Dive Brief:
- Microsoft offers multiple ways for teachers to improve their science, technology, engineering and math — STEM — innovation skills, offering replicable strategies for integrating technology in the classroom.
- EdTech: Focus on K-12 reports Microsoft’s second annual Hack the Classroom event, held in late September, is available for streaming through Dec. 20, offering keynotes about makerspaces and gamification and tips for teachers to incorporate new ideas and tools into their classrooms.
- Microsoft’s latest program, Hacking STEM, supports teachers as they build inquiry- and project-based activities for students that feature computational and design thinking, and it gives them a chance to learn from their peers nearby and around the globe.
Dive Insight:
Long-time teachers are being asked to adapt their practice in significant ways to embrace the digital age. The only way this can happen successfully is with support. Ideally, that support comes from within the district as well as outside of it and external programs like Microsoft’s can supplement other professional development efforts.
Two districts in Florida have recently partnered to improve STEM professional development for teachers, many of whom are teaching middle school science or math and high school chemistry or physics without having majored in these fields and without certificates to teach in them. A shortage in qualified teachers to take over these positions requires reshuffling that can leave students without content-area experts, but targeted professional development can help good teachers overcome these shortcomings.
