Opportunities for Teachers

The Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers and PBS Learning Media present: Easy Ways to Incorporate the Design Process into Science Instruction.

Hear from two highly-skilled Massachusetts educators who have tips for working the Engineering Design Process into your science instruction, and we'll review student-tested, hands-on activities and digital media resources that support the design process and the new Massachusetts science standards. 

This webinar is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Science Teachers Association (MAST), WGBH Education, and PBS LearningMedia™. Led by educators Kristen MacDonald, Northborough, and David Kujawski, East Walpole.

The STEM Education Center offers a variety of professional development workshops for teachers on WPI's campus during the academic year as well as throughout the summer. We focus on enriching STEM education in the classroom at both the subject specific level and as fully integrated subject content & practices across STEM fields. 

For more information, please visit the WPI website.

The Lemelson-MIT Program, located within the School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been celebrating outstanding inventors and working to inspire young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention for more than twenty years. We are now working to share our experience with educators across the U.S. as we believe that the development of creative and inventive mindsets is critical to young people’s ability to thrive in today’s technologically driven, rapidly changing world.

Our examinations of the demographics of current patent holders, people who possess ‘creative and inventive mindsets’, suggest that advanced degrees in STEM field/disciplines are highly associated with technological inventions. However, STEM knowledge must be accompanied by other types of knowledge, skills and ways of thinking such as creativity and inventiveness which are related to but distinctly different from STEM knowledge and skills.  We are hosting two summer professional development workshops  to share our insights into invention education with other educators working to provide developmentally appropriate learning opportunities to middle and high school students.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

Developing Creative, Inventive Mindsets and Skills that Prepare Middle and High School Students for Careers in Rapidly Changing World

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Middle and high school teacher leaders, after school professionals and other educators.
 
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN
The three-day workshop will develop educators’ capacity to help kids learn to think and act as an inventor while developing a solution to a real-world problem. The workshop includes strategies for the effective use of JV InvenTeam activity guides made available free of charge on the Lemelson-MIT website here.
 
PRESENTERS/HANDS-ON WORKSHOP FACILITATORS
Workshop sessions will be taught/facilitated by Lemelson-MIT Program staff (former teachers) and former InvenTeam teachers.

lemelson.mit.edu/events

Dr. Manos Chaniotakis is a noted science author & co-author of numerous STEM curricula. Among those include: “A Natural Approach to Chemistry (NAC)” and “Essential Physics” with Dr. Tom Hsu, which is used in the EBEC current Office of Naval Research Grant Project. Currently, Dr. Chaniotakis serves as International Advisor for policies and programming for the European Program on Open Schooling for High Schools & Universities across 28 member countries of the European Union. NAC is the naturalchoice for continuing your NGSS curriculum alignment. 

Dr. Chaniotakis will discuss current issues in chemistry education today, including a comparison of chemistry teaching in the US and in Europe. Also, he will explore the chemistry of pH and of selected thermochromic* pigments. Participants will receive a copy of the student book and lab manual for “A Natural Approach to Chemistry”, along with the opportunity to experience selected lab activities in breakout workshops following the main session. Dr. Chaniotakis is a noted science and engineering educator and educational entrepreneur with extensive experience in developing innovative STEM programs. He has received degrees in physics, aerospace engineering and nuclear fusion from MIT where he did research; He has developed hands on science curricula, and taught for over 20 years. He has authored and co-authored with Dr Tom Hsu high school STEM curricula and teaching resources including a “Natural Approach to Chemistry”, “Essential Physics” currently used in the EBEC Office of Naval Research Project, and engineering and robotics for secondary and university education, used in New England and across the country. He has developed various software and hardware educational technologies to enable effective hands on teaching and learning of science and engineering.

Online advance registration by May 17, 2017 is required and further information is on our at website: www.ebecri.org Questions: Email: Ronald.Kahn@ebecri.org of call 245-4998 X304. A flyer for the event can be found at EBEC NAC.pdf

Semester: Fitchburg State University/Summer II 2017

Course Dates: 7/10/17 - 7/14/17

Course Times: 8 am - 3:30 pm

3 Graduate Credits from Fitchburg State University

Cost $600/3 graduate credits at Fitchburg State University or $315/37.5 PDPs

Location: Groton, MA

The Nashua River Watershed Association “NRWA Watershed Investigations Course: Connecting

Watersheds and 2016 MA Science & Technology/Engineering Standards” will allow graduate level and/or in-

service teachers grades 5-8 to dissect and apply the new Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering

Standards. Candidates will practice using the publication Nashua River Watershed Investigations for Grades 5-

8: Connecting Watersheds to the 2016 MA Science and Technology/Engineering Standards, including 12

lessons ready for classroom use. Candidates will learn through hands-on outdoor science lessons, presentations

from NRWA scientists, and collaboration with peers. Candidates will also design a science unit including a self-

designed research project with measurable data collection. Outdoor excursions will include a short canoe trip,

walks through several forested areas, and explorations in a schoolyard.

