Sponsoring Company: NSTA, Shell Teacher Awards and Competitions

Do you impact your school and community with STEM? If you teach K–12, come learn how to apply to win one of eight Shell-supported awards through this teacher competition.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Learn how to apply for a Shell-sponsored award or competition; 2. begin your application or nomination of a Shell-sponsored program and receive a prize; and 3. collaborate with past winners and judges to learn how to strengthen your application.

SPEAKERS:
Amanda Upton (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Ruth Ruud (Cleveland State University: Cleveland, OH)

Sponsoring Company: Amplify

How do we support students to gather a variety of evidence in order to deepen their understanding of phenomena? Join program authors from UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science to experience how a multimodal approach allows students to grapple with phenomena and real-world problems like scientists do. We will unpack structures from the K–8 Amplify Science curriculum and consider how a deep understanding of NGSS can support you in making principled pedagogical decisions.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Gain a deeper understanding of the role that different sources of evidence play in phenomenon-based teaching and learning; 2. experience an exemplar of how students figuring out investigative phenomena can support their increasing understanding of more complex anchor phenomena; and 3. reflect on how students engage in all three dimensions of NGSS as they gather evidence and grapple with real-world phenomena.

SPEAKERS:
Leslie Stenger (The Lawrence Hall of Science: Berkeley, CA), Rebecca Abbott (The Lawrence Hall of Science: Berkeley, CA)

Sponsoring Company: Twig Education

Learn effective strategies that can be employed immediately to increase student engagement in your fully virtual or hybrid distance learning classroom, leading to better student learning outcomes. In addition, you will discover how to foolproof your online classroom to spend more time teaching and less time being tech support.

TAKEAWAYS:
By the end of the session, teachers will be able to implement three virtual assignment strategies to increase student engagement: 1. create micro-lessons for 100% student focus and attention; 2. evaluate (or create) and assign video-based science coaching; and 3. deploy and facilitate virtual labs that excite, engage, and get students doing science.

SPEAKERS:
Mary McGibbons-Craft (Imagine Learning | Twig Education: Santa Cruz, CA), Kimberly Mueller (Imagine Learning | Twig Education: Santa Cruz, CA)

Sponsoring Company: MatterHackers, Inc.

Learn how to lead students through engaging learning experiences such as the make:able challenge in order to improve learner outcomes and deepen student agency. They will be able to use empathy, STEM skills, and their own interests to improve the lives of others through assistive technology and 3D printing.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Learn about the make:able challenge and how you can implement it at your school; 2. use resources from the Build a Better Book project to facilitate design challenges for people with visual impairments based on student interest; and 3. gain strategies to help promote student independence, growth, and reflection.

SPEAKERS:
Mara Hitner (MatterHackers, Inc.: Lake Forest, CA), Steven Jones (Swanson Middle School: Arlington, VA)

Sponsoring Company: AEOP

Come learn about the eCYBERMISSION competition. It's a web-based STEM competition for students in grade 6–9 where they learn the value of teamwork and make discoveries to help their community, all while competing for monetary prizes!

TAKEAWAYS:
1. How to engage students in problem solving; 2. challenging puzzles to take back to the classroom; and 3. information about how eCYBERMISSION gives students a chance to explore and solve problems using science and engineering.

SPEAKERS:
Matthew Hartman (BrainPOP: Pittsburgh, PA)

Sponsoring Company: FOSS–Delta Education, School Specialty

Make the most of your instructional time by increasing student engagement and agency with an emphasis on sensemaking and science-centered language development. Using a FOSS lesson, we will demonstrate strategies developed to activate prior knowledge, collect and analyze collected data, construct explanations, and engage in argumentation during remote learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Learn three instructional strategies to increase engagement; 2. experience a physical science investigation as a learner; 3. determine learning expectation to build student success; and 4. learn about new FOSS resources.

SPEAKERS:
Diana Velez (The Lawrence Hall of Science: Berkeley, CA), Erica Beck Spencer (The Lawrence Hall of Science: Berkeley, CA), Joanna Totino (California Science Project: Berkeley, CA), Brian Campbell (The Lawrence Hall of Science: Berkeley, CA)