Ecolinc Primary Teacher Professional Development Day - Friday 19th May 2017
18 April 2017
Primary Teachers STEM Professional Development – Making Science More Engaging for Students.
Keynote address by Barry Plant, Deakin University Project Officer: Successful Students – STEM on ‘STEM Skills and Practices and how they relate to Primary Teaching and Learning’.
Workshops led by a range of presenters, including some showcases by schools who are doing some great things in the STEM space.
Program:
| 8.45am | Arrival & Registrations |
| 9.00am | Keynote Speaker – Barry Plant (Project Officer: Successful Students – STEM, Deakin University) Topic: ‘STEM Skills and Practices and how they relate to Primary Teaching and Learning’ The Successful Students-STEM Project in Geelong works with middle year’s teachers to enhance teaching and learning activities in STEM related subjects, using a focus on skills and practices that operate across these learning areas. These include problem solving and creativity, modelling with representations in mathematics and science, design based challenges and the use of digital technologies. |
| 9.50am | Workshop 1 |
| 10.40am | Morning Tea |
| 11.00am | Workshop 2 |
| 11.50am | Workshop 3 |
| 12.40pm | Lunch |
| 1.30pm | Workshop 4 |
| 2.20pm | Plenary |
| 2.30pm | Finish |
Workshops:
Workshop 1: (9.50am – 10.40am)
| 1A | Shane French – CERES What CERES can offer your class. CERES Environment Park is a not for profit, award winning environmental and cultural education facility just 7 km from the Melbourne CBD. Based on 10 acres, we offer over 60 different curriculum linked activities covering the core themes of Waste, Land, Water, Energy and Cultural (Aboriginal, Indonesian, African and Indian). All of our programs align with STEM, Humanities, Arts and Languages learning areas. From Early Childhood to Tertiary, we have something for everyone. We can also come to you! So come to this fun, interactive workshop and learn about all the wonderful things CERES can offer your school on its sustainability and cultural learning journey. |
| 1B | Peter Hinrichsen – Club Engineer Setting up a coding club, and building a team to compete in the Robocup - It's not for everyone, but for some, coding is a skill they can truly excel at. Sport, drama, music has been offered by schools since the beginning, but what about something for the tech-savvy kids? Something for the geeks? An afterschool or lunchtime coding club can be just the thing to help tech-savvy students find their place in the world. Close to ten years ago, Peter established a robotics club at his children’s primary school with four students. The club fast gained support of the school community and grew to the point where students competed in, and won an international robotics competition. |
| 1C | Sharon Keith – Canadian Lead Primary School STEM Maker Space: "What do magnifying glasses, disposable gloves, water, dirt and rocks produce? High student engagement and a glorious mess! With hands-on activities, Canadian Lead’s junior scientists explore their world and seek explanations, predicting outcomes and recording observations within the framework of Primary Connections. Able to be adapted to your instructional model and with clear opportunities for assessment, the lessons are very detailed to build teacher capacity and confidence. Canadian Lead PS have a strong future focus on STEM and they will lead a session showcasing what they have been doing in the STEM space. Participants will be able to explore a range of activities and investigate how this might work in their own schools to improve science outcomes for students. |
| 1D | Nicole Bovezza - Western Water Free Western Water resources and incursions: Learn about the free, water-related incursions and resources available to primary and secondary students. Nicole Bovezza from Western Water will talk about the range of fun waterwise presentations available to schools in their service region. The presentations are delivered by experienced educators and have strong links to the curriculum. |
| 1E | Rachel Crellin – Department of Education & Training DET digital systems, tools and resources: Rachel Crellin is a senior project officer in the Learning and Teaching Branch focusing on ICT across the curriculum. Rachel will outline the suite of digital systems, tools and resources that are available to support schools design and deliver contemporary STEM curriculum and enhance outcomes for students. |
Workshop 2: (11am – 11.50am)
| 2A | Sanjin Dedic – Techxellent Introduction to Electric Circuits - The high-tech world around us is predominantly made up of computers and electric circuits, this workshop will give you insights into both. You will use an Arduino, which is the simplest of computers, essentially operating on 1 and 0 inputs and outputs, and you will create electric circuits on a breadboard which turn lights on / off, react to your skin conductivity, glow in the dark and even mix primary light colours. The workshop includes handouts and video tutorials for 16 classroom activities averaging 30 minutes designed for students of upper primary years and aligned with the Victorian Curriculum. |
| 2B | Peter Hinrichsen – Club Engineer Introduction to coding with Scratch hands on - You have probably heard of Scratch, the coding tool from MIT for young programmers but might not have had an opportunity to give it a try. In this hands-on session, you will get a feel for how to get started with Scratch, and be introduced to some project ideas suitable for upper level primary students. You will need an Internet enabled laptop that can connect to Scratch online (https://scratch.mit.edu) or have installed a copy of the Scratch Offline Editor (https://scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/) This session is for absolute Scratch beginners and we will try to cover as much in our 50 minutes together as possible. Some topics to be covered include:
