JoinCourses & Pathways
National Conference in New Orleans • November 6-9, 2024
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Courses and Pathways feature hand-selected programming tracks to maximize your conference experience.
Short Course
Building Capacity for Adapting High-Quality Instructional Materials for Local Standards
Thursday, November 7 • 1:00-4:00pm
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room 272
Many schools need high-quality units to meet their state standards, especially if they vary significantly from the NGSS. BSCS Science Learning has extensive experience with designing, and adapting Storylines units. Come to this session to apply a BSCS design tool that can be used for adaptation.
Presented By:
Pathways
A pathway is a curated grouping of sessions centered around a specific topic of interest.
Add these Pathways to your agenda via the session browser today.
AI: K-8
This pathway features curated sessions on using AI to enhance science teaching in your K-8 classroom.
AI: High School
This pathway features curated sessions on using AI to enhance science teaching in your high school classroom.
Assessment strategies designed to support equitable sensemaking
This conference pathway delves into the critical role of assessments in fostering equitable learning environments through sensemaking, problematizing phenomena, and leveraging student work for understanding and care. The sessions are designed to rethink traditional feedback and grading practices, utilize AI to enhance learning experiences, and advance equity with culturally responsive assessment strategies.
Participants will engage in a structured process to analyze and revise science assessments, ensuring they cater to diverse learning styles and mitigate bias to foster inclusivity. Through collaborative discussions, educators will explore innovative approaches and pedagogical strategies aimed at enhancing the relevance and effectiveness of assessments.
This professional development series is dedicated to empowering teachers to (re)create student-centered assessments that authentically represent every student’s knowledge and abilities, irrespective of their background or identity. Each session aims to foster student engagement, address equity, and increase educational relevance, helping educators develop assessments that truly support sensemaking and student success.
Building Capacity for the Implementation of High-Quality Instructional Materials
This pathway follows the Leaders Institute sessions and will deepen your understanding of effective implementation and equitable systems.
How can we use high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) to design more equitable systems? Join us to consider how leaders rally interest and build internal capacity for the selection and effective implementation of high-quality instructional materials. Work with other leaders to consider strategies to make the case for change toward more equitable systems that support all learners in the system and the role of HQIM in leading ongoing science improvement efforts.
Building Capacity for Adapting High-Quality Instructional Materials for Local Standards
BSCS Science Learning has extensive experience with designing and adapting high-quality Storylines units. Come to these pathway sessions to learn about adapting for state standards, student interests and identities, and local relevance.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
A curated grouping of sessions focused on diversity, equity, and/or inclusion in education.
Empowering STEM Educators: Phenomenon-Based Teaching & Assessment from OpenSciEd, Schoolwide Labs, and 5D Assessment for a Just and Sustainable Future
Join us for a transformative pathway in science and engineering education with the inquiryHub teams from the University of Colorado Boulder. Discover innovative resources from our OpenSciEd High School program, SchoolWide Labs, and the 5D Assessment project. These tools are designed to support your teaching and assessment practice in ways that align with the NGSS and the Framework for K-12 Science Education. Our workshops will guide you in leading, adapting, and designing engaging learning experiences that resonate with your students’ interests, experiences, and identities, and address community priorities. Equip your students to tackle real-world challenges and contribute to building just communities and sustainable ways of living on Earth in a changing climate. Embrace this opportunity to expand your teaching toolkit and inspire impactful STEM learning.
High School Havens
This pathway spotlights sessions from our dedicated, discipline-specific learning and connecting space for high school educators.
Informal Education
A curated grouping of sessions for educators in informal science settings.
Leading the Way: A Pathway for Cultivating Teacher Leaders in Education
Embark on a journey of teacher leadership in science education with NSELA, where you will discover transformative practices that empower educators to drive change. Explore how teacher leaders can cultivate inclusive classrooms and advocate for equity in science education. Join a community of like-minded professionals to enhance your leadership skills, foster emerging teacher leaders, and become a catalyst for positive change in your school, district, or state.
