Professional Learning for Science Educators
Research-informed professional learning that connects intentional learning design, scientific sensemaking, assessment, and thoughtful decisions about technology.
STAC partners with schools, districts, and education organizations to help educators design meaningful learning experiences that develop scientific understanding, evidence-based reasoning, and increasingly independent judgment. Our work begins with the learning educators want students to develop, whether or not AI is part of the experience.
From Research to Classroom Practice
Professional learning is most useful when it connects disciplinary learning goals with instructional decisions educators can apply in their own settings. STAC supports collaborative, practice-centered work across the following areas.
Science and Engineering Practices
Design learning experiences around questioning, modeling, investigation, data analysis, explanation, and argumentation from evidence.
Scientific Sensemaking
Support students in developing and revising explanations for phenomena through firsthand investigation and evidence-based discussion.
Assessment and Evidence of Learning
Develop tasks and assessment practices that reveal student understanding, reasoning, and developing capabilities.
AI-Resilient Learning Design
Design experiences in which consequential scientific thinking remains visible and meaningful even when AI-generated work is available.
Thoughtful Decisions About AI
Examine when AI may support learning, when its use may interfere with learning goals, and how to establish purposeful classroom practices.
Inclusive and Accessible Science
Increase access and participation while maintaining meaningful opportunities for all learners to engage in disciplinary thinking.
Start With the Learning
We help educators identify the knowledge, reasoning, and judgment students need to develop and then consider which instructional experiences and supports will make that learning possible. Science and Engineering Practices provide a disciplinary foundation for making thinking visible through authentic scientific work.
Our professional learning emphasizes usable examples, collaborative analysis of learning tasks, and practical opportunities to translate research and standards into instructional decisions. The role of any technology, including AI, follows from those decisions.
Clarify the learning
Determine what students should understand and what scientific thinking they need to perform.
Shape the experience
Align phenomena, evidence, tasks, supports, and tools with the intended learning.
Recognize learning
Consider what student work and interactions reveal about reasoning, independence, and growth.
Supporting Science Educators in the Age of AI
STAC has partnered with the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) to develop professional learning focused on AI, student sensemaking, and scientific reasoning.
The workshop is designed to help science educators explore the implications of AI, strengthen AI literacy, and make informed instructional decisions that support student questioning, evidence use, and critical thinking.
Our work recognizes that productive science learning can involve AI, other tools, or no AI at all, depending on the learning goals.
Sensemaking in the Age of AI: Empowering Critical Thinkers in Science Classrooms
A professional learning workshop focused on thoughtful AI use, scientific sensemaking, and students’ capacity to question, reason, and evaluate evidence.
Professional Learning Built Around Your Goals
Schools, districts, and organizations have different instructional priorities, implementation contexts, and educator needs. STAC collaborates with partners to define a meaningful focus for professional learning and connect it to curriculum, assessment, and classroom practice.
Workshops and Institutes
Interactive professional learning grounded in instructional examples, disciplinary practices, and opportunities to examine and redesign tasks.
Curriculum and Assessment Support
Professional learning connected to the materials, assessment systems, and instructional challenges educators use every day.
Ongoing Collaboration
Follow-up conversations, planning support, and educator collaboration to help translate learning into sustainable practice.
Thinking Literacy and Professional Learning
Thinking Literacy is a research-informed framework developed by Velma Itamura for intentionally cultivating human thinking through learning experiences that strengthen understanding, reasoning, judgment, and independence over time. Its principles inform STAC’s approach to learning design and evidence of student capability, including our work in science education.
Let’s Design Professional Learning That Meets Your Needs
Tell us about your educators, instructional priorities, and professional learning goals. We can discuss how STAC’s research-informed expertise may support your next steps.