Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School (DYRHS) has been pioneering the innovative Global STEM Classroom™ collaboration program since 2011. The concept of the program was created by and implemented at DYRHS under the mentorship of Larisa Schelkin, the Founder and CEO of the Global STEM Education Center.
Every year, about 45 students in grades 8-10 participate in a variety of semester-long courses collaborating with students from different countries including England, France, Mexico, Norway, Russia, and Ukraine. In the session, DYRHS students will present their work done in the four courses:
1. "My Blue Planet" course addresses the quality and availability of clean drinking water around the globe.
2. "The Space Exploration" course addresses scientific, technological, societal, and economic issues surrounding the near-Earth and deep space exploration and a possibility of establishing human settlements on other planets.
3. "The NASA's GRACE satellites and the Climate Change" course is dedicated to the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) program that allows precise observations of ice sheets and climate change from space.
4. "Nanotechnology" course focuses of the revolutionary technology of super-small particles and its application in electronics, renewable energy, and medicine.
The session will be a discussion of the program goals, methods, and results provided from the perspective of a teacher, an administrator, the program founder, and students who will share their authentic experiences in this unique and innovative program.
With a recovering economy, the market for STEM employees is becoming increasingly competitive and supply is often not able to meet demand. The challenge of attracting and maintaining potential talented employees can be more difficult in some geographic locations. This session discusses the multiple initiatives that General Dynamics Mission Systems has taken to attract and retain employees in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.
This session will describe how General Dynamics collaborated with other local companies to engage talent through a county-wide internship program that allows interns an opportunity to learn about other companies within the county, participate in social and cultural activities as well as professional development activities in the region and to network with potential colleagues. Additionally, the company has introduced several programs that inspire interest in STEM at an early age including:
- Annual High School Robotics Competition
- Shadow Day/Facility Tours
- After School Engineering Program
- DIGITS program
General Dynamics believes that programs and opportunities that engage students' interest throughout their education and as they enter the workforce is an effective approach for recruiting young employees. Providing tools and mentoring programs for career development assists in retaining and growing the skills of that workforce. This session is an opportunity to share these processes and solicit best practices from other STEM professionals.
Learn how Boston After School & Beyond and the Providence After School Alliance use targeted professional development to support collaborative teaching between STEM-focused community educators and middle school teachers within their summer learning programs. Bridging the gap between formal and informal education, both programs focus on integrating Next Generation Science Standards' science & engineering practices in order to promote overall program quality and social-emotional learning outcomes. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the benefits and challenges of this model, explore strategies for optimizing results, and have an opportunity to ask participating educators about their experiences.
This session will discuss high school biotechnology education with educators and representatives of foundations, industry, and government. Brockton High School has developed an innovative, four-year non-vocational biotechnology pathway. Innovative teaching methods are used to increase literacy and cutting edge research tools are used to promote math skills and critical thinking.
The biotechnology pathway was designed to help students learn in a horizontally and vertically integrated thematic pathway. Toward that goal, ethical, social and political issues are weaved into the students' scientific explorations. Technical report writing, lab notebooks, lab reports, web-based student portfolios, and literary analysis are all methods used to enhance literacy skills.
We are transforming the qualitative approach to life sciences to one that is more quantitative. We will do this through our expanded use of digital probeware, reporter assays, bioinformatics and quantitative PCR. To the extent that we know, this will be the first time qPCR will be routinely utilized as a hands-on teaching tool in a high school classroom. This work will help our students enter post-secondary education and the workforce with greater mathematical reasoning, scientific practices and content expertise.
In an ideal world, every undergarduate majoring in STEM would, in addition to their formal course load, engage in research, have a strong network of formal and informal mentors and advisors, volunteer for a variety of STEM outreach activities, and participate in a rich offering of STEM-related social events. The positive impact of these opportunities has well documented impacts on retention for STEM students in general and for underrepresented minority students in particular. This panel presentation will introduce successful model programs that provide such opportunities fostering engagement and improving retention of students in STEM.
Following the panel presentation, participants will engage with the stakeholders reflecting on the programs, their impact, and strategies for implementation and assessment.
The programs featured include:
- Wentworth Institute of Technology's RAMP precollege summer bridge program which familiarizes students with a college learning environment and forms a cohort of classmates from similar backgrounds providing a foundation of support for transition to campus in the fall.
