P-Credit+(Cohort+2)

**OVERVIEW OF P Credit Course Option **
 * SCIENCE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM: 2010-2011**


 * **COURSE SITE** || **SEASON START & END DATES** || ** COURSE DESCRIPTION ** ||
 * **The New York Botanical Gardens** || **Fall 2010**
 * Start Date: 10/2/2010**
 * End Date: 10/30/2010**


 * Fall 2010**
 * Start Date: 12/11/2010**
 * End Date: 1/09/2011**


 * Spring 2011**
 * Start Date: 04/18/2011**
 * End Date: 04/23/2011**

Teachers will gain content knowledge related to life sciences with cross-curriculum connections to math and literacy. Teachers learn strategies for efficiently implementing the science curriculum in the classroom. Activities modeled involve a wide range of approaches to science including learning for multiple intelligences and approaches for ESL and special education. PTS: Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning: Demonstrating knowledge of subject matter content and student development; Organizing curriculum to support student understanding of subject matter.
 * Spring 2011**
 * Start Date: 02/21/2011**
 * End Date: 02/26/2011** || ** Plant Science and Ecology **

These workshops provide teachers with important science content and activities related to earth and life sciences with cross-curriculum connections to math and literacy. The course teaches about the importance of the living and non-living aspects of ecosystems in the science curriculum, and larger issues of the earth as a system. Teachers with be provided with new strategies for efficiently implementing the science curriculum in the classroom; creating lessons that are engaging and fun for students. Activities modeled involve a wide range of approaches to science, including learning for multiple intelligences, ESL students, and special education students.
 * Earth Science and Evolution **

This course is designed to provide the classroom teacher with important STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) content directly linked to the NYC Scope & Sequence, while providing them with practical skills necessary to successfully design, construct, maintain and integrate a garden into the school learning environment. Participants learn important earth and life science content while exploring how to translate this learning into practical engineering and technological applications in their individual school settings. Sessions provide cross-curriculum connections to strengthen the relationship between science, math, and technology while incorporating relevant links to literacy and social studies. Teachers will be provided with new strategies to implement the STEM curriculum, creating lessons that are engaging, and fun for students. Activities modeled involve a wide range of approaches, including learning for multiple intelligences, ESL students, and special education students. ||
 * Gardening 101**
 * **Bronx Zoo Education** || **Fall 2010**
 * Start Date: 11/13/2010**
 * End Date: 12/18/2010**


 * Fall 2010**
 * Start Date: 12/12/2010**
 * End Date: 1/23/2011**

Participants will explore and compare different scientific inquiry methods that address multiple intelligences, differentiation, and creating relevance for students. Participants will be able to modify instruction to make it more inquiry based, describe best practices for bringing environmental issues into the classroom, and defend how inquiry can be used to improve student performance. PTS: Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning: Using a variety of instructional strategies and resources to respond to students' diverse needs; Facilitating learning experiences that promote autonomy, interaction, and choice.
 * Spring 2011**
 * Start Date: 03/13/2011**
 * End Date: 04/17/2011** || ** Natural Inquirer: Using Nature to Promote Inquiry **

During this exciting workshop teachers will: learn about the role of predators in the ecosystem; explore different techniques for presenting life science across the disciplines; learn about the tools used by conservation biologists who study predators; compare the images of tigers and other predators across cultures; and create a Conservation Strategy to save global tiger populations. All activities align with NY State Standards and help promote student learning. Teachers will also receive the book “Teachers for Tigers.” PTS: Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning: Demonstrating knowledge of subject matter content and student development. Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning: Promoting social development and group responsibility.
 * Tigers and Other Predators **

