Professional Development
A few months ago, Expand ED Schools – a partner in the New York City STEM Education Network, released a new research brief reporting on the promising findings of the STEM Educators Academy, an ExpandED Schools initiative where classroom teachers and after-school educators engage in joint professional development at premiere science institutions and then work together back at their schools to […]
A new National Academies report, Science Teachers’ Learning asserts that “an evolving understanding of how best to teach science, including the NGSS, represents a significant transition in the way science is currently taught in most classrooms and will require most science teachers to alter the way they teach.” The report provides guidance for schools and districts on how best to […]
This study by SRI of science offerings among publicly funded afterschool programs in California found that programs benefited from having an outside partner to provide science-based resources. Public afterschool sites with external partners—most of which provided professional development—offered more frequent science, and more inquiry-based science experiences. The study also found that local resources and agencies were just as beneficial as […]
Providing children with access to high-quality STEM experiences is challenging—sharing those experiences with parents can be even more difficult. This Harvard Family Research Project brief explains how one Texas school district is bringing family engagement to a whole new level with a STEM career-focused mobile curriculum.
The Exploratorium’s Connected Collections support professional learning conversations about specific topics. This collection explores how to create imaginative and open-ended STEM-rich tinkering experiences in classrooms and afterschool settings. The collection has five research briefs with summary descriptions, a set of discussion prompts and links to other relevant resources.
This briefing, video and infographic from the Frameworks Institute explains how to communicate to a variety of audiences about STEM education, informal STEM and STEM ecosystems, to a general audience, including media, the public, parents and families. Page 21-22 of the PDF specifically discuss ecosystems, but the whole brief (although long) is valuable reading for anyone who writes and speaks […]
This document describe a pilot of the National Summer Learning Association with the MacArthur Foundation that paired teachers with local summer learning programs in New York City and Chicago during the summers of 2012 and 2013. The success of this fellowship program suggests that aligning summer programs with the school year has an important impact on school-year effectiveness. Findings suggest […]
