Opportunities for Teachers

Project Accelerate is a National Science Foundation funded high school university partnership program bringing a no cost blended online AP Physics 1 course to schools that do not offer AP Physics. Schools throughout the New England states are eligible to participate in this partnership program. 

During the pilot year of Project Accelerate, although the sample size was too small to provide statistical significance, the raw data show Project Accelerate students outperforming their peer groups enrolled in traditional AP Physics 1 classrooms. 

Project Accelerate combines the supportive infrastructures from the students’ traditional school with a highly interactive private edX online course. The primary instructional tool is the private online program containing instructional scaffolding specific to the target population, multiple assessment tools, simulations, and a suite of virtual explorations emphasizing science process practices. We embrace a minds-on philosophy throughout the online course and virtual laboratories are woven throughout the course. Although not required for participation, the project team will support and work cooperatively with those schools wishing to complement the online instruction with hands-on laboratories conducted at the partner high school site.

 

If you would like to learn more about this opportunity, kindly contact Mark D. Greenman.

 

Mark D. Greenman

Director Project Accelerate

Boston University

Physics Department

Office: 617-358-6729

Office: greenman@bu.edu

June 28-29, 2017

This interactive two-day workshop offers teachers of English Learners time to delve into combining English

Language Development Standards and Science Practices. In collaborative groups of educators, we will develop a common understanding of academic language in a science and engineering environment. After developing a common understanding of language expectations, we will explore strategies and supports that foster a language rich environment. Through hands-on experimentation and analysis of language embedded within the content and practices, participants will have a deeper understanding of how to engage language learners of a variety of proficiency levels. The workshop will conclude with participants applying the process to one of their lessons.  For more information please see attached flyer.

Want some great teacher lead PD that focuses around solving your own problems of practice? Have 8 Saturdays this coming academic year to spend problem solving and collaborating with like-minded colleagues? Don't mind stipend money?

Read about the fellowship below!

The mission of the program is to build democratic teaching expertise in Boston teachers, empowering them to engage low-income, minority youth in STEM subjects. Through democratic learning experiences, students construct identities of themselves as capable citizens who use critical science agency to transform their own lives and bring about positive change in their communities.

Fellows who are selected for the program participate in a community of practice with like-minded STEM educators. Twice over the course of the year, Fellows publish a 3-5 minute digital story demonstrating a new democratic teaching practice. In January and May, Fellows and a group of their students participate in the annual Sci-Ed Innovators Expo & Symposium. Fellow who complete the program will receive a $2000 stipend.

If you’d like to learn more about the Fellowship, you can read the fellowship information page, or ask me about my experience. The application for the Fellowship can be accessed online, and application will be accepted on a rolling basis, with a final deadline on August 4th.

If you have any questions about hte program please feel free to reach out to Kate Darling (kdarling@sciedinnovators.org)

Description:

This Modeling Workshop is open to physics and physical science teachers worldwide who have had a minimum of 2 weeks Modeling Workshop in physics.

PEER LEADER: Darren Broder

Physics Electricity and Magnetism Workshop

Prerequisite: a mechanics Modeling Workshop of minimum 2 weeks duration or instructor permission.

GOALS: Each Modeling Workshop is an intensive 2- or 3-week course with these goals:

1. Educate teachers in use of a model-centered, guided-inquiry, interactive engagement method of teaching.

2. Help participants integrate computer courseware effectively into the curriculum.

3. Help teachers make better use of national resources for science education.

4. Establish electronic network support and a learning community among participants.

5. Strengthen local institutional support for participants as school leaders in disseminating standards-based reform in science education.

The E&M workshop borrows extensively from work of Bruce Sherwood and Ruth Chabay. There are 3 units in electricity: Charge and Field, Potential, and Circuits. The circuit unit is unique at high school level, as it leads students through surface charge as the mechanism for setting up different strength fields in conductors of circuits. The magnetism unit begins by investigating the field of a current-bearing wire, then fields of permanent magnets, then force on a particle in a field, then force on a current-bearing wire in a field, and then electromagnetic induction and Faraday's Law. 

Click here to learn more about Modeling Instruction and the American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA) or visit http://modelinginstruction.org/professional-development/  to find information on Modeling Workshops nationwide and strategies to seek funding (if needed) to participate.

Start Date:       07/31/2017

End Date:        08/11/2017

Registration: https://www.merrimack.edu/modelingworkshop

This workshop is open to all high school chemistry teachers worldwide.

