STeLLA Online: A Highly Successful Video-based Professional Learning Model in an Online Environment
Calling all Elementary Teachers! BSCS Science Learning is seeking interested upper elementary science teachers for the STeLLA Online program.
STeLLA Online supports teachers in learning to use effective teaching strategies through a video-based lesson analysis approach.
Upper-elementary science teachers can choose between three STeLLA Online pathways. Each pathway equips teachers with a deep understanding of STeLLA’s highly effective teaching strategies and gives teachers an opportunity to practice analyzing videos to identify their impact on student engagement and learning. All teachers will also have an opportunity to conduct work synchronously and asynchronously within their professional learning communities (PLCs). Click here to learn more.
Five Tools and Processes for Translating the NGSS into Instruction and Classroom Assessment
As a teacher, how can you plan for instruction and classroom assessment based on the new science standards and Framework for K-12 Science Education? As a leader, how can you support teachers as they navigate this process?
Discover an effective pathway at a Five Tools Institute. The Five Tools and Processes to support educators in translating disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and performance expectations into a coherent unit plan for (NGSS-aligned) phenomenon or problem-focused units of instruction.
Which Five Tools Institute is right for you?
BSCS customizes Five Tools Institutes based on the target participants’ needs and goals. The most popular examples of what we offer and for whom include:
Five Tools Institute 1: Learning the Process
Learning Goals
- develop a deeper understanding of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Framework for K-12 Science Education.
- using a middle school example unit, learn how to design and plan three-dimensional, phenomena or problem-driven units of instruction.
- leverage facilitation guides and other resources to help you navigate the Five Tools model of professional development.
Target Participants
- K-12 Teachers, Teacher Leaders, District Leaders
Five Tools Institute 2: Developing a Unit of Instruction and Classroom Assessment
Learning Goals
- develop a deeper understanding of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Framework for K-12 Science Education.
- learn how to design and plan three-dimensional, phenomena or problem-driven units of instruction.
- use the tools and processes to develop a unit of instruction and classroom assessment.
- access facilitation guides and other resources to help you navigate the Five Tools model of professional development.
Target Participants
- K-12 Teachers, Teacher Leaders, District Leaders
Five Tools Institute 3: Leadership Development
Learning Goals
- develop a deeper understanding of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Framework for K-12 Science Education.
- Learn how to support educators in designing and planning three-dimensional, phenomena or problem-driven units of instruction using the Five Tools.
- Access, review, and practice using facilitation guides and other resources to help you lead educators in navigating the Five Tools model of professional development.
Target Participants
- Science supervisors
- K-12 teacher leaders (leaders of teams can include classroom teachers)
- District/school administrators
- Science consultants
- University faculty
How can you participate in an institute?
When BSCS has an institute available for public registration, we will post the opportunity on this page.
If we don’t currently have an institute available that meets your needs, contact us about how we can collaborate with you on developing and/or hosting one.
BSCS can support the design and implementation of Five Tools Institutes of various sizes across the country.
BSCS Science Learning is offering a free professional learning (PL) opportunity with our new Invitations to Inquiry with FieldScope lesson materials, which get students working with real-world data from citizen science projects using FieldScope.
Invitations to Inquiry with FieldScope are 2–4 class period environmental science instructional materials that provide educators and students an initial experience with asking and answering questions by analyzing environmental community and citizen science (CCS) data. They are also designed to support educators and students in sensemaking using scientific data, making progress toward the NGSS practices of analyzing and interpreting data and constructing explanations.
Details
The current opportunity for PL is an online, self-paced course and is free and open to any educators interested in community and citizen science and/or using data in your classrooms or informal settings.
This course will take approximately 3–4 hours to complete. It is located here –please be sure to sign up so we can keep a record of who completes the course.
FAQs
Which topics do the materials cover?
Check out all 12 Invitations to Inquiry with FieldScope.
What is FieldScope?
FieldScope is BSCS Science Learning’s platform for citizen and community science projects. With FieldScope’s interactive platform, organizers of field studies can leverage sophisticated graphing and mapping visualization tools and resources to enhance their existing and planned citizen science projects.
BSCS Science Learning is conducting a National Science Foundation-funded study exploring whether learning about the multifactorial causes of human variation reduces racial bias among middle and high school biology students. We are looking for interested teachers to participate in the study. We will prepare teachers for this study through a free five-day summer institute. To be notified when the institute will be scheduled, please click here.
About the Study
As a participant, you would teach your standard curriculum on molecular genetics for a week. Afterwards, over the following four weeks, your students would learn about Mendelian genetics and multifactorial genetics in different orders. In half of your classrooms you would teach Mendelian genetics and then multifactorial genetics. In the other half you would teach multifactorial genetics and then Mendelian genetics. The BSCS research team will explore how these units affect students’ quantitative reasoning in biology and their knowledge of genetics, and whether this learning, in turn causes reductions in cognitive forms of racial prejudice. For more on our work, visit Towards a More Humane Genetics Education.
About the Summer Institute
Participating teachers would attend a free five-day summer institute at BSCS Science Learning in Colorado Springs, CO to learn about how to use these genetics instructional materials to teach genetics to reduce racial bias. BSCS will pay for all lodging, food, and travel for participating teachers. Also, BSCS can pay districts up to $300 dollars per participating teacher to cover the costs of a substitute if needed. We will select a total of twenty teachers for the study. Preference will be given to teachers who:
- Can provide BSCS with a letter of support from their principal confirming that they support their teacher’s participation in the study provided their school district approves of the study.
- Can attend the five-day institute during the summer (dates TBD) at BSCS Science Learning in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- Teach at least four sections of biology at the same grade and level (e.g. all introductory biology, or all honors, or all AP, or all sheltered).
- Are interested in participating in the research in upcoming school years.
- Are committed to carrying out this study with diligence, which means meeting all deadlines, managing paper work, and paying careful attention to study details.
- Are interested in learning how to teach for social justice in biology education.