Registration will open on April 1, 2023
Summer Workshops are 5-day in-person events that take place in Asheville, North Carolina, USA each year. These workshops meet for a morning session 8:00-11:30 am or an afternoon session 1:30-5:00 pm each day and allow teachers to perform engagement activities that cover the course material for the featured topic as if they were the students exploring and becoming familiar with these concepts firsthand. Teachers practice ‘process of science’ skills using data-generating models, simulations of phenomena, evidence-based debates, student-designed experimentation, and other applied methods that are relevant to the topic for that week.
Training in the Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core, Advanced Placement® College Board, and International Baccalaureate® science course standards is achieved by clarifying and modeling the implementation of these requirements. After an activity, or sometimes in the middle of an activity, we may break out of the student mode to discuss teaching challenges such as grading, classroom management, pacing, note-taking, and other tasks that make the implementation of a flipped classroom successful. If you are looking for professional development that will sharpen your skills and widen your repertoire of techniques that can be used to differentiate learning, identify and dispel misconceptions, and increase student involvement and critical thinking, this is the professional development for you. An agenda that details the topics we will cover in each session can be found below.
Note: New curriculum requirements for all AP science courses began in the fall of 2019 and new requirements for IB Group 4 sciences have shifted to an emphasis on skills consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards (see Science and Engineering Skills and Practices). Although the bulk of the content for most courses has not changed, the instructional approach has. Teachers are expected to deliver the course content in a manner that develops student use of the scientific method and increases the depth of data analysis to include descriptive statistics and statistical hypothesis testing. In both AP and IB, specific instructional strategies are suggested with the demand that teachers utilize a student-centered approach for a larger portion of class time. If you need training on how to use instructional strategies that increase scientific skills and place the student at the center of the learning process, please join me for a Summer Workshop–scroll down for topics and dates offered this year. For detailed information about the changes in the IB or AP science, log into the IBO or AP CollegeBoard website and download the instructional materials.
For multiple teachers attending Summer Workshops or a single teacher attending multiple Summer Workshops, please use the coupon code WS10 to receive 10% off the tuition for each participant.
Summer Workshop Agendas 2023 (link coming soon!)
Workshop Logistics
Time Frame and Agenda
Each 5-day workshop begins promptly at 8 am daily, Monday-Friday. The morning session runs 8:00-11:30 am and the afternoon session runs 1:30-5:00 pm. If you are in both the morning and afternoon sessions the midday break will be long enough to eat lunch out or you can enjoy the campus setting if you bring your own meal. Feel free to bring snacks and a water bottle. In order to account for traffic to the airport, please schedule departing flights no sooner than 3 pm from Asheville (AVL), 4 pm from Greenville-Spartanburg (GSP), 5 pm from Charlotte (CLT), and 6 pm from Atlanta (ATL).
Summer Workshop Agendas for 2023
Transportation
Asheville Regional Airport (AVL) is a 15-minute taxi/Lyft/Uber ride to downtown. The closest international airports are Greenville-Spartanburg, SC (GSP is 1 hour from Asheville); Charlotte, NC (CLT is 2 hours from Asheville); and Atlanta, GA (ATL is 3.5 hours from Asheville).
Pricing
Tuition is $700 per week for either the morning session or the afternoon session and includes workshop materials, up to 40 hours of Continuing Education Credits, and lesson plans for activities covered in the workshop. If you are enrolled in a degree program, I am happy to help you earn graduate credit. If you are attending both sessions the tuition for each session will be discounted 10% ($1260 for both sessions).
It is recommended that you bring a laptop, a scientific calculator, and the materials you may want access to for planning your courses. Bring clothes for comfort indoors when moving about the air-conditioned room, and for the warm, sunny, or rainy weather, we are likely to experience during outdoor activities.
Accommodations
Summer Workshops will be held at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Restaurants and shops are accessible using the free shuttle from downtown to campus, Uber/Lyft, or by carpooling with other participants. I recommend staying downtown to enjoy the bustling nightlife and numerous events that occur there each evening. However, the town is not large so it is a short drive to find hiking trails, go tubing down the French Broad River, listen to live music, or visit the breweries, Biltmore House, Folk Art Center, Brevard Music Center, or other locations nearby.
Please download Things to Do in Asheville to learn more.