- Holy Cross will share four interventions that have promoted persistence including a pre-college bridge program, a first-year research program, peer assisted learning in chemistry, and an extended-time course in calculus.
- UMass Boston will discuss the creation of the Student Success Center and the implementation of the Freshman Success Community, which have a tremendous impact on retention and achievement, especially for underrepresented minority students.
- UMass Amherst's STEM Ambassadors Program is a novel hierarchical mentoring program that provides students with formal and informal advising and mentoring opportunities along with a diverse suite of retention activities and events.
An individual’s ability to innovate and act entrepreneurially is often the catalyst that drives enormous gains for society and cuts across all industries. Instilling these skills and attributes in high school students is critical to their future success and necessary to help solve current global challenges. This session presents two complementary and successful models: a classroom curriculum and an online collaboration. Attendees can share ideas and explore how these models and their rubrics may be leveraged to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.
At Georgetown High School in Massachusetts, innovation is critical to a required 9th grade course where students identify a problem and invent a product or service to solve the problem. Students design prototypes and then apply concepts of entrepreneurship to create a business plan to launch their product/service. Students gain feedback through online blogs and make video “infomercials” about their inventions for an end-of-course showcase.
Project Lead the Way’s web-based “Innovation Portal” enables students, teachers, and mentors to build and collaborate on problem-solving projects, and then connect with opportunities offered by universities, businesses, and industry. This secure portal is available at no charge. Students upload information and invite others to comment on their work. The Portal includes a portfolio template, scored examples, and a research-based rubric. All are organized around a design process that opens participation to anyone and any project topic.
Join us as we explore how these two programs can engage your high school students in designing and implementing innovative solutions to real-world problems.
This is a critical time in K-12 science education, as the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) moves forward with the adoption of the revised MA Science and Technology/Engineering (STE) standards. Districts and schools will be working to adjust programs and curriculum to reflect key changes in student expectations, particularly in regard to the inclusion of science and engineering practices, a focus on college and career readiness, and coherent progressions of learning across years. To support districts during this transition, ESE is bringing together a number of partners to support districts in developing implementation plans, sharing resources and curriculum that results in student learning called for in the revised STE standards. This panel discussion is targeted at K-12 educators, administrators, and policymakers, and aims to inform conversation about the rollout, adoption, and implementation of the revised MA STE standards. Panel members, including representatives from WGBH, the Museum of Science, Boston, and district leadership, will discuss strategies and initiatives already underway, how that is coordinated with ESE and other stakeholders, and what will be needed in future years.
While women comprise 50% of the U.S. workforce, just 24% are in STEM fields, a statistic that has held constant for nearly the last decade. Statistics show that early access to mentors has a profound effect on the recruitment and retention of young girls and women in STEM fields. Million Women Mentors®, an initiative of STEMconnector®, is a national movement which supports the engagement of one million STEM mentors (male and female) to increase the number of girls and women from school age to work age continuum to persist and succeed in STEM programs and careers by the year 2018. By providing a central repository of mentors and girls serving STEM organizations, as well as extensive materials with strategies for successful mentoring, the hope is that all girls and young women interested in STEM will have access to the support and guidance needed to persist in science.
The Commissioners will discuss programs underway that address the five goals of the Massachusetts STEM Plan: Increase student interest in STEM; Increase achievement among all Pre-K-12 students in order to prepare graduates to be civically and college and/or career ready; Increase the percentage of skilled educators who teach Pre-K-16 STEM; Increase the percent of students completing post-secondary degrees or certificates in STEM; STEM degrees and certificate attainment will be aligned with corresponding opportunity in STEM-related fields to match the state’s workforce needs for a STEM talent pipeline.
Role models, hands-on projects, real-world applications. We know what it takes to create engaging STEM programming. Or do we? Why does the Commonwealth still face challenges reaching diverse populations and increasing their interest and achievement? How do we need to work together to support our students as STEM learners and as whole persons?
In this interactive and dynamic workshop, several case studies, addressing areas such as hip hop ed/youth culture, citizen science, culturally appropriate training for role models, will stimulate discussion and scrutiny of strategies that address social and cultural barriers in STEM for middle and high school students, particularly those in underserved and underrepresented populations. Participants will work in small thematic groups and then share out with the larger group. A Google document of all ideas will be created and shared with all participants.
We anticipate that strategies for inclusion will be applicable to the entire STEM learning ecosystem, from students in lower grades and those entering college, and to the out-of-school community.