Come along and write some code. |
| 2C | Sharon Keith – Canadian Lead Primary School STEM Maker Space: "What do magnifying glasses, disposable gloves, water, dirt and rocks produce? High student engagement and a glorious mess! With hands-on activities, Canadian Lead’s junior scientists explore their world and seek explanations, predicting outcomes and recording observations within the framework of Primary Connections. Able to be adapted to your instructional model and with clear opportunities for assessment, the lessons are very detailed to build teacher capacity and confidence. Canadian Lead PS have a strong future focus on STEM and they will lead a session showcasing what they have been doing in the STEM space. Participants will be able to explore a range of activities and investigate how this might work in their own schools to improve science outcomes for students. |
| 2D | James Frazer – Western Water Frog Census in Schools: Melbourne Water has developed a new package of frog teaching resources for schools. Find out how we can support your school to undertake standalone or ongoing frog investigations and activities, with explicit links to the Victorian Curriculum. Resources available include guides to practical ways your school can take action to conserve frog populations, such as frog habitat construction and developing a junior citizen science monitoring program using our new Frog Census app. |
| 2E | Rachel Crellin – Department of Education & Training DET digital systems, tools and resources: Rachel Crellin is a senior project officer in the Learning and Teaching Branch focusing on ICT across the curriculum. Rachel will outline the suite of digital systems, tools and resources that are available to support schools design and deliver contemporary STEM curriculum and enhance outcomes for students. |
Workshop 3: (11.50am - 12.40pm)
| 3A | Sanjin Dedic – Techxellent Programming Hands- On unplugged activities - Computational thinking is a key element in the Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum and the best way to start teaching computational thinking is by the simplest of tools that are already familiar to your students, namely Lego blocks, pen and paper. In this workshop you will complete activities which require data analysis, precise (computational language) as well as algorithmic thinking. These activities will cover only 2-3 lessons but are a great place to begin for year levels 2-6 and are aligned to the Victorian Curriculum. |
| 3B | Ben Lui - Zoos Victoria What Zoos Victoria can offer you: Each year hundreds of schools visit Zoos Victoria and as a result go back to school and continue to support wildlife conservation through a range of community conservation campaigns that directly contribute to better outcomes for local and international species. Come and learn about how your school can engage with Zoos Victoria to help fight extinction through STEM linked cases studies that provide meaningful learning opportunities for students. |
| 3C | Bannockburn Primary School Inquiry Science; It’s Elementary! Use the inherent inquiry of Forensic Science to engage students and have them work scientifically across biological, physical, chemical and earth sciences. Explore cross-curricular links (beyond STEM) that a powerful science unit can provide. Examine units of science developed by Science specialist school – Bannockburn Primary School! |
| 3D | Leah Solyom – CSIRO Education & Research. Sustainable Futures is an education program which combines the latest in climate science with education for sustainability. Sustainable Futures encourages and supports students to develop skills in the processes of inquiry and literature research as well as developing their experimental, investigation and critical thinking skills. In this hands-on workshop, participants will have the opportunity to share ideas for best practice in educating for a sustainable future. Sustainable Futures is an educational program managed by CSIRO with funding support from Bayer. |
Workshop 4: (1.30pm – 2.20pm)
| 4A | Carolanne Glynne & Sophie Pritchard Ecolinc Outreach opportunities Learn about the Ecolinc Outreach opportunities and free online resources that are available for your school. |
| 4B | Ben Lui - Zoos Victoria What Zoos Victoria can offer you: Each year hundreds of schools visit Zoos Victoria and as a result go back to school and continue to support wildlife conservation through a range of community conservation campaigns that directly contribute to better outcomes for local and international species. Come and learn about how your school can engage with Zoos Victoria to help fight extinction through STEM linked cases studies that provide meaningful learning opportunities for students. |
| 4C | Bannockburn Primary School Enquiry Science; It’s Elementary! Use the inherent inquiry of Forensic Science to engage students and have them work scientifically across biological, physical, chemical and earth sciences. Explore cross-curricular links (beyond STEM) that a powerful science unit can provide. Examine units of science developed by Science specialist school – Bannockburn Primary School! |
| 4D | Leah Solyom – CSIRO Education & Research. Sustainable Futures is an education program which combines the latest in climate science with education for sustainability. Sustainable Futures encourages and supports students to develop skills in the processes of inquiry and literature research as well as developing their experimental, investigation and critical thinking skills. In this hands-on workshop, participants will have the opportunity to share ideas for best practice in educating for a sustainable future. Sustainable Futures is an educational program managed by CSIRO with funding support from Bayer. |
