With Stony Brook University personnel, Brentwood Middle School and High School teachers will get to participate in the Scientist and Teachers Engaging in Professional Development with University Personnel (STEPD-UP) program.
This collaboration will engage teachers in hands-on learning about Long Island’s salt marshes and marine ecosystems, dovetailing Engineering Design standards with Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems.
Ecology and Evolution with students at Flax Pond Marine Laboratory, an excellent training location that will now be used for the teacher training.
Teachers will apply problem-solving strategies, hands-on laboratory work, lesson-plan writing and learning techniques to provide in-service training to others. By engaging educators in scientific questions and investigations of global and local relevance with experts, STEPD-UP creates novel student-centered activities that educators can use to further students’ 21st century skills.
Project leader Rebecca Grella, a PhD graduate from the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook, has taught at Brentwood Union Free School District (the state’s largest suburban school district) for 17 years. Grella has created a research laboratory at Brentwood High School, which is referred to locally as “Little Stony Brook.”
Through this comprehensive professional plan, secondary science teachers participating in STEPD-UP will develop confidence for themselves and for their students, and engage in meaningful collaboration of innovative ideas, skills and expertise with their peers and University professors to positively affect student outcomes.
Read more: https://news.stonybrook.edu/facultystaff/stony-brook-brentwood-collaboration-will-give-teachers-hands-on-professional-development-training/