GSTA's annual conference will be held virtually!  With the uncertainties of Covid and potential school budget cuts, we felt an online conference would best meet the needs of our membership. The theme for the conference is "Building Connections" and we are preparing a program that will allow you to connect to colleagues, experts, and resources to help you support your students in any learning environment.

The virtual conference will have multiple sessions each night during the week, 2/1 - 2/4, ending with a full day of sessions, short courses, and events on Saturday, February 6th. Share-A-Thons, social events, and awards will take place through an online platform as well. In addition to regular concurrent sessions, we are proud to host these featured speakers.

Conference Schedule of Events

Links to Keynote Speakers - Nightly @ 6pm

Tuesday - Matt Jones, Chief of Staff Georgia DOE - Link to Session

Wednesday - Jason Crean & Kristin Rademaker "Writing Storyline Lessons" - Link to Session

Thursday - Page Keeley "All Student Ideas Matter" - Link to Session

Short Courses

We will be offering three short courses on Saturday, February 6th. Registration is open now - the cost of each course is $15. You can select short courses when you complete your registration or register only for the short course.

Saturday Short Course, 9-11: Developing Formative Assessment Probes to Elicit Students' Ideas Both Before and After Instruction (K-12) Page Keeley

Learn how to develop and use purposefully designed questions, called formative assessment probes, to reveal the range of ideas K-12 students use to explain phenomena and concepts. Using examples from the author's Uncovering Student Ideas series, we will explore how these questions are developed and used in an instructional sequence, both in class and virtually, to provide opportunities for students to surface and work through initial idea and build new or deeper understandings using scientific practices and crosscutting concepts. Participants will use a scaffold to collaboratively develop thier own 3-D formative assessment probe durng the workshop . Additonal cost: $15

Saturday Short Course, 12:45-3:45: Creating Your Own Storylines (6-12) - Illinois Science Teachers Association Storyline Working Group, Dr. Jason Crean and Kristin Rademaker, ISTA

Three-dimensional learning that incorporates the disciplinary core ideas, the science practices, and the crosscutting concepts is the driving for of the National Framework for Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards. In an effort to bundle science concpets around phenomena, especially those concepts tradtionally siloed in separate units. storyllines that are coherent phenomenon-driven can be implemented to support student learning. These contextual units help students make sense of how the natural world works by "figuring out" over just learning the facts. Participants will be asked to reflect on where they are in shift to the three-dimensions and immersed in a model storyline that will allow them how to view how students navigate a storyline. Though storylines take a great deal of time, effort and iteration, the aim of this course will be to provide models that can help teachers rethink their approach to student-centered learning.

The Illinois Science Teachers Association is known for their biology storyline which has been shared nationally: https://www.ilscience.org/Storyline. They have formed a Storyline Working Group to share their planning strategies with teachers. Additonal cost: $15

Saturday Short Course, 12:45-3:45: Keeping Science at the Center of Elementary STEAM Learning (K-5) Jeremy Peacock

As elementary schools make the shift from STEM to STEAM, it can be challenging to balance the new focus on the Arts with effective science instruction. We know that science and art can have a mutualistic relationship, and many great scientists also display great artistic talent and creativity. So, how can you balance science and art while also integrating technology, math, and engineering and not making STEAM "just one more thing" in your classroom? We will share a STEAM planning framework, along with classroom examples, that meaningfully integrates STEAM components to help students become well-rounded problem solvers and critical thinkers. This session will be geared towards teachers of K-5. Additonal cost: $15

Professional Learning to Support Student Learning