Leadership
A curated grouping of sessions specifically for school and district administrators, coaches, department heads, and teacher leaders.
Louisiana Science Teachers Association (LSTA): Science Education Spotlight
The Louisiana Science Teachers Association has curated diverse presentations that include Louisiana science educators and highlights from the Science teams at the Louisiana Department of Education.
NSTA Early Childhood - Lower Elementary Science
Are you an early childhood or lower elementary teacher eager to infuse more science and STEM into your classroom? Don't miss this exciting opportunity at the NSTA Conference in vibrant New Orleans! Join the NSTA Early Childhood - Elementary Science Committee for an engaging session where you'll discover innovative, hands-on activities and sensemaking strategies tailored for young learners. Elevate your teaching and inspire your students with practical, fun, and effective science experiences. See you there!
NSTA Preservice Teacher Education
Inviting all Preservice Teachers and higher education instructors attending the conference to join us on Friday to network and learn about ways to engage with NSTA resources and events. Sessions on Saturday in this pathway are targeted to preservice teachers and new teachers' experiences.
NSTA Press
Come learn from our esteemed NSTA Press authors, sharing their love of learning with research-backed expertise on a wide array of topics. You'll head back to the classroom with realistic, ready-to-use teaching strategies you can implement on Monday.
NSTA Professional Learning
Join us each day to experience professional learning around a high-interest topic! Thursday we'll explore how student ideas can drive learning in the science classroom; Friday the focus is on instructional coaching (coach-to-teacher and teacher-to-teacher); and Saturday our sessions are centered on STEM Learning.
NSTA Professional Learning Committee
Join us on Thursday of the conference to experience professional learning around a high-interest topic! In this pathway, we'll explore how to make time for elementary science, how to facilitate effective science professional learning, and a discussion regarding the vision for professional learning in science!
Open and Equitable Science in Elementary Classrooms
The COESEE pathway sessions focus on working with elementary educators to envision elementary science based in student’s lived experiences, creating more equitable and just learning environments.
OpenSciEd Elementary is Here!
The much anticipated first round of OpenSciEd elementary units are now available for public use! Come experience the joy possible when elementary science classrooms engage in collective science sensemaking.
OpenSciEd Middle School: Customizing High Quality Curriculum: Using Your Expertise to Better Support Students
Feeling boxed in by pre-made curriculum? High quality, phenomenon-based materials have robust storylines that help students make sense of the phenomenon, but sometimes all of the support provided for teachers to use these materials can make it feel like there isn’t room for teachers to bring in their own expertise. And making changes in the wrong places can actually diminish the power of student sensemaking that is so important for student engagement and learning. The sessions across this pathway provide opportunities to learn more about a wide variety of customizations–from thinking about grading and sub plans to digging in and modifying the materials to encourage student voice or increasing relevance in the classroom.
We will unpack how you can utilize a high quality curriculum to both meet the identified learning goals and also provide opportunities for customization and localization. We think of this customization work as the perfect game of Jenga- how can you determine which pieces of the curriculum unit can be removed and changed without toppling the entire tower? Building this knowledge will help you take advantage of the strength of the well-constructed tower (curriculum) while making it your own to reach higher heights with your students.
OpenSciEd’s materials are used across these sessions because the materials have received an all green rating from EdReports and are free and publicly available for use, but many of the ideas, strategies, and tools shared across the pathway could be applied to any high-quality instructional materials.
We hope you will join an amazing community of educators who are taking high quality instructional materials and making them even better!
Postsecondary
A curated grouping of sessions for postsecondary instructors.
STEM Teaching Tools: Free Resources for Equitable Science Instruction
Come explore our collection of open education resources (OER) at http://stemteachingtools.org focused on supporting equity-focused science and climate change instruction. These professional learning resources have been co-designed by educators and researchers to support foundational learning and key practices for NGSS implementation. Each STEM Teaching Tool is an idea and resource funnel about a problem or opportunity of teaching practice. The initiative is #NSFfunded