With budget issues facing many of the schools I’ve worked with, district-sponsored professional development (PD) has been scaled back. But teachers have a professional obligation to stay current with new findings about student learning, teaching strategies, technology applications, and initiatives such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Science teachers also need to keep up with subject area content and topics in lab safety.
Most of us would not mourn the loss of large group presentations on topics that do not meet our needs as science teachers. NSTA blogs have addressed the idea of individualized PD designed by individual teachers or groups of teachers as a meaningful (and cost-effective) alternative to traditional programs:

• The difference between PD and teacher training  “I just sat through another full day of ‘professional development.’ As a middle school science teacher, I’m interested in many topics related to my subject, but this day was a series of generic presentations to the entire faculty. I kept thinking about better ways to use my time.”

• The need for individualized PD  “The middle school where I teach just changed the topics taught each year to align with our state standards. My specialty is biology/life science, but now I’m also expected to address topics in earth and physical science. The in-service agenda for this year focuses on teaching strategies, but what I really need are crash courses in earth and physical science. I can’t go back to college—what should I do?”

• How to get PD on a shoestring  “We were informed that our district professional development budget will be drastically reduced for next year. Each department is asked for input on how to provide professional development on a shoestring. Any suggestions for our science department?”

• Incorporating teacher book groups  “Some of my colleagues in the science department and I would like to start a book group, but we’re not sure how to get started. What books should we read? How often should we meet? Any other suggestions?”

• Personalized PD at all levels  “I am part of a team of elementary teachers (pre-K through fifth grade). Where can we find professional development (PD) in Earth sciences?”

• Iron Science Teacher  “As part of a three-year PD project for elementary and middle school science teachers, the directors and coaches wanted to have a culminating activity to demonstrate what the teachers had learned. In addition to the questionnaires and surveys, they decided to do a local version of The Iron Science Teacher. I was invited to be one of the judges. Here’s how it worked.”

• Online PD http://nstacommunities.org/blog/2013/02/18/online-pd-courses/  “I’m looking for PD opportunities. I have a master’s degree, but as part of my PD plan, I’d like to earn additional graduate credits. In my current situation, commuting in the evenings or on weekends to a university is not possible. I’m thinking of trying an online course for the first time. What do I need to know or think about?”

• From NSTA Press: What are best practices in professional development?

If you’re interested in starting your own IPDP (Individualized Professional Development Plan), you can use the resources of the NSTA Learning Center. You’ll find tools to help you identify your content needs, design a plan, assemble a portfolio, reflect on your learning, and create a report.
Photo: MLB

I’m looking for suggestions on what to do with students on the first day of school. I’m starting my first year teaching science at a middle school.
—Shelly, Illinois
Put yourself in the students’ place. On the first day, they’re subjected to six, seven, or eight  teachers reading the syllabus, describing their grading system, and going over laundry lists of class rules. By the end of the day, everything blends together, and the following day students won’t remember who said what. They might appreciate a break from this scenario.
Save your syllabus discussion and safety contract for another day in the first week. You could start with a brief description of the purpose of the science course, including any big ideas that serve as a theme or organizer. Rather than going over all of the rules, describe the overall expectations on which the rules are based. For example, I would tell students that respect was most important in my class—I would respect them, they would respect me, they would respect each other, and we would all respect the learning process. (One year after I said this in an elective class, a student got up and left the room. The other students stared at him, and one remarked, “I guess he wanted a class where he could be disrespectful!”)
Depending on the length of your class period, you could then use an activity to get to know your students’ personalities and interactions. (However, until you have their safety contracts on file, avoid any activities in which students use chemicals, flames, projectiles, or heat sources.) In a recent  discussion on the NSTA members–only email list, several teachers posted some examples:

• Franklin W. suggested the marshmallow challenge. Students have 20 pieces of spaghetti, one meter of tape, one meter of string, one marshmallow and 8 minutes. Working in teams, they have to build a structure to get the marshmallow as high off the desk as possible. They then measure to the top of the marshmallows and the highest wins.
• Ryan R. asks students to arrange themselves in alphabetical order by first names or chronologically by birthdate and then sit in the corresponding numbered seat.
• Karen D. gives her students a deck of cards (or some index cards) and asks them to build a structure.
• Dave D. groups students and gives each group a “secret” object. Their goal is to write a list of observable characteristics so other groups can identify it.

As students do an activity, you’ll have a chance to observe their thinking and problem-solving skills. You can start to identify the leaders, organizers, followers, thinkers, disrupters, class clowns, and bystanders.
If time is an issue, you could do a brief demonstration to get their interest. You could also try a formative assessment probe from the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series of books from NSTA. Try a different one in each class to get a cross section of previous experiences and/or misconceptions. You’ll also get a writing sample from the students.
There may be some required housekeeping tasks expected of teachers on the first day. When I taught in a large, two-story middle school, my principal wanted us to check attendance to make sure students found their way to their classrooms. I dutifully called names, but I usually mispronounced a few or called students by their full name rather than a preferred nickname. Although the students often found this hilarious, I was embarrassed. So I started asking the students to introduce themselves. I could annotate my list with a phonetic spelling or nickname.
The first day of school is exciting, stressful, busy, and a little scary for students (as well as their teachers). As a teacher you want to set a welcoming tone for your students and communicate your passion for science and your interest in helping them learn.
 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kacey3/1263403799/

This month I was able to spend unstructured time with a 2.5 year old and her family. In my position as an observer, not teacher, care-giver or parent, I could enjoy only observing—observing without a purpose outside my own interest. This open-ended vacation mode of observation may not have sharpened my thinking or provoke deep understanding but it allowed me to think for a long time about how children wonder and ask questions about their environment.
For example, she asked some questions that showed how curious she is about the world. “Momma, why are there numbers on the microwave?” (I was surprised that she knew the symbols were numbers!) And she said this about the staples holding an inexpensive paperback book together: “Why do they have these pins in here?” The answers about the function of the numbers for counting, and the function of the staples (new word for her) for holding, related to familiar concepts.
She was identifying an object or phenomena of interest and expressing her interest in finding out. It reminded me of another child who, at an earlier age, would point at objects and say, “Dhat!”
Children’s early exploration of, and reasoning about, the world is noted in the Framework for K–12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas, a document based on research, which was the basis for the structure and content of the Next Generation Science Standards for K-12 (NGSS). In a section titled “Children are Born Investigators” (pg 24), the Framework states, “In fact, the capacity of young children—from all backgrounds and socioeconomic levels—to reason in sophisticated ways is much greater than has long been assumed [1]. Although they may lack deep knowledge and extensive experience, they often engage in a wide range of subtle and complex reasoning about the world [20-23].”
(Reference 1, to the National Research Council’s 2007 publication Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8, and other references are on pages 35-36.)
That learning about the natural world begins before kindergarten is also recognized in the NGSS where the science and engineering practices used to develop the kindergarten performance expectations all state “builds on prior experiences.”
Parents, other care-givers and preschool teachers are the adults who are able to provide those experiences and answer questions that follow. We all need time to make the most of moments in our daily lives, and to be able to learn about, plan and implement experiences.