MS Science Courses

Its Not Rocket Science

Model and sport rocketry is an often overlooked area of STEM education that has the power to motivate and engage students in a powerful way.  In this course we will learn the basics of rocket assembly, flight, and safety, culminating in an exciting launch at Cape Metarie. In addition to engineering and design principles, participants will make connections to science and mathematics such as various methods for calculating altitude, center of pressure, and center of gravity.

Scratch Integration

Instructor: Jenna Deboisblanc

Scratch Integration is a six-hour course designed to help teachers integrate the programming environment Scratch (MIT Media Lab) into their math and science teaching. 

Design Thinking Boot Camp

Don’t just teach design thinking, learn to become a design thinker! The Design Thinking Bootcamp is a six hour course created to help teachers learn how to transform lessons, design new challenges, and help find meaningful solutions for curriculum by building upon their own creative confidence. Teachers will walk throughand learn about the design thinking process whilecompleting their own design challenge.
Instructor: Karen Bryant, St. Marks School, Southborough, MA

Have you seen or heard about the marshmallow challenge? Want to engage your students in other fun STEM/STEAM challenges? Do you want to incorporate good problem solving using the engineering design cycle into a course? Over the six hours, participants will engage in some challenges that I have used that require students to brainstorm, prototype and refine. Most of the challenges require very inexpensive materials and are suitable for all ages of students.

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    Dr. Andy Talmadge 

    North Carolina State University - PhD
    University of North Carolina at Charlotte - BS
    2009
The 21st century is now more than a decade old and many mathematics educators stand at a crossroads unable to choose between the traditional pedagogy they have used for years -- the very pedagogy by which they learned mathematics -- and technology-driven pedagogies that help to unleash creativity in students, that free student thinking from the boundaries of paper-and-pencil, and that facilitate sharing and collaboration that are so fundamental in our global world.  Without concrete examples as guides, without colleagues with whom to share ideas, and without time to experiment many educators are forced not to decide and remain on the path that has guided them in the past.

Mathematics teachers, particularly those from Louisiana, deserve to see examples of effective uses of technology, to have venues to share ideas with colleagues, and to have time to experiment with technology as learners so that they can facilitate effective technology use into their work.  They should hold the keys that will help them to unlock student creativity, which will allow them to differentiate instruction so that students can construct their own understandings, and that will help them to enable collaboration that will shape their students’ futures.

The Math Sciences Institute (MSI) provides intensive summer and school-year, technology-driven professional development experiences for middle and secondary level mathematics and science teachers.  The institute is guided by nationally- and internationally-recognized educators who organize their work to encourage experimentation and collaboration with technology on a variety of levels from beginner to advanced.