We welcome participation and contributions from anyone looking to make a real difference in STEM learning for underserved populations. Be prepared to learn, to share success or challenges, to confront implicit bias, and to create community between educators, industry practitioners, and students.
Case studies will be made available on the Summit website via a link prior to the conference.
"Studies find that the mathematics knowledge acquired in early childhood and early elementary grades is a critical foundation for long-term student success." (The National Governors Association Paper, 2014)
Recognizing the importance of supporting teachers and caregivers in developing number sense and mathematics readiness for all children, a partnership of community members collaborated school leaders to bring Sidewalk Math to young children in their community. Sidewalk Math is designed to engage young children in learning mathematical patterns by walking, hopping, jumping, and skipping through colorful designs painted on sidewalks, school hallways and playgrounds. Sidewalk Math has been collaboratively designed by mathematics educators to build critical number sense skills in young children, by designers to engage children in kinesthetic learning, and by early childhood educators to ensure caregivers feel confident in practicing counting and patternmaking with children.
In this workshop we will engage participants in interacting with the Sidewalk Math patterns; examine the “We Count” teaching resources designed for teachers and caregivers to engage their children with the patterns; explore the variety of educational resources found in "The Footbook: Steps to Developing Numbersense in Young Children” that accompanies Sidewalk Math; and identify strategies for developing partnerships to bring Sidewalk Math to their community.
The design team of mathematics educators, university faculty, and school leaders who created Sidewalk Math will lead this workshop. This will ensure that all participants have the opportunity to explore these resources with colleagues able to support them in considering how to bring this project back to their own community.
The NSF-funded project entitled Massachusetts Engineering Innovation and Dissemination Community (MEIDC) is conducting an analysis of K-12 engineering education in the greater Boston area to understand 1) the types and levels of connections and collaborations–past and current; 2) the types and levels of resources that have been committed and are available; and, 3) key issues. This session offers attendees the chance to hear about the data the presenters have gathered with respect to these topics (copies of the report will be provided), and for attendees to share how they are approaching engineering education, what challenges and opportunities they face, and the types of collaborations that would help them move forward more effectively with their efforts.
This session is recommended for those interested in and contributing to engineering education in K-12 formal and informal education environments, including but not limited to researchers, industry and IHE outreach programs, educators and administrators, non-profit support providers, and policy-makers.
In this panel, hear from community leaders about programs in Massachusetts that are exploring ways to engage young women and a more diverse set of students to learn to code.
From the White House, across the nation and back, learn directly from Green Schools and our National Green Schools Society Student Leaders how to develop the next generation of environmentally innovative students and schools through Best E-STEM (Environment + STEM) Practices, project based learning, leadership, and action. Green Schools has been invited to participate and strategize in Climate Literacy and E-STEM conversation with our nation's top thought leaders ranging from President Obama, Vice President Biden, U.S. Dept. of Education Secretary Duncan, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Dr. Greene with a common goal to create a healthier, more sustainable and innovative future for people and planet through solutions that work!
Additionally, the STEM-C Curriculum and Community Enterprise for New York Harbor Restoration in New York City Public schools consists of five district resource pillars that when combined in practice will foster direct collaboration between teachers and STEM-C professionals, innovative methods for teaching in schools, afterschool curriculum, and aquarium-based programming, Ultimately, it is expandable to restoration, environmental research, and sustainability projects in national/international communities, creating extremely broad impacts on mainstream science pedagogy. The program exclusively engages public schools in neighborhoods with persistent poverty and low socio-economic indicators. The model demonstrates that physically engaged, field-based, authentic scientific research can provide systematic inequities to equalize learning for student groups currently under-represented in the STEM-C professions. The partners' extensive pedagogical experience and existing literature indicate that STEM-C teaching and learning is greatly enhanced when students practice authentic science inquiry, field research, and socially beneficial conservation.
In order to prepare students for the future jobs that may not even exist today, students need to have strong skills and understandings of STEM concepts. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that jobs in STEM fields will grow 17 percent by 2018—nearly double the growth for non-STEM fields. By 2018, the U.S. will have more than 1.2 million unfilled STEM jobs because there will not be enough qualified workers to fill them. STEM is where jobs are today and where job growth will be in the future.
