Forums

Hi All, My district is in the process of using the NSTA Learning Center as a small group cohort for select teachers. I wanted to know if anyone else is using the NSTA Learning Center as a cohort. Whether your in the cohort or your administrator in the cohort. How is it working for you? What are you asking teachers to do with the learning center while in the cohort? Is it just used as a resource for teachers to go to. I know I use the learning center personally all the time for new ideas, materials, resources, article, and more. But how do you implement it with a small cohort of teachers. Can't wait to hear your responses!

Hi LaToya,

I am replying to your posted question concerning NSTA Cohorts and how their groups are using and sharing information, in hopes that you will receive insight, along with a few suggestions.

Education students at several universities also use the Learning Center as their main source of study and reference. They have a password that opens their account on a common class page where they are able to view professor comments, assignments and course announcements.

I am looking forward to hearing from current educators that have district NSTA LC pages and/or education students that are using NSTA as their e-Learning text. What do you enjoy, where would you like the services expanded, or clarified to support your science education learning?

Enjoy your day! Alyce

Hi LaToya, I'm also interested in exploring how to use the NSTA Learning Center as a district PD tool for middle school classroom teachers. With the NGSS, we are switching from (mostly) discipline specific courses in middle school to integrated courses. Teachers have been asking about ways to increase content knowledge. I'm interested in what others will post to this thread. -Casey

Hi LaToya, I think it would be a wonderful way to really get immersed into NGSS and share lab ideas, questions, assessments, etc. As a teacher, I could see it being a district version of the forums we are using on the larger scale. The benefit would be you could have specific curriculum discussions and questions as they arise in your own district versus across all avenues. We have been set up with the ability for quite some time. The problem is getting started. Someone has to take the lead to inform others the tool is available. I think once it got started, it would be easy to utilize the tool. The difficult part would be keeping track of threads and making sure everyone was on board with the naming conventions. I have been a part of many of the online communities where it is almost impossible to keep track of who is writing and posting what and where. Without threaded discussions, everything can become on really long forum.