T243 Teaching Teachers: Examples of Successful Geoscience Content Courses and Workshops for Pre-Service and in-Service Teachers (Posters)

Wednesday, 7 November 2012
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Hall B

LEVERAGING RESOURCES: AGI-ASU-NASA TRIAD MODEL FOR EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Paper number: T243-1
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Authors

Abstract

So often new products, curricula, resources are created for teacher professional development (PD) programs. Facilitator efforts are divided between creation of products and implementation of programs with little attention to the sustainability of products or teacher networks. The AGI-ASU-NASA Triad program provided an opportunity for American Geosciences Institute (AGI) and Arizona State University (ASU) School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) to reconceptualize this balance of resources, programs, networks and sustainability. AGI’s education program has existing text and web-based curricula, networks of teacher leaders across the nation and a web-based platform linked into the national geoscience community. ASU SESE is a hub of Earth and space scientists, collections, facilities, research and science-education resources.

At ASU, researchers, collections specialists, technologists, engineers, education & outreach (E&O) and formal education specialists, undergraduate and graduate students and retired scientists were engaged in the iterative process of developing two years of teacher professional development. Starting by mapping our goals to our resources and connections, we crafted a teacher program that developed into a model for leveraging resources in our institution. Our program had three main elements: Content-rich weeklong workshops (summer), 5-day field excursion (summer) and follow-up workshops during the school year (fall and spring). Design elements included teaming up with E&O staff of major science programs on campus, integrating existing curriculum, engaging top researchers to give presentations from their public outreach repertoires, grouping teacher to strategically support within-district collaboration and mentorship, connecting teachers in sustainable programs, partnering with other programs to engage additional specialists and resources and crafting a field excursion based on SESE faculty, researchers and graduate students who were available and interested. These elements reflect small steps and manageable decisions that can be reproduced at other institutions to provide well rounded content-based PD for local educators while fostering sustainable connections with teachers in the university’s local community.