Educator Professional Development

H/Exhibits and Programs/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.

Looking for a fun event to enjoy with your co-workers? Want to improve cooperation and communication on your team through exciting, hands-on activities and friendly competitions?
Ask about our Corporate Teambuilding programs!

Career Connections Professional Development Programs

Saturday, Nov. 16 – Women in Science & Engineering Career Connections
9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Teachers can make a real difference in helping girls develop a “STEM identity” that will give them the confidence to persist in engineering, physics, math, and computer science. In this workshop, teachers will try out teaching strategies shown to increase girls’ interest in STEM subjects. Teachers will meet with a panel of professional women in STEM careers to discuss implicit bias, stereotype threat, and the importance of female role models. In addition, they will attend a showcase of electronics projects made by middle school-age Girl Scouts.
Includes 5 hours of Act 48 credit, lunch, and museum admission, $50 per attendee.

Interested in this program? Call 484.664.1002, ext. 111

Friday, March 13 – Made in America Career Connections
8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
Teachers will try hands-on activities that help students learn about the varied, in-demand jobs available in the manufacturing sector of the Lehigh Valley economy. Teachers will meet members of the Dream Team from the Manufacturers Resource Center (organizer of the What’s So Cool About Manufacturing Contest) and learn about the many opportunities available at Career and Technical Institutions.
Includes 6 hours of Act 48 credit, lunch, and museum admission, $50 per attendee.

Other Upcoming Professional Development Programs

Monday, Jan. 20 – STEAM Professional Development
9 a.m.-12 p.m.
This workshop is for teachers who want to be like Leonardo da Vinci and ensure that art remains a certain part of STEAM. Learn how to purposefully connect concepts and skills from both the arts and STEM to create high-quality, integrated lessons that are engaging and result in deep student learning. Teachers will try out several STEAM activities that can be complexified for age levels from grades 3-12 and that emphasize process, problem-solving, creativity, experimentation, communication, critical thinking, and persistence through failure.
Includes 3 hours of Act 48 credit, $35 per attendee.

June 15-19 – Science & Engineering Practices (Inquiry Institute)
9 a.m.-2 p.m. daily
This program provides strategies for K-12 educators to make inquiry a part of 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.
Includes 25 hours of Act 48 credit, $300 per attendee.

Available Professional Development Programs

Call today to book these programs for your school!

Science & Engineering Practices in the Classroom
Help your students think like scientists! In these fun, high-energy, hands-on programs, educators are provided with strategies to implement inquiry into their classroom culture. Participants explore techniques that help students learn standards-based science content as well as science skills like asking questions and designing their own investigations.

Embedding Literacy in STEM
Project-based STEM investigations provide students with excellent opportunities to read, write, and communicate. By integrating literacy with STEM, student competence can be increased in both subjects. In this program, teachers learn to identify opportunities in STEM lessons for students to build language comprehension and communication skills as they also learn to think like scientists through discussion, reflection, and writing about their observations, predictions, and procedures.

Career Connections
Guidance counselors and teachers of grades 4 to 9 meet with panels of STEM professionals who describe their career pathways and advise teachers on the skills students need to succeed in high-paying STEM fields. Teachers gain valuable, real-world examples to take back to the classroom and try practical, hands-on activities that build students’ transferrable STEM skills and fulfill Career Education and Work standards. These seminars are excellent extensions of Teacher in the Workplace programs. Themes include Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Women in Science & Engineering.

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.

Program Pricing & Savings

Programs for up to 30 teachers
Programs can be delivered at schools or at the Da Vinci Science Center (depending on room availability)

Full-day Program (5-6 hours of Act 48 credit): $1,500
Half-day Program (3-4 hours of Act 48 credit): $750
Workshop (1.5-2 hours of Act 48 credit): $375

Individual Coaching
To provide teachers the support they need to implement new practices, a Da Vinci Science Center educator will preview the teacher’s curriculum in advance, meet with the teacher to discuss it, then observe and/or co-teach the lesson(s), and provide immediate feedback.

$85 per hour spent in the teacher’s classroom

Demonstration Classes
See Outreach Classroom Programs for options. By observing Science Center educators work with students in their own classrooms, teachers are provided with practical examples of implementation techniques in Inquiry, Design Thinking, Arts Integration, and Literacy.

$250 per program | maximum 30 students | 45-60 min.

Additional Fees

Programs with The MEGA Brain, presented by St. Luke’s University Health Network, or Cyndi the SynDaver (synthetic cadaver), presented by Highmark Blue Shield incur an additional fee of $750.
Dissections incur an additional fee of $100.
A travel fee will be applied for programs held at locations more than 50 miles from Da Vinci Science Center.

Savings & Scholarships

Assistance from the Linny Fowler Science Inquiry Fund is available for low-income schools.

Three Easy Ways to Book

Call Ann Bebout, Professional Development Program Manager, at 484.664.1002, ext. 111
Email pd@davincisciencecenter.org
Fill out the online registration form for scheduled programs listed above

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