Teaching Science DaVinci (center) Style

There is an article in the Morning Call that discusses a teacher professional development program being taught at the DaVinci Center that tries to make science more interactive and interesting to students (read the article here).

The idea is to let students interact with science, observe, and take notes on their findings. It does not utilize a more traditional text-book lecture format in the elementary levels.

The article explains:

With three full-time science educators and six scientists taking part in the Teacher Leadership Institute, a collaboration between Da Vinci and Cedar Crest College, teachers are given intense instruction in how to better prepare students for scientific ideas, teaching through a creative, hands-on, problem-solving method known as inquiry-based learning.

The concept is extremely appealing, science and math need to be more emphasized. The cynic in me, though, believes there needs to be a happy medium between the text-book based and the co-operative and self-directed learning. In the end, the room needs to be well managed and the self-directed learning needs to be well-guided and monitored. Of course my only experience with this concept is through the article, and as I noted it does seem to be a step in the right direction.

It would be interesting to learn which Nazareth teachers have 'graduated' from this program (it is a 3 year program) and to what extent the concept is being incorporated into their classrooms so student performance could be monitored compared to those not participating to learn the value.