Da Vinci Science Center professional development programs for educators are Act 48 approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and guaranteed to be active, engaging, and effective in bringing STEAM subjects – science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics – to life for students. The Science Center works with educators to match their districts’ goals, time frames, and budgets and introduce STEELS standards-aligned programs that will increase teachers’ knowledge in both content and pedagogy so they can effectively implement equitable, three-dimensional teaching and learning that engages students in the practices that are used by scientists and engineers to figure out natural phenomena and solve real-world problems.
Available Professional Development Programs
STEAM and Making: Integrating the Arts with STEM
Arts integration increases student motivation and engagement and includes everything from low-tech engineering design challenges to making with more specialized technologies (like MakeyMakey, robotics, electronics, wearable technology, coding, game design, or 3D digital design and printing). Through hands-on experience, teachers discover how arts content standards and STEM standards can mutually reinforce each other in open-ended, curiosity-driven activities.
Design Thinking
Design thinking is a fast-paced, structured approach to problem-solving that begins by developing empathy, and proceeds through phases of brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and testing. Teachers complete a design challenge and learn how to apply this versatile strategy in authentic project-based learning tasks that promote a growth mindset and increase students’ creative confidence.
Professional Development Program Pricing
| Full-day Program: $1,600 |
| Half-day Program: $800 |
| Workshop (2 hours): $400 |
Programs for up to 30 teachers
Programs can be delivered at school or at Da Vinci Science Center at PPL Pavilion (depending on room availability)
Next Gen Science Exemplar System (NGSX) Programs
NGSX’s PLANS Pathway for Administrators and Instructional Leaders
(Principals Learn and Network to Support 3-Dimensional Science Learning)
What?
The Next Generation Science Exemplar (NGSX) program of professional learning has worked with over 14,000 K-12 teachers across 28 states, and over 1,600 administrators and instructional leaders. The PLANS pathway is professional development for principals, curriculum supervisors, coaches, and district instructional leaders who support teachers of science.
It is a 1.5 day interactive experience emphasizing instructional leadership and active support for K-12 teachers at both the building and district level.
Goals of Pathway
The Next Generation Science Exemplar (NGSX) program of
Develop school leaders’ capacity to identify the essential pieces of what it looks, sounds, and feels like when students and teachers are engaged in NGSS-designed teaching and learning.
Develop school leaders’ understanding of what teachers will need in order to make this new vision a reality for all students.
How?
- Engage as learners in hands-on science investigations, including representing thinking through modeling and productive classroom talk.
- Use tools for making thinking public that teachers and students use in NGSS-designed units, and explore tools that instructional leaders use in their work supporting teachers.
- Through video examples, reflect together on what is means for students and teachers to work as a sensemaking community and how instructional leaders can support this work.
- Begin to plan for changes in instructional contexts, and form networks while crafting concrete next steps.
Cost (max 30 participants)
- One year access to the NGSX-PLANS Pathway online = $175/participant
- Facilitation by two NGSX-certified educators = $3,000
NGSX’s BNGST Pathway for Teachers, STEM Coaches, and District Science Leaders
(Becoming a Next Generation Science Teacher)
What?
The Next Generation Science Exemplar (NGSX) program of professional learning in K-12 science has worked with over 14,000 K-12 teachers across 28 states. The BNGST professional learning pathway prepares teachers to bring NGSS into their classrooms and engage their students in robust sensemaking, emphasizing the practices of modeling, argumentation, and explanation.
This 4-day interactive experience centers equity and agency for students and teachers.
Goals of Pathway
- Develop teachers’ capacity to apply the shifts in instruction called for by NGSS to their own practice.
- Prepare to build an equitable classroom culture where all students are supported to go public with their reasoning and build on their classmates’ ideas.
- Learn how to use a variety of tools to implement productive talk and small and whole group sensemaking discussions.
How?
- Teachers engage as learners in hands-on science investigations, make and revise models, and together construct explanations of complex phenomena, just as their students will.
- Teachers analyze and discuss classroom video examples to see how students and teachers can work together as a community to change classrooms from places where students learn about science, to places where they figure out how and why things happen in the world.
Cost (max 30 participants)
- One year access to the NGSX-BNGST Pathway online = $225/participant
- Facilitation by two NGSX-certified educators = $6,000