Anticipating this need, the Hudson and Medway Public School Districts and Saint Peter-Marian Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School implemented integrated STEM educational programs. During this session a panel of district representatives will discuss how the STEM programs were initiated at the schools, what professional development was provided to the teachers, and strategies to build community support for the new programs. Data on student performance and outcomes will also be presented.
Audience participation and discussion are encouraged during the session so all can learn from each other’s experiences.At the national level, community colleges are powerful forces for transforming the scientific workforce because most college students from diverse backgrounds begin higher education there. Hundreds of thousands plan to transfer to 4-year institutions to earn a bachelor’s degree in a science-related field, but more work is needed to strengthen 2- and 4-year collaborations. The Stonehill College-Massasoit Community College (MCC) Science Transfer Initiative (STI) has the overall objective to create “purposeful interactions” between faculty and students that are critical to attract, retain, and graduate STEM students. This program provides early research experiences shown to increase retention in STEM and overall student outcomes. Although the benefits of early research are well established, most students do not have access to these types of opportunities while at the community college and upon transfer find it hard to compete for limited research positions.
The STI program aims to remove these barriers by providing research internships for: 1) high-school students the summer before they start at MCC through the STEM Start Academy; 2) first and second year MCC students in the Liberal Arts Transfer-Science program who intend to transfer to a four-year school in the sciences; and 3) MCC-Stonehill transfers the summer before they transfer. This multi-year program is meant to prepare students for intensive lab work and allow them to develop relationships with faculty and student mentors. During this session, ways to forge sustainable partnerships with four-year institutions, the adaptation of MCC’s research program, funding opportunities and outcomes of student participants will be discussed.The STEM Innovation Task Force (SITF) is comprised of 36 industry, government, education, and non-profit leaders. Members include companies such as Cisco, Cognizant, Deloitte, Dow, Dassault Systemes, KPMG, PepsiCo, PTC, Sodexo, Tata Consultancy Services, Walmart as well as leading educators and governmental organizations. The SITF has a grand vision of “Accelerating sustainable STEM careers and wealth through innovation science and excellence in tomorrow’s new economy.” The task force will accomplish their agenda of developing STEM human capital through a number of high powered working groups that focus on certain priority areas of STEM innovation, including the STEM Career Accelerator Day, STEM 2.0, collaboration with the Million Women Mentors program, the STEM Higher Ed Council, and others.
This session will focus on an overview of all SITF programs with specific focus on STEM 2.0. STEM 2.0 defines capability platforms that lie in the gap employers see that exists today between what we require and what the current educational ecosystem is producing. This session, presented by the SITF co-chairs, touches on our collaboration with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and will present ways for organizations to join the movement, to make a real impact!Following up on the Governor’s presentation, the Secretaries of Education, Housing & Economic Development, and Labor & Workforce Development will share their views on the needs, challenges, and potential next steps for the Commonwealth as we work to sustain and grow the pool of STEM talent, beginning in early education and continuing through to the workforce. The session will include a panel discussion as well as time for Q&A, both amongst the panelists and from the audience.
Congressman Joe Kennedy III will open the session with Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito providing closing remarks.
Mass Academy of Math and Science at WPI was one of a handful of NCSSS (National Consortium of Secondary STEM) Schools that piloted the APPS FOR GOOD curriculum from the UK in the Spring of 2015. In the course, students work together as teams to find real issues they care about and learn to build a mobile, web or social app to solve them. Like professional entrepreneurs, students go through all key aspects of new product development, from idea generation, technical feasibility and programming to product design, deciding on business models and marketing. We will present our pilot program and talk about the successes and challenges of the pilot, including examples of new app designs developed by Mass Academy juniors. We will highlight our end of the year APPS FAIR as the culminating event of the presentation, including demonstrations of student apps.
Compelling research around the effectiveness of formative assessment practices suggests that students can, and should be, the primary consumers of their own formative assessment data. The richness of using formative assessment lies in building students’ ownership and involvement in their learning through the use of a collection of specific instructional practices. When used together, these practices outline an effective instructional approach that makes content more accessible for all students, and particularly for struggling learners. These practices center around teaching students to be able to answer for themselves the questions: 1) What goals am I aiming for in my learning? 2) Where am I currently in relation to those goals? 3) If I have not yet met the goals, what do I need to do next to move closer to meeting them?
