Annual Report OverviewsBASEE Annual Overview
Annual Report November 15, 1999
Project Overview Recognizing that teachers and administrators have different professional development needs, BASEE has designed training in five different strands:
Each BASEE district has one or more science resource teachers (SRTs) who oversee the science implementation within the district, supervise the kit refurbishment operation and are the link between BASEE and the districts. The SRT team is responsible for the design and delivery of the professional development offerings. In addition, BASEE employs outside consultants, higher education instructors and scientist volunteers as presenters of content background. Lead teachers at each of the 90 school sites supervise the kit usage at the site, lead faculty meetings around science and maintain communication with the district SRT and mentor their colleagues. The leads are members of the school site leadership team, which guides the development of the school site science plan. Each school receives a small budget to support its approved science plan. In addition, each school site receives a laptop computer from Hewlett-Packard to help maintain online communications across the districts. BASEE summer institutes provide a rich avenue for teacher development. Each year our weeklong Invitations to Inquiry institute is filled to capacity. This past summer sixty teachers gathered to focus on this important pedagogy while focusing on the physics of light and color. Our model is patterned after the one we experienced at the Exploratorium. We are delighted to have the benefit of ongoing coaching from Barry Kluger-Bell and Fred Stein to make this a rich offering for our teachers. Our weeklong summer content institutes (serving over 300 teachers) feature one discipline of science each year on a rotational basis. This past summer it was the Exploring Earth Sciences institute. We have learned that the triad instructional team model is a powerful one. A secondary or higher education instructor works with a volunteer scientist and a SRT to design and deliver the institute curriculum. The instructional team is challenged to plan a program that matches the concepts teachers are expected to teach. Each year we offer six sessions so teachers may select the topic they teach. This past summer these topics were:
Adult field trips during the week bring the content learning to life and have been especially well received. The opening and closing activities include some big picture presentations so teachers can think of their topic in the context of earth sciences in general. BASEE is currently in project year three. Our focus this year is on the use of a science notebook to solidify the science concepts while simultaneously strengthening literacy and math skills. The SRTs developed a 10 station jigsaw style workshop to emphasize how science notebooks can be used to deepen learning. These workshops are featured during the staff development days this year in all eight districts.
|