact on loacal and small businesses. Additionally, 13% of respondents said they were concerned that their business may not be able to sustain or recover from the effects of the pandemic. Twenty-four percent were anticipating needing up to $100,000 in financial assistance, with others needing more.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

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May 14: Power Breakfast: How we're all going to get through this pandemic
We will get through this. How? We’re all still figuring it out. Come hear an idea from some of Greater Des Moines’ top leaders about how the community is adapting amid challenges related to the coronavirus. This rapid-pace event will have each leader sharing one idea to motivate you and give you a better understanding of how the pandemic has affected the various segments in our region. Leave the session with actionable ways you can help yourself, your organization and your community.
WHERE: Zoom meeting, 8 a.m.
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