An Invitation to Start Collaborating

Dear School Leader:

We invite you to join a professional development program that has helped elementary and middle school teachers across the state engage their students in inquiry-based science learning.

Students who experience inquiry learning have an improved attitude toward science, demonstrated abilities to utilize science practices and processes and a better grasp of science concepts. Inquiry-based learning has also been found to promote the competencies--collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, innovation, and self-direction--needed to support an inclusive democracy and for successful engagement in the twenty-first-century workplace and civic life.

Given the higher-than-average growth rate and average wage in STEM occupations, as compared with non-STEM occupations, the need for well thought-out inquiry learning is becoming essential and will have profound implications for economic, educational, and social mobility for all of our students.

We offer professional development and resources in a range of areas. However, the program we propose and hope you will consider for your faculty consists of five (5) modules that form a solid foundation for engaging students in inquiry learning. Professional development aligns with local, state, and national standards for science learning and teaching.

Teacher participants have become science mentors to colleagues in their districts, STEM specialists, and organizers of teacher-led STEM summer camps. One teacher received a Presidential Award in Mathematics and Science Teaching!

We hope that you will join us!

Fiona McDonnell, Ed. D.         David R. Burgess, Ph. D.

Browse the menu and complete the form below to learn more about this highly successful program.