Thursday, March 5, 2015
For Immediate Release

MITS Announces 2015 Summer Professional Development Institutes

CanoeThe Museum Institute for Teaching Science (MITS) is offering 6 professional development opportunities across the state of Massachusetts in the Summer of 2015.  The 2015 MITS Professional Development Institutes build on the theme: Practice Makes Perfect: Infusing Science, Technology, and Engineering Practices into STEM.  All institutes will utilize regional resources to offer you experiences that integrate inquiry-based pedagogy, science and engineering practices, science content, and other core disciplines in order to create your own inquiry-based investigations that strengthen the disciplines.  All institutes emphasize hands-on, minds-on inquiry-based education.  Across all regions, you will have the opportunity to hear from scientists, engineers, and other practitioners in the field and engage in investigations that can be applied to your classroom toolbox.

Two different professional development models are available to choose from:  a one-week on-site model or a hybrid model.  Both start with an introductory half-day on a Saturday in June and involve one week of on-site experience in one of the first two weeks after July 4.  In the one week model you can choose to earn either 40 PDPS or 3 graduate credits and 67.5 PDPs.  The hybrid model offers an additional 4 weeks of online work that is flexible with your schedule and the opportunity to earn 50 PDPs or 4 graduate credits and 90 PDPs.

Each regional institute has a different focus and target audience.

For Middle and High School Educators: 

  • Berkshire Region: Going With The Flow:  Using Inquiry Methods to Teach Watershed Science  The one-week institute offers a chance to build a SeaPerch remotely operated vehicle and get your feet wet while you investigate physical,  chemical, and biological aspects of the watershed.
  • Central Region: Exploring Energy and Climate Change:  Science, Systems and Solutions  In this hybrid institute, you can investigate a myriad of connections between energy, climate change, and the Common Core in the context of Earth’s integrated systems and explore how climate change can be addressed through both engineering and the social sciences.
  • North Shore Region: Research and Resiliency: Exploring the Ways Local Ecosystems are Responding to Our Changing Climate In this one-week institute, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to investigate how scientists and land managers collaborate to improve health of coastal ecosystems.

For Grades 3-8 Educators:

  • Cape Cod: Whale Tales and Seashore Sagas: Exploring the Marine Environment Through Inquiry and Literacy  This one-week institute offers a chance to connect marine science, technology and engineering to math and literacy while you explore from mudflats to woody uplands to vernal pools.
  • Metro-West Region: Things That Move: How Scientists, Engineers and Artists Investigate Motion  Get a move on in this hybrid institute that explores differences in how artists and scientists observe the world.
  • South Shore: Wind, Water and Robotics: Bringing Together Physical Science, Life Science and Engineering Design  This hybrid institute challenges your mind to design effective wind turbine blades and protect coastal waters from oil spills.  Build a SeaPerch remotely operated vehicle and design a mission to put it to work collecting data back in your classroom.

Click here to visit our Regions page for more details about these summer professional development opportunities and to register.