Teachers Across the State Just Got Smarter

Monday, May 12, 2008

On May 5th and 6th The Arkansas Science & Technology Authority hosted a teacher professional development workshop in order to enhance science and technology education in Arkansas. The purpose of this workshop was to prepare Arkansas teachers to integrate 21st century skills into science and mathematics lesson plans. These lesson plans, enriched with a technological component, will be added to the SMART Portal website. The SMART Portal contains a collection of excellent hands-on inquiry driven science and mathematics lesson plans developed by teachers over the past two years at workshops hosted across the state. This workshop successfully enriched the already existing lesson plans by providing an overlay of optional methods of integrating technology into the lesson plan materials.

The two day event featured two nationally-known professionals who presented a series of optional techniques used to enrich lesson plans with 21st century skills. 140 participants from across the state attended the workshop. Throughout the two day event teachers became familiar with 21st century skills and applications for teaching science and mathematics culminating in breakout sessions for the purpose of brainstorming on ideas to implement these skills into lessons plans. In effect, the objective was to take excellent lessons and add an optional “wow” factor to them by integrating 21st Century Skills that enhance and enrich each lesson.

Numerous lessons were successfully enhanced with an optional technological component, and teachers reflected enthusiasm about integrating what they’d learned in their classroom across the state.

For more on SMART's 21st century resource tools, click here.