PEER LEADERS: David Farabee and Stephen Colbert

For housing suggestions and other local questions, contact the local organizers: Teresa Marx: msmarx@gmail.com  & Ariel Serkin ariel.serkin@gmail.com 
        
Goals
The Modeling Workshop in 1st semester chemistry is an intensive 2 or 3-week course with these goals:
1. educate teachers in use of a model-centered, guided inquiry method of teaching, and improve content understanding at the same time,
2. help participants integrate computers effectively into the science curriculum,
3. help teachers make better use of national resources for science education,
4. establish electronic network support and a learning community among participants, 

Objectives
The main objective of the 1st summer Modeling Workshop is to acquaint teachers with all aspects of the modeling method of instruction and develop some skill in implementing it. To that end, teachers are provided with a fairly complete set of written curriculum materials to support instruction organized into coherent modeling cycles (as described in Wells et al., 1995). The physical materials and experiments are simple and quite standard, already available in any reasonably equipped classroom. 

To develop familiarity with the materials necessary to fully implement them in the classroom, we find that teachers must work through the activities, discussions and worksheets, alternating between student and teacher modes. Each unit in the course manual includes an extensive Teacher Notes section. Throughout the course, teachers are asked to reflect on their practice and how they might apply the techniques they have learned in the course to their own classes.

Modeling Instruction is aligned with the eight science practices outlined in the National Research Council Framework for K-12 Science Education (2011).

Modeling Instruction is a complex transformative pedagogy. Experience has shown that most teachers require at least three weeks (or 80 to 90 contact hours) of intensive workshop to begin to implement it. A second Modeling Workshop in the following summer is highly recommended to deepen and broaden one's understanding.

Chemistry Workshop Emphases
The Modeling approach to chemistry is based on the particulate nature of matter.  We ask three fundamental questions about matter:
   1. How do we view matter?
   2. How does it behave?
   3.What is the role of energy in the changes we observe?

First we will introduce the Modeling approach to high school science instruction.  This methodology makes student thinking visible through white board presentations, Socratic questioning and peer review.  The second goal is to practice and enhance the current chemistry modeling curriculum.  Emphasis will be placed on the first nine units: the simple particle through relating how much to how many particles (i.e. stoichiometry).

Click here to learn more about the Modeling Instruction Program and the American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA) or visit http://modelinginstruction.org/professional-development/ to find information on Modeling Workshops nationwide and strategies to seek funding (if needed) to participate.

Registration: http://tinyurl.com/ModChemMA2017

Dates: July 10-21, 2017

Here is a flyer for your use.

Theme: Materials Chemistry

Featured Daytime Speaker: Dr. Robert Langer, David Koch Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Biomaterials and Biotechnology"

Program: Presentations and Workshops

Mary Madden, Quinebaug Community College, "Really Neat New Compounds"
Dr. Mark Turnbull, Clark University, "Materials Properties Demonstrations for All Ages"

Sharon Geyer, Woodstock Academy, "Stoichiometry Application: ID of An Unknown Metal Carbonate" Esther Hines, Billerica High School, "Solid State Chemistry in High School"

Dr. Hanan Mogawer, The Prout School, "TINKERing and STEAMing with Materials Science and Engineering" Chris Koutros, Oliver Ames High School, "Materials Chemistry: Quick and Easy Labs and Demos"

Patricia Rinaldi and Jim Lucey, Wilton High School, "White boarding, Stoichiometry and the "Clue Game" Dr. Maqsood Mughal, Fitchburg State University, “Thin Film Semiconductors and Solar Cells”

Featured Dinner Speaker: Dr. Peter Trefonas, Corporate Fellow, Dow Chemical Company "Enabling the Information Age with Chemistry"

Costs:

Day Program: $50 Includes breaks and all workshop materials

Dinner and Speaker: $25 Includes buffet dinner with cash bar and after dinner speaker

See program details and register at www.neact.org before June 30th. 

2017 brings our 15th Annual Teaching With Technology Summer Workshops, and we have built an incredible program on a diverse set of topics. This year, we have a number of exciting NEW topics to compliment many of our favorites from previous summers. Workshops will be posted soon!

Each summer, we bring together some of the best educators in the country to lead our workshops. All of our instructors have classroom experience and value high quality professional development. We use a hands-on, challenge-based approach to maximize the amount of time that participants have working with the tools and apps. Participants leave our workshops armed with new ideas and strategies that can be implemented in their classrooms as soon as the school year begins.

For more information, please go to the Teaching with Technology website.

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.