Educator Professional Development
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 the STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – to life for students. The Science Center works with educators to match their districts’ goals, time frames, and budgets with standards-aligned programs that will increase teachers’ knowledge in both content and pedagogy so they can effectively foster young peoples’ deep understanding of cross-cutting concepts and core ideas through hands-on, inquiry-based exploration.
Career Connection Professional Development Programs
The Science Center is hosting professional development seminars for local teachers this school year in conjunction with our student Career Connection days. The sessions will focus on helping prepare students for success in high-paying STEM fields.
Available Programs
- Inquiry Institute: This fun, high-energy, hands-on program provides educators with strategies to implement inquiry into their classroom culture. Participants explore techniques that help students practice the scientific process by raising questions and designing their own investigations. Content includes questioning skills, inquiry process skills, when to use different approaches, an intensive inquiry experience, formative assessment in inquiry, and modifying activities to support inquiry. Half-day and full-day sessions can be combined in various combinations to suit districts’ needs. Individual classroom coaching is also available.
- Making and Tinkering Programs: Teachers learn how to tap their students’ interests in STEM by showing them how hands-on, design-oriented, project-based learning can create motivation, engagement, and subject area learning in STEM disciplines. Specific program content is highly flexible and could include topics in robotics, electronics, wearable technology, coding, game design, or manufacturing process.
- STEM Literacy Programs: Participants take literacy integration beyond the science notebook and build confidence in implementing strategies for reading, writing, reflecting, and communicating science while developing a plan for integrating these strategies into their classrooms.
- Customized Programs: Programs may be tailored to include specialized STEM content, project-based learning, arts-integration (STEAM), and many other topics, including those that may coordinate with Science Center Public Programs, Outreach Programs, and exhibits including Cyndi the Syndaver, presented by Highmark Blue Shield, MEGA Brain, present by St. Luke’s University Health Network, Meet the Scientist, Women in Science and Engineering, and Career Exploration Days in health care and manufacturing.
Contact @DSC: Ann Bebout, 484.664.1002, Ext. 111
