Professional Development Offerings

Summer Science Institute

Summer Institutes are typically developed collaboratively with teachers and District administrators. Institutes center on District identified themes, topics and science standards.

Institutes are a minimum of 2-weeks in duration. Most institutes run 9am to 3pm. Institutes can be completed for graduate credit. Professional Development

Professional Development Workshops

Designing learning for scientific inquiry.

• Engaging students in Engineering Design Process.
• Engaging students as observers and questioners of natural/scientific phenomena. [Observation as inquiry.]
• Engaging students in designing investigations to illuminate questions.
• Facilitating data gathering and sense-making in the science classroom.
• Exploring and researching [uncovering and assessing] the ideas that students bring to their learning.
• Teacher questioning to support student inquiry and exploration.
• Looking at student work products through the lens of inquiry.
• Looking at classrooms through the lens of inquiry.
• Science Performance Tasks in the elementary/middle school classroom.
• Designing learning around science learning standards.
• Engaging elementary and middle school students as a community of science learners.

Professional development is offered during the school year and can be scheduled to coincide with the school's professional development day. Professional development is designed for 2-hour and 4-hour time slots.

Check out this example from Pelham Elementary School.

Monthly Forum

Teachers share dilemmas of practice drawn from their classrooms. Peers give feedback using a structured protocol designed for such purposes. The monthly forum is held on weekday afternoons, 3-4 times a semester. 90 mins. This can be held in an online/virtual format.

Scientist-Science Educator in-Residence

A Scientist and/or Science Educator work with individual teachers or grade span over the course of a school term, making classroom visits and meeting following class. Scientist, science educator and teachers collaborate to identify the focus of inquiry. Scientist and/or Science Educator will make a minimum of 3 school visits over the course of a 16-week term. Number of visits to be determined by District.

Ask-A-Scientist-Science Educator

Scientist responds to specific questions about science content. Serves as a resource for readings, materials and activities.

Course Offerings

• Designing Exploratory Science Curriculum k-8, ED921(2 Credits)

  Engages participants designing leaning experiences to facilitate inquiry-based learning.

• Documenting Science Exploration k-8, ED922 (2 Credits)

  Involves participants in the collaborative assessment of student work products generated by inquiry-based learning experiences and classroom videotapes of students engaged in inquiry learning.

• Science Writing for Publication, ED923 (1 Credit)

  Participants review, reflect and report on their insights into students? science learning and ways to facilitate inquiry learning to an audience of stakeholders.

• Basic Chemical Principles, CHE901 (1 Credit)

  Participants will investigate some basic chemical principles that govern many everyday observations in the physical world.

• Math in Science, PHY901 (1 Credit)

  Participants will investigate basic mathematical principles as applied and used in the Physical Sciences. The ability to use mathematical concepts will be developed by using them to better understand physical phenomena. Students will better understand and appreciate the role of the following mathematical concepts as they apply to the physical sciences: numbers viewed as experimental data, tables, graphs, and equations.

• Physical Science Investigations, PHY902 (1 Credit)

  Participants will study puzzling observations drawn from the physical world and identify the physical science principles that underlie and describe the behavior of the phenomena in question. Strategies for scientific investigations will be developed as the course progresses. The role of intermediate theories and student beliefs will also be incorporated into the investigations.

Other online Professional Development opportunities (for 9-12):

• Chemical Equations and Stoichiometry, CHE902 (1 Credit)

  Participants will build on basic chemical principles to investigate chemical equations.

• High Tide Opposite the Moon, PHY905 (1 Credit)

  Participants will build a background to understand how a high tide can be formed on the side of the earth opposite the moon.