This workshop will summarize the results of a five-year NSF-funded project to: 1) design a professional development approach and materials to teach mathematics teachers how to effective implement these formative-assessment-related instructional practices, specifically in mathematics instruction, focused on helping students learn to take part in the formative assessment process; and 2) document barriers, challenges, and possible learning trajectories in teachers’ learning of these instructional practices. Workshop participants will learn about several key shifts in teachers’ mindsets and teaching practice around student ownership of and involvement in their learning and will do several hands-on activities that illustrate the approach and resources used in the professional development.
How do we insure that students are learning to be creative thinkers in a world of global change and what does that mean for the future of education in the digital age? This session includes a discussion of two digital STEM programs for elementary, middle, and high school students - Plum Landing and Land Science. Developed by WGBH Boston with NSF funding, Plum Landing is designed to support parents, children (ages 6-9 years), and educators in educational settings as well as in out-of-school settings such as afterschool programs, independent camps, and museums. Plum Landing offers a digital curriculum, including animated webisodes, online games, free apps, hands-on science activities, and live-action videos. Developed by the University of Wisconsin’s Epistemic Games Group, in partnership with Mass Audubon, Land Science is a NSF funded project that utilizes virtual Urban Planning internships for middle and high school students in formal and informal settings. Virtual internships are designed to foster creativity and introduce youth to real-world applications for STEM practices and content.
Learn about the successes and challenges of implementing these projects as well as the results of data collected that demonstrate that these types of programs have a significant impact on participants’ environmental science-related habits of mind, understanding of socio-ecological systems, interest in STEM careers, and environmental science content knowledge.
Science teacher efficacy for elementary education majors tends to be low, impacting their ability to perceive themselves teaching science. Science methods courses for elementary education majors need to address this issue in order for students to fully realize their potential as effective science teachers. This hands-on workshop models open-ended, challenge-type science investigations, used in a science methods course. The investigations are designed to engage elementary education majors in learning and doing science while reflecting on their beliefs about science and being science teachers. Evidence from course assessments show that components of students’ science teacher efficacy were positively impacted following participation in the investigations. Workshop participants will reflect on the concept of science teacher efficacy and how it determines what and how science is taught, experience engaging science investigations, and reflect on the relevancy of the experience to their own practice.
Find out about our homegrown curriculum, program expansion and articulation, and engineering infused science classes. Develop your own “next steps” for expanding (or starting) engineering offerings at home.
The goal for this session is to both highlight the need for high school engineering programs and then to demonstrate how a school can build its own engineering program using resources that are already in place in their schools.
Participants will analyze the engineering currently offered at their high schools, compare and contrast science and engineering, and discuss why we should teach high school science AND high school engineering.
The STEM Learning and Research (STELAR) Center, in collaboration with two projects funded by the National Science Foundation’s Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, will present two models promoting STEM among underserved youth. Seeding the Future targets low-income, underrepresented populations in science at the high school level, and FUSE engages young people ages 11-18 in STEM experiences.
Participants in this session will learn about:
(1) the design principles behind each project and how those design principles provide the framework for materials design and program evaluation;
(2) implementation strategies and outcomes that lead to broadening participation and developing important 21st-century skills among young people who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM;
(3) how to leverage partnerships to build, grow, and sustain the work over time;
(4) how the projects leverage evaluation results to implement change to improve the structural aspects of our program; and
(5) how STEM career development and social justice are critical to the engagement of low-income youth in developing interest in science.Red-tailed hawks, squirrels, sowbugs, buds, leaves, and twigs have an important place in science learning.
Find out how to use familiar and unfamiliar resources right outside your door to support young children’s STEM learning. Early childhood educators will share many strategies for supporting children’s inherent curiosity and interest.
Hear stories of success, see examples from three different venues, experience simple sensory activities focused on local nature, and envision science learning that everyone can implement – inside and out. Find out more about how we share our love of the outdoors and local nature in the interest of supporting understanding of earth, physical, and life sciences for children ages two to six.
It’s easy to embrace the natural world and outdoor exploration in support of STEM learning. Find out how nature that is “hyper local” engages children in classification, inquiry, exploration, and questioning. Children are not the only ones who find it interesting!
We will be discussing the many ways that our local Workforce Development system is working collaboratively to support the MA STEM state goals and how it relates back to the workforce development systems and our businesses and adult and youth job seekers. Also, the programs that we’re involved in to expand STEM awareness to both adult and youth in our regional schools.
