Professional Development Center for Educators
Science
The key to teaching science is inspiring students to explain the natural world. This means developing lesson plans that introduce a problem to students and providing them with the tools to generate solutions.
The PDCE science team helps K-12 teachers develop student-centered curriculum that align with content standards. When schools and districts partner with us, they receive comprehensive support, teaching educators how to:
- set goals for professional learning in diverse classrooms
- develop and implement a professional learning plan for high quality science teaching and learning, and
- evaluate a plan’s effectiveness.
Services
Our professional learning programs are grounded in research-based practices in science and STEM education and adult learning. We strive to make science and STEM education research relatable and practical for today’s complex classrooms. To assist our partner schools and districts, PDCE will:
- Support teachers in understanding the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
- Provide content or pedagogy workshops on particular science and engineering education topics
- Conduct walkthroughs and observations of classroom teaching, and provide timely feedback for enhancing science instruction.
We work side-by-side with teachers to develop engaging NGSS-aligned science and engineering instruction to:
- Align curriculum and instruction to state science standards.
- Expand teachers’ knowledge of valid and reliable formative, summative and performance assessments
- Support the data-driven decision making of professional learning communities
- Enhance teachers’ pedagogical skills for student-centered instruction
- Coaching, mentoring, and co-teaching with classroom teachers and instructional leaders
Engaging Curriculum
Teaming up with UD Engineering, PDCE created lesson plans to teach students how to develop assistive technology using stuffed animals.
PDCE invited math, science and technology teachers to UD’s ISE Lab to demonstrate methods to incorporate real world challenges into their curriculum.
Middle and high school teachers can introduce students to practical applications of math and science lessons using our medical curriculum Orthopedics in Action kits.
Expertise
We coach teachers across the trajectory of the profession, including preservice and early induction teachers, mid-career and highly experienced teachers.
Our work with teachers is hands-on, collaborating to solve problems of practice. Our science team has extensive K-12 classroom experience, so the suggestions we provide are both practical and effective.
Our support is catered to your needs. We can help you implement engaging, standards-aligned instruction through coaching, co-teaching, and lesson study. We can review assessment data to make instructional decisions. And help you adjust your curriculum to best meet the needs of your students.
Meet the team
