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COURSE OUTLINE

• Website development

  • Masters Program Website - Continuing development of a website to house all resources developed during the masters program

  • CSCS Website - Continuing development of a website to house all computer supported collaborative science (CSCS) investigations and activities developed by teachers and their colleagues.

  • Classroom / Teaching Website - Continuing development of a website for use in teachers' secondary school classrooms. This website is linked to the CSCS website and provides an opportunity to present curricular resources and to deliver and collect assignments, projects and student work.

• Professional Development

  • Conferences & Field Trips - By participating in professional conferences related to STEM education, as well as field trips to places of significance for STEM education, teachers will have the opportunity to share their best practices with colleagues and acquire ideas and resources to improve their own instruction.

  • Editor / Participation - Each teacher in this class will serve as an editor for one of their colleagues.  Through a mutual editing process, teachers will provide ideas for how to improve their colleagues websites and cloud-based resources, while simultaneously gaining insights in how to improve their own.

• Data Analysis & Interpretation

  • Spreadsheets, Graphing, Data Analysis -  Collaborative cloud-based spreadsheets provide an opportunity to collect, analyze, and present data from entire classes. Teachers will develop CSCS activities that incorporate collaborative forms and spreadsheets to collect and instantly analyze experimental data through instant graphs and plots.

  • Sensors, Probeware - Mobile technologies and traditional desktop and laptop computers provide numerous avenues to collect data (accelerometers, anemometers, barometers, blood pressure sensors, charge sensors, gas sensors, colorimeters conductivity probes, current sensors, EKG, energy sensors, flow rate sensors, force sensors, dynamometers, heart rate sensors, radiometers, respirometers, salinity sensors, sonometers, spectrometers, spirometers, thermometers, turbidity meters, voltage meters, etc.).  Teachers develop lessons to use such sensors and probeware to engage their students in research. 

  • Images, Microscopy, Video Analysis - Digital photography, in its various forms, provides excellent opportunities to observe, analyze, and record natural and man-made phenomena.  Teachers learn how to use digital photography to record such phenomena (digital microscopy, digital telescopes, slow motion analysis, time-lapse analysis, stop-motion, frame-by frame analysis) 

  • Mapping, GPS - Global positioning systems (GPS) resources are used by many apps that have direct application to teaching science.  GPS tagging of photographs, for example, allows teachers or students to map the occurrence of any items (organisms, geological structures, etc.) to uncover patterns in distribution.  Teachers learn how to make maps of various phenomena and use such geospatial data to help their students understand patterns and  principles of cause and effect. 

  • Simulations - Teachers develop lessons using online simulations to investigate scientific phenomena that can not practically or safely be investigated in the secondary school laboratory. 

• Collaborative Resource Development

  • Collaborative Presentations -  Teachers learn how to engage their students in the creation of collaborative presentations, bulletin boards, diagrams, slide shows, mind maps and other resources, and to use these in a variety of STEM lessons.

  • Engineering Design - The advent of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) has brought engineering into the secondary science curriculum.  Teachers develop engineering lessons to engage their students in engineering-thinking by defining problems, designing solutions, and optimizing those solutions.

  • Instructional Video - Teachers collaborate in the development of instructional videos to teach and assess learning of various scientific and engineering principles.