Wishing that you could find a way to capture your students’ excitement for the bugs, spiders and other multi-legged creatures around the world? Come get as excited as your students about insects. You will learn how to foster positive attitudes towards the amazing world of minibeasts and the important role they play in the environment. Learn how to cover the language arts, math, and life science standards in new hands-on ways. You will explore the biology behind these amazing animals, from life cycles to color. We’ll show you how to make our Butterfly Garden an educational adventure, and help you transform classroom activities, snack time, and reading into a very buggy adventure! (Grades K-6, 3P credits) || Student readers are the centerpieces of the "Elly Jelly Looks at Marine Animals" early grade (K-3) life science program. It promotes observation and investigation to guide students through an exploration of animals such as sea jellies, other invertebrates, fish, walruses, and penguins. The program strongly emphasizes literacy while it builds fundamental science study and research skills. All lessons are interdisciplinary, aligned with State and City standards and use techniques such as comparing and classifying, and cooperative groups to enhance student achievement. PTS: Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning: Promoting social development and group responsibility. Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning: Demonstrating knowledge of subject matter, content and student development. (Participants will receive copies of the books covered in class.) || This course will provide specific instruction and training for the life science activities within the science Scope and Sequence providing teachers an opportunity to receive additional science content, extensions and further applications of the Science Core curriculum kits for their classroom. This class utilizes a hybrid course environment of traditional face-to-face instruction and on-line instruction to support science instruction and enhance professional development for the NYC Science Core Curriculum as it relates to the topics in life science from grades K-8. This hybrid course environment is aligned to the NYC Science Scope and Sequence for all grades. This course strategy can provide the flexible support that teachers need to become confident doing hands-on Living Environment/Biology science activities needed to enhance science teaching and learning in the classroom for student achievement within the aligned curriculum. The use of reform-minded and research based pedagogy will be highlighted in this web-enabled environment to stimulate critical conversation and allow for practitioner reflection. PTS: Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning: Demonstrating knowledge of subject matter content and student development; Organizing curriculum to support student understanding of subject matter. Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students: Drawing on and valuing students’ backgrounds, interests, and developmental learning needs; Establishing and articulating goals for student learning. || We live in a world of science. Science is the attempt to uncover and discover the mysteries of the natural world. Teaching is professional artistry and this is inherently related to human imagination and creativity and one’s willingness to experiment and play. Developing professional artistry suggests that teachers need to develop their own knowledge claims about teaching and learning. There are many ways to learn about science. Much can be learned from informal learning experiences that will help develop professional artistry, such as visits to the Bronx Zoo, The NY Botanical Garden, and The NY Hall of Science. The Art of Teaching Science In The K-8 Classroom is a course designed to provide a powerful vision for a successful science education that, while focusing on teachers, ultimately impacts students’ learning of science. To make this vision a reality, the 6 sessions in this course will provide K–8 teachers with a foundation for developing both science content knowledge and integrating a wide variety of pedagogical learning tools to be able to teach today’s standards-based curricula. These tools involve inquiry and experimentation, classroom lessons, laboratory activities, field experiences, reflection through writing and discussion, exploring ways to improve their teaching practices, reading and writing in context, strategies to engage students in reflective and high level cognitive thinking and the use of technology. As teachers proceed through this course, one way of building and connecting understandings is to reflect upon their learning as they go. In each session, one or more questions will be suggested to guide a journal entry. At the end of the course, these entries should help teachers see how their ideas have progressed. || Science and the arts are a natural combination: observation and investigation are integral to both. Teachers will discover exciting new ways to teach science concepts that engage and challenge students. We will explore topics such as animal adaptations, life cycles and habitats using puppetry, movement, drama and even a little clowning. Using creative methods that will capture students’ imaginations and involve them in science, we will cover language arts and the new life science scope and sequence. No theatrical experience is necessary – but participation is essential. PTS: Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning: Using a variety of instructional strategies and resources to respond to students' diverse needs; Engaging students in problem solving, critical thinking and other activities that make subject matter meaningful. ||
 * Insects and Their Allies **
 * ** New York Aquarium ** || **Fall 2010**
 * Start Date: 10/03/2010**
 * End Date: 11/07/2010** || ** Elly Jelly Looks at Marine Animals **
 * ** New York Hall of Science ** || **Fall 2010**
 * Start Date: 11/06/2010**
 * End Date: 12/18/2010** || ** Hands-0n-Science Series: Fun with Biology Science Core Curriculum Enrichment Training **
 * **TEASP Program** || **Spring 2011**
 * Start Date: 02/12/2011**
 * End Date: 05/01/2011** || **The Art of Teaching Science in the K-8 Classroom**
 * **Prospect Park Zoo** || **Fall 2010**
 * Start Date: 11/14/2010**
 * End Date: 12/19/2010** || ** Science Through Theater and Art **