WGBH Teachers Domain in partnership with NSDL hosted a meeting of 17 leaders in education from 14 states in Boston to discuss educational issues that included best practices and models for professional development, online resources for teaching, educational technology, and effective methods for teaching science. Participants learned about the rich media resources found in the Teachers Domain collection drawn from popular PBS shows such as NOVA, Frontline, and other public television partners.

In a panel, Monica Beglau, director of the eMINTS National Center, a non-profit unit of the University of Missouri conducting teacher professional development programs, showcased eMINTS’ instructional model that integrates high quality lesson design, inquiry based learning, instructional technology, with attention to building community in the classroom. eMINTS follows the tenets of a study that showed teachers are more likely to utilize content derived from professional development in their classrooms when mentoring and coaching are also included. The study showed that as many as 80-90% of the teachers who had mentoring incorporated professional development into their classroom. Without mentoring, the teachers may have retained the information for themselves, but did not implement what they learned in their teaching with only 5% of those teachers integrating their training into their classrooms.

Participants of the forum discussed how they could utilize Teachers Domain Online Professional Development programs in their states and districts, proposing ways to foster collaboration between regional organizations in education, funding sources, and integration of these online facilitated programs in their respective educational plans.

Attendee and presenter Nick Micozzi, K-12 Director of Science for Randolph Public Schools in Randolph, MA uses Teachers Domain as a means of providing professional development for his teachers through their online courses. In addition, his teachers receive continuing education college course credit with the course structured as an opportunity for faculty to build science curriculum for the school district across all grade levels.

Mr. Micozzi has been a long-time advocate for infusing science teaching with digital resources and technology. As he stated during the meeting, “Teachers Domain models what science teaching should be in the classroom.”