Online Professional Development for Teachers of Science
If you are responsible for Professional Development for your school, district or state, the NSTA Learning Center contains a variety of online learning experiences to fit any teacher’s learning
style and content need and can be accessed by the teacher 24/7. NSTA is committed to providing the very best online professional development to teachers who teach science. See the Multimedia Overview
- Convenience and Accessibility: NSTA’s Learning Center allows teachers to access excellent and engaging science content and science teaching PD any time of the day or night – 24/7 – to fit their schedule
- Fully Customized: NSTA’s Learning Center allows every teacher to evaluate their content knowledge and teaching skills and choose a path designed specifically for their PD needs and preferences for learning
- Accountability: NSTA’s Learning Center enables every teacher to manage their PD plan, the training, track their experiences, and receive a certificate documenting their accomplishment
- Research-Based and Proven: NSTA Learning Center PD is research-based, proven to significantly improve teacher science content knowledge and science-teaching confidence*
Core NSTA Online Learning Center Resources
- SciPacks are 5-10 hour highly engaging and interactive learning experiences to explore and explain real world content and help teachers better understand the science content they teach. A teaching strategies section that puts the science content into the context of appropriate instructional strategies based on the grade band being taught. A concluding assessment, which “if passed,” allows for a “certificate” demonstrating mastery understanding of the content addressed in the SciPacks. Unlimited email teacher support from a content expert is also provided.
- SciGuides are online resources for teachers that assist in implementing customized lesson plans that include over 100 pre-evaluated online resources, samples of student work, media vignettes, and simulations from related SciPacks.
- NSTA Journal Articles from our 4 "award-winning" journals. All articles are peer-reviewed and archived to be easily searchable by content area or teaching technique. With an NSTA Learning Center subscription your teachers have access to thousands of high quality lesson ideas and strategies.
- NSTA e-Book Chapters are assembled in easily digestible chapters available from NSTA’s “award winning” science teaching titles. Your teachers gain access to hundreds of e-Book chapters with an NSTA Learning Center group subscription.
Individualize and Customize the PD Experience
- The PD Indexer offer teachers a self-assessment to diagnose gaps in their content knowledge and delivers recommendations to address those gaps. You may also use this tool for capturing pre/post assessment scores for individual teachers after completing specific SciPacks.
- A number of integrated tools help teachers manage their PD experience and provide their administrators with clear documentation of their accomplishments. My Professional Development Plan and Portfolio, My Transcript, My Notepad, My Library, and My Calendar all work together to document and enrich NSTA’s Online PD experience.
Accountability and Affordability
NSTA is now offering administrators a special opportunity to access a complete set of resources in the NSTA Learning Center with a special suite of accountability tools built in - for one low annual subscription price per teacher.
- Assist your teachers in designing their own professional development plan to meet their content and skills needs and your school, district or state’s unique needs
- Review ‘real-time’ reports of your teacher’s completed PD experiences as a group and as individuals for SciPacks, and via their own Professional Development Plan and Portfolio report, generated by the individual teacher on-demand into a PDF document.
- Review your faculty’s log-in and frequency-of-usage rates for SciPacks
- Review the overall number of faculty who have taken and completed SciPacks and view individuals who have passed SciPacks
- Easily build reports to document your teacher’s participation, progress, and performance of a series of SciPacks
Research-Based & Proven
NSTA has been rigorous in the development of all Learning Center materials. External research shows a STRONG POSITIVE impact on teachers who participated in NSTA online Professional Development – both in terms of content knowledge and level of confidence in teaching science concepts.*
As a state level administrator…NSTA equipped me…with robust reporting tools regarding gains in teacher knowledge, understanding, including data regarding usage, course completion, percentage gain scores, and teacher feedback...
…the NSTA staff provided a comprehensive solution to assist teachers in meeting the requirements for NCLB and the data collection that is necessary for compliance with Title IIA funding.
Jeff Piontek
Hawaii Department of Education
See all Awards and Testimonials
Complete Support
- Set-up Wizard: We help you set everything up – including unlimited online technical help or live phone support.
- Unlimited Content Help: Access through your subscription to specialists to help with any content questions, problems, or issues on content.
Getting Started
NSTA Online Professional Development is a great value whether you are accessing NSTA’s FREE PD Resources, or purchasing an annual subscription for a group of teachers to the complete NSTA Learning Center.
If you are an administrator who wants to provide professional development for your faculty at the state, district or school level, call to get information on our special group rates and highly valued administrator management tools.
Call 800-722-6782 or, e-mail sales@nsta.org.
*All NSTA materials have undergone extensive testing, content and pedagogy expert review, and efficacy research. Formative research was conducted by independent experts to ensure scientific accuracy and credibility.
External Research shows a STRONG impact on teachers who participated in NSTA online Professional Development.
- Before their NSTA PD experience: Over 91% of respondents in the study identified themselves as somewhat confident (64.6%) or not confident (27.8%) teaching the science concepts addressed before participating in NSTA Learning Center PD
- After participation in NSTA Learning Center PD, 0% identified themselves as “not confident” in their ability to teach the science concepts addressed and 60% of the participants felt “very confident” in their ability to teach the science content
- Teachers who participated in NSTA Online PD also showed significant content knowledge gains. A pre-and-post test instrument developed and administered by Horizon Research, Inc., found significant gains in teacher knowledge after taking the Force and Motion SciPack. These research results are published in an article in the Journal of Science Education and Technology titled “Evaluation of Online, On-Demand Science Professional Development Material Involving Two Different Implementation Models, Volume 17-No 1, February 2008, Sherman, Byers, Rapp.
FUNDING NOTE
NSTA was supported in the development of these professional development resources by the generous funding of NSF, NOAA, FDA, US Dept of Ed, DOT, NSTA Press, Sally Ride Science, and National Science Digital Library.