Contact: To register, email MaryM@NashuaRiverWatershed.org. Deadline for registration 6/30/2017. Space is

limited. Be sure to register today to reserve your spot.

Looking for an invigorating professional development training experience this summer? Join fellow K-12 educators from across the country at The National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project’s 2017 National Energy Conference for Educators.  Happening July 16-20 in Milwaukee, WI! 

The 2017 Energy Conference for Educators brings together educators that are passionate about bringing energy education to their classrooms. In five interactive days in Milwaukee, the conference provides teachers with the most up-to-date information on all aspects of energy including the science of energy, sources of energy, transportation, electricity, efficiency and environmental and economic impacts.

Participants receive the training and materials to implement innovative hands-on energy units in their classrooms, multi-disciplinary teams, and after-school programs. NEED leaders at the conference help participants develop specialized units with NEED lessons that integrate energy curriculum into classrooms at any grade level and with students of all learning styles, while focusing on the successful achievement of state and national education goals by using correlations of NEED materials to the Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core standards and state science standards.

Attending teachers will receive credit towards a NEED Energy Kit and access to all NEED Curriculum Guides, and supplemental resources. This conference is often attended by energy industry education and outreach staff who manage or implement energy education programs. The cost of the conference is $1,500 and includes double occupancy lodging, most meals, local transportation to and from the airport in the conference city and curriculum materials. Limited scholarships are available for classroom teachers. Please indicate if you need a scholarship when you apply to attend. Teachers are encouraged to seek local funding and sponsorship to attend.

For more details and to apply, please visit: www.need.org/summertraining or email info@need.org

I want to invite you to attend the Centennial Lecture and Discussion Forum of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Boston, on April 12, at 6:30 p.m. at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum. We have designed this event, titled “School Discipline: Issues of Equity and Effectiveness,” as an opportunity to connect innovative research on an important topic with real-world issues facing diverse public and policy communities.

Russell Skiba, a leading expert on exclusionary school discipline, will examine the history and current status of school discipline reform. His brief lecture will be followed by an open discussion forum where Dr. Skiba will be joined by education policy experts who are also knowledgeable about the relevance of these issues to Boston-area students.

We are seeking teachers at local community colleges, middle and high schools in the Boston/MetroNorth, Central/MetroWest, and Cape Cod/Southeast STEM areas to spend 6 weeks of summer conducting research alongside undergraduate students in a NSF funded Research Experiences for Teachers program focused in engineering.

Teachers are not expected to be proficient in engineering disciplines as the program is interdisciplinary with a focus on training and providing resources for incorporating engineering concepts in your curriculum. Teachers will gain experience working in a cleanroom as well as in faculty labs and through our program, we will work with the teachers and the schools to assist in integration into STEM curriculum. Something unique about our RET site is that we intend to continue to work with the school and teachers even after the summer program is over. We intend to help initiate a community of STEM engineering within the STEM networks where teachers and administrators can continuously support each other with new lessons and integration plans. 

The deadline for applications is Thursday, April 6, 2017 so that we can let teachers know prior to spring break if they have a position in our site. Our website has a lot of information: http://www.bu.edu/photonics-ret including the application process: http://www.bu.edu/photonics-ret/apply-today/. If you can post and distribute to science teachers in the MSTA, it would be helpful to encourage more teachers to apply.

Middle school teachers with two to 10 years of experience can participate in this week-long professional development opportunity at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. From July 23–28, participants will experience firsthand how necessity, perseverance, and skills can lead to innovations and careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)—just as it did during World War II. Fifth- through eighth-grade teachers at public, charter, private, and parochial schools may attend. Participants receive free room and board, a travel stipend, and all seminar materials needed to complete the program. Apply by February 24 at http://goo.gl/jd8OQ6

Applications are open for the 2017 CDC Science Ambassador Fellowship!

 

The CDC Science Ambassador Fellowship is for teachers and educational leaders interested in bringing public health into middle and high school classrooms. It includes a 5-day summer course (July 10-14, 2017) at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, GA and a 1-year distance-based professional development opportunity. Applications are dueFebruary 15, 2017.

 

For more information, please watch our video and visit our website. We look forward to your application. Please share these materials with other teachers and educational leaders in your network who may be interested.