Let's build a shared purpose in
3-Dimensional Science.

Personalized professional learning plans and educator workshops to help science teachers feel more empowered as they shift to 3-Dimensional Science teaching and learning.

Our Professional Learning Team is here to help teachers learn more about the 3D approach and make the pedagogical shifts for 3D teaching and learning. Our goal is to support and build confidence in 3D science so all educators feel prepared to move from “learning about” to “figuring out”.

As educators embrace the shifts necessary for 3-dimensional teaching and learning, it’s common to have some questions:

  • Where do I find the research-based information and support to guide the work?
  • How do I build lessons to include opportunities for engaging sense-making?
  • How will I differentiate lessons when needed so all students are included in the learning?
  • Will I be able to find the time to fit it all in?
  • Where and how do I even start?

Start with
Activate Learning.

We are here to help you make the transition to 3-dimensional learning. Activate Learning has put together a number of 1.5 to 3 hour virtual Professional Learning options to help teachers build confidence as they shift to 3-dimensional teaching.

These PL sessions ease the shift for teachers in their classroom and you’ll find they’re packed with tips, resources, and research.

We will help you gain confidence in the 3-dimensional approach: science/engineering practices, core ideas and cross-cutting concepts, so that students can better relate to lessons and engagement increases.

Our highly accessible team takes a personalized, hands-on approach to implementation that feels comfortable and empowering. We provide the tools, resources and opportunities to increase fluidity, enhance experience and boost confidence in 3-dimensional science.

No matter what your program is, we can help you make a smooth transition to 3-dimensional science so that you save time, engage your students more easily and feel fully equipped in the classroom.

As an Activate Learning Professional Learning partner, you will experience:

  • Facilitator-led sessions that deepen understanding of research-based instructional practice.
  • Comprehensive exploration of science concepts and instructional practices consistent with A Framework for K-12 Science Education.
  • In-depth analysis of an array of instructional practices that engage students in 3D science.
  • Collaborative learning experiences and research-based tools.
  • Differentiation strategies that target 3-dimensional science.
  • Ongoing professional support, unlimited Q&A and troubleshooting to ensure you are fully equipped for classroom instruction.
  • Programs that build a shared purpose, overcome fragmentation and helps teachers love teaching science again.

There’s no need to power through this shift alone. With our team of NGSS specialists, educators, and curriculum advisors, Activate Learning is ready to help you, every step of the way.

Here are our Newest Offerings for
Shifting to 3-Dimensional Teaching & Learning

Making the Shift to 3-Dimensional Teaching & Learning

Put your students in the role of scientists, at the center of their learning. Join us for an engaging session designed to help participants shift from teacher-directed to teacher-facilitated instruction. This session will provide strategies to facilitate the shift that include teacher questioning/productive discourse guides, opportunities to engage with coherent progression of investigations, and examples of evidence-based reasoning.

Universal Design: Effective Practices to Meet The Needs of All Students

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a teaching approach that works to accommodate the needs and abilities of all learners and eliminates unnecessary hurdles in the learning process. The key elements of UDL are essential for increasing science literacy. Practices that are implemented for students with unique learning profiles can be used to benefit all students. Participants will take away multiple strategies for student engagement, various ways of expressing learning, and representing content.

Innovative Assessments: Understanding Student Sensemaking through Models

Modeling allows students to make their thinking visible, leading to sense making with evidence. As new evidence is provided, revised student models are a powerful way to assess students’ current state of understanding. As students revise their models they make sense of the evidence they have to support their thinking. In this session teachers experience how student models evolve overtime to develop their final consensus models. Teachers will see how the models support students to construct evidence-based scientific explanations.

Innovative Assessments: Helping Students Build Evidence-Based Explanations

The Framework and NGSS contain major shifts in how we educate our students in science. In this session participants will look at how these new developments help students move from novice to being proficient in developing evidence based explanations. Participants will examine student work samples to identify scientific explanations from the students’ lens so they can determine what scaffolds are needed to support students’ thinking and responses.

Supporting Multilingual Learners in Science:

Learn practical strategies to create access points for multilingual learners to engage in scientific discourse and communicate their thinking. In this session participants will interact with the research that identifies what is developmentally appropriate for each English Language Development (ELD) level. We will discuss the role language plays in the classroom and what it means to disaggregate science instruction to best support all learners. Participants will also explore multimodal means of engaging in and showing understanding of science ideas.

Equitable Discourse: Creating a Community Productive Discussions for All Students

Experience the iterative process of student modeling to make student thinking visible and move individual and whole-class conceptual thinking forward using evidence-based models. Participants will understand the purpose of modeling and investigate strategies to implement modeling as a practice. We’ll consider how to guide students as they develop, use and revise models, and walk away with ideas of how we can use student models to inform instruction.

Activate Learning offers best practices for educators so that students can experience meaningful engagement in science.