The Science Museum of Minnesota’s offers a well-developed model for implementing the Engineering is Elementary curriculum in Minnesota school districts for grades K–5, as well as a program for preservice teachers and teens called Linking Educators, Youth, and Learners in Computational Thinking. The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) leverages a professional educator … [Read more...]
SciGirls Strategies
SciGirls Strategies aims to increase the number of high school girls recruited to and retained in nontraditional, technical STEM pathways. The program provides career and technical education teachers with professional development focused on gender-equitable teaching strategies and role modeling. SciGirls Strategies is a National Science Foundation–funded project l … [Read more...]
Skynet Junior Scholars
Skynet Junior Scholars (SJS) is an online astronomy program that allows youth to conduct inquiry-based investigations. This article describes the SJS professional development model (SJS PD) that helps nonschool educators to work in the formal school environment. The model uses a modified Technological Pedagogical Content (TPACK) framework to characterize the professional … [Read more...]
Professional Development Disguised as Museum Outreach
Exploration Place shows how its educators embedded professional development into elementary classrooms in Wichita, Kansas. Have you ever been to a professional development (PD) session where you sat and listened to someone speak for hours—and likely got a bit bored? As teachers, we know that best practice is to encourage hands-on learning, but we forget to i … [Read more...]
Changemakers
Through a business funded collaborative, this Research Experience for Teachers program involves businesses, schools, and a museum to give teachers first-hand knowledge of what it's like to do science in the corporate research world by giving them the opportunity to work with scientists in their labs. The museum partner assists the teachers to translate what they do in the … [Read more...]