On Thursday, August 21, 3-4pm EDT, there will be a webinar about the three free LINCS online professional development courses in the teaching and learning of science. Many instructors have already taken the first two LINCS science courses through the LINCS Learning Portal: Engaging Adult Learners in Science and Scientific Practices in Context: Curricular Planning and Lesson Development. A third course is to be made public next week. I encourage you to register for the webinar, which will include a discussion of scientific practices and how teachers and students are reacting to them, and will offer suggestions and conversation on how teachers, program administrators, and professional developers can use the courses.
The link to register is: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e9ntl3ip42b84dee&llr=myfqxziab&showPage=true
A discussion on these topics will continue here after the webinar!
Comments
Just a reminder that tomorrow, Thursday, August 21st is the webinar about the teaching and learning of science through the LINCS Online Science Courses. The webinar begins at 3pm EDT!
Hello, Sharon and Jessie!
You have probably planned to address this question during the webinar: I see by the LINCS Learning Portal that the third LINCS online science course, "Project-based Science Instruction for Career Preparation" is not yet available for self-enrollment. Is that because the third course will be available after the webinar, or do you want all participants to have completed the first and second courses before starting the third one. I assume that it makes more sense to do the courses in sequence, right?
Susan
Hi Susan,
Thanks for this great question. You can now enroll for any or all of these courses through the LINCS Learning Portal! We recommend that users take all three science courses in the series in the following order, since the concepts build on each other.
Please join us today at 3PM ET to learn more about the courses and how teachers, program administrators, and professional developers can use them.
Hi Susan,
How did the webinar go? Where there any themes or comments that you'd like to share with us? And for those of us (like myself) who were away and unable to participate, will the webinar be archived so we can look at it after the fact?
Best,
Julie
Thanks for asking! You can view the archived webinar on the LINCS YouTube channel.
We had a great discussion around the concept of scientific practices, as well how teachers, program managers, and professional developers can use the courses. For example, program managers or professional developers can ask teachers to take the course and then participate in follow-up discussions or activities.
We'd love to hear from others as well. I'm particularly interested in hearing from teachers who are using the scientific practices in their lesson planning. How are students reacting? Do they notice? Please contribute your thoughts whether you were able to participate in the webinar or not!
We have been getting comments on the Science discussion list about the first two LINCS Science courses, especially the second course, "Scientific Practices in Context". As the instructional year begins for many programs, we hope that instructors will find these courses useful. They are full of instructional ideas and ways in which to implement practices. Please check them out!
One way to use these courses is to have study circles which take the courses part by part. It is hoped that program managers might facilitate study circle time for the instructors in their programs. Is anyone participating in such circles now?
Susan
Julie, thanks for asking! Sharon Reynolds, the developer of the courses, made an excellent presentation of each of the courses. She demonstrated how the courses are linked together. I thought that the discussion of "scientific practices" was especially useful. These can be applied to teaching and learning across the curriculum. Though they are the practices used by scientists, the processes apply to anyone who questions anything....and that would be all of us!
There was also a discussion of how these courses will aid instructors in their course planning and subsequent teaching.
Cynthia Zafft made a presentation on how she has used the courses in professional development. We suggested that these courses can be used by program managers as professional development within a specific program/faculty.
There were many good questions/comments at the end of the webinar.
So, I'd say that the the theme was that these courses offer something for everyone: students/questioners, instructors, professional developers, and program managers!
Susan