The session will be about our multi-pronged approaches to filling the current and future employment gaps in STEM companies focusing on manufacturing. We will share best practices found in our organizations, the workforce system, and through our partnerships. We will emphasize “Promising Practices, Proven Results” over the past year. We will also speak about STEM related activities/work that is occurring within our partnership to reach and prepare adults and youth interested in pursuing STEM+M careers.
In this interactive panel session, researchers and participants from the NSF-funded Teaching to Learn (T2L) project will engage in a focused discussion with session participants on the ways in which the T2L model may be applicable to their institutions.
The T2L project places pairs of undergraduate students from two four-year liberal arts colleges (one public, one private) into the elementary classrooms of a high-needs public school district to teach science once a week. In this way, college students and elementary teachers play three distinct roles: collaborators, co-teachers, and learners; and the elementary classroom becomes a unique site for an overlapping set of teaching and learning practices. Pairs of undergraduates co-taught science units with elementary classroom teachers and the support of college science education professors over the course of the 2014-2015 school year. Undergraduates and elementary teachers have also participated in joint professional development to deepen their understanding of both the nature of scientific inquiry and science pedagogy and reinforce their connection as a community of learners.
Recent science education reforms emphasize the importance of having students do real scientific and engineering work because of the opportunities that “doing” science gives students. Science fairs are designed to give students precisely this experience and they have been promoted by education and industry leaders for over a half century. Supporters claim that they accomplish these goals and more, but little research has been done to examine whether and how much impact they have on students or how much they cost. The National Science Foundation has funded Education Development Center to conduct a four-year, national study to answer questions about science fairs including: What do kids gain from science fairs? What makes some science fair experiences better than others? How much does a good science fair cost?
A study of science fairs of this scope has not been conducted in the U.S. before, and this study offers a potentially high-value bridge between the informal and formal science education worlds. The study’s findings have the potential to increase the effectiveness and reach of science fairs, provide science educators—both formal and informal—with cost-effective ways of bringing the science and engineering practices to their students, and provide researchers with tools for assessing the science and engineering practices. We will present our current findings from this study, including insights into the models and outcomes of science fairs, and offer the audience a chance to reflect on their own science fair experiences and connections to the informal science education community.Broadening Advanced Technological Education Connections (BATEC) has partnered with Burning Glass to analyze labor market data to scope out middle skill jobs in nine are areas of computing. This report provides an in-depth look at nine middle skill occupations: Computer System Analysts, Health Informatics (defined as Medical Record Technicians and Health Information Technicians), Web Developers, Big Data Analysts (defined as Database Administrators, Data Warehousing Specialists, and Business Intelligence Analysts), Computer User Support Specialists, Computer Network Support Specialists, Computer Programmers, Software Developers and Information Security Analysts. This will include an analysis of demand characteristics for top middle-skill IT occupations in key U.S. markets and investigate the size, growth, requirements, and hiring difficulty of the top middle-skill IT-related occupations. Two additional reports allow an in-depth look at jobs in big data and cybersecurity. This session will feature a panel that will engage participants in a discussion about how these research reports can inform programs and impact students within their institutions.
The goal of this session is to illustrate how science notebook writing can be used to support K-12 students in thinking like a scientist, mastering science content, and developing strong writing skills. Science notebook writing can guide thinking through the inquiry process as students make predictions, record observations, reason using evidence, and communicate their findings. At another level, it provides a mechanism through which students can articulate their beliefs about the natural world, hold up evidence to reflect on the accuracy of their beliefs, and clarify misconceptions. And by engaging in writing that is purposeful, students will at the same time build skills that address many ELA writing standards. Who will benefit from this workshop? Every K-12 science teacher is charged with guiding student growth in science practices, science content, AND English literacy, so all can benefit. Workshop participants will be introduced to a notebook format used for science inquiry in the Braintree Public Schools, which we believe contributes to the strong performance the district achieves on the science MCAS. We will examine the notebook to identify how each part guides and extends science thinking, while developing writing skills. We'll have fun doing some inquiry science ourselves to practice using the notebooks. We'll examine student work to see how notebooks can be used for both formative and summative assessment. Participants will leave with a generic format that can be adapted to their own curriculum, as well as with an assessment rubric appropriate for upper elementary students. Teachers are encouraged to come with one of their own lessons in mind to see how it might be adapted to the inquiry format and supported with science notebook writing.
