About Corrina Strecker

Corrina Strecker from Ann Arbor Hands-on Museum

Corrina Strecker is a Senior Education Manager at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum in Michigan. Within the education department, Corrina runs the Distance Learning program which connects the museum to students from all around the world. Using interactive hands-on learning based lessons in combination with video conferencing technologies, she helps manages and teaches these types of experiences to over 300 classrooms each year.

The Distance Learning program at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum has received the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration’s (CILC) Pinnacle award for the past three years. This award recognizes outstanding performances by videoconference content providers based on teacher evaluations. Along with the CILC, Corrina was a founding member of the Pinnacle Education Collaborative (PEC) which is a collaborative professional network of Distance Learning providers who promote interactive video conferencing and advise the CILC.

Corrina received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Bowling Green State University in Ohio where she majored in Theatre. Before ending up at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, she picked up other skills at Spirit Airlines as a flight attendant and NSF International, a public health and safety company, working in their food safety and toy safety departments.

Top 3 Learnings

1. Get involved in the arts! Much has been said about the value of the arts when it comes to STEM education and for good reason – it expands your creativity and can bring a fresh perspective on a given problem. Additionally, the arts are inherently hands-on and as such, you can pick up valuable DIY skills that you can use in your classroom. Corrina’s background in theatre most definitely brings valuable skills to her museum and no doubt helps her hold the attention of large audiences of all ages. Whether it’s sculpture, painting, drawing, drama, music or more your students will benefit highly from participating in activities that require them to create new meaning.
2. Get messy & let kids have a bit of fun! Part of working with kids is getting them engaged when they’re young means that they’ll be engaged when they older and this could mean creating more than a little mayhem along the way. As long as your students learn that they must clean up after they’re finished it can be highly valuable to allow them time for some unstructured exploration and discovery.
3. Go to an ISTE conference! If you’ve never been to an ISTE conference it could be well worth your while as this conference brings together over 20,000 teachers, librarians and more from all over the world to chat about the latest edtech and lesson techniques that teach STEM. If you can’t make it to an ISTE conference there are undoubtedly local meet ups in your area for motivated educators who want to make a difference.

Further contact details & resources

• Contact Corrina via email on cstrecker@aahom.org or distancelearning@aahom.org
• Ann Arbor Hands On Museum website: www.aahom.org/distancelearning