Professional Development Support in Science for Middle Start Teachers

The Online Workshops to Support Teachers' Use of Technology and Inquiry are a set of five, modular online workshops that were developed to allow teachers to receive professional development support for the use of inquiry-based teaching and technology use for middle grades science teachers.   Each of the workshops focuses on a different aspect of teaching using inquiry.   The five workshops are as follow:

  • Analyzing Data and Making Conclusions
  • Using Driving Questions and Setting the Context
  • Using Models to Create Understanding
  • Engaging Students in the Process of Investigation
  • Concept Maps as Learning and Assessment Tools

Each workshop uses curriculum resources created through the NSF sponsored Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS) by hi-ce to assist teachers in bringing constructivist learning techniques into middle grades science classrooms around this content.   All of the online workshops use KNOW (Knowledge Networks On the Web), a web-based professional development system designed specifically for teachers using the hi-ce curriculum materials, as a delivery system.  

Participation in these workshops will provide teachers with research-based teaching strategies, examples of appropriate teacher practice, student assessment, connections between science content and classroom pedagogy, and adaptation techniques for transferring these strategies to the individual context of the teacher's classroom.   The workshops also focus on developing a community of teacher-learners who can provide support and feedback to others attempting similar classroom teaching strategies.

 

Funder:

Michigan Virtual University

Principal Investigators:

Barry Fishman
Ron Marx (now at Univ. of Arizona)
Pat Benson (Michigan Schools in the Middle)

Partner Organizations:

Michigan Virtual University

Status:

Completed in December 2002