MODELS Professional Development Workshops

Face-To-Face Collaboration
The summer workshops provide MODELS teachers time outside of the school year/day to collaborate. The workshop activities are designed to prompt teachers to reflect on dilemmas that may arise when teaching with technology and ways to overcome them, and to provide teachers with samples of student work to analyze to make evidence based decisions about their teaching and assessment practices. Teachers reported they valued the time spent with other teachers discussing teaching dilemmas and strategies, analyzing student work, and planning changes to the projects and teaching methods.

Collaboration activities organized during the school year support teachers using common projects to observe other teachers teaching the project. During these experiences teachers share goals for students, areas that are challenging for students, and strategies for teaching with the project.

Online Collaboration
Teachers also have the opportunity to collaborate through an online community website. During the summer workshops, we ask teachers what online resources they would find useful to support reflection and sharing. Teachers responded with these ideas: a place to post and share materials with other teachers, a listserve for asking questions, a place to find more information about grading students' work, and a place to reflect on their teaching.

The MODELS community website includes a discussion section for posting questions and sharing ideas or materials. It also includes member profiles, email addresses, CA and VA science standards, a master calendar of all project runs, grading rubrics, and links to current projects teachers are using in their classrooms. We are currently documenting mentors' and teachers' use of the community website.