GIS Training Course for High School Teachers

[PhillipHare]

Hello T3G,

Would you plan a teacher training course with four-five sessions or seven-eight sessions?

Our goal is to increase basic use across geography teachers (geography is a graduation requirement in Utah, so there are lots of geography teachers).

Background: I have the opportunity to put together a multi-session course for my district. District IT recently added district wide (60,000+ students) single sign-on for ArcGIS Online. Sessions will be after school/contract hours and participants will receive a small stipend. This session number question comes from the fact that Utah will provide pay scale lane change credit at the following rate: .5 credits for 7 hours of face time and two hours of work/reflection, then 1.0 credits for 14 hours of face time and four hours of work/reflection. I can plan 4-5 sessions of 1.5-2 hours or try for 7-8 sessions of 1.5-2 hours.

I've discussed this with colleagues and we are leaning towards hopefully attracting more teachers with fewer sessions to just get more people in the GIS door. 

Does anyone have some thoughts on this type of training opportunity in terms of session number?

Phillip Hare

[LoriRubinoHare]

Hi Phillip,

I think it depends on your learning goals for the teachers. See our latest publication. Feel free to connect with me directly for a conversation. 

PS - Nice surname

[PhillipHare]

Hi Lori, 

Thank you for the reply. I'll check out your article and conclusions, and see what we can apply to our goals. 

P.S. - Same. 

[AliciaPressel]

I am already hearing from many educators in my school district that this year looks to be as challenging as the last, and many are already feeling overwhelmed with demands for professional development expectations and its only week 3 for us. From that perspective, I would encourage fewer session for educators so they feel encouraged with the GIS experience, but do not burn out after 14 hours of training and therefore have a negative perspective associated with GIS practice. 

[PhillipHare]

Hi Alicia,

Thanks for the perspective. We are off to a pretty good start where I am in Utah. Hopefully that will continue. However, I appreciate that perspective and it is definitely one of the things we are considering. Originally we were going to advertise this for last spring, but decided to wait because of the concerns you brought up. 14 hours is certainly a big commitment to volunteer for.

[JosephKerski]

Phillip - I have a whole course with multiple readings, quizzes, and modules that I developed for high school teachers.  This Fall I will be extracting it from a learning management system and placing it online.  90% of the hands on activities use ArcGIS Online; the rest are Gapminder, Google Street View, Worldmapper, and a few other tools.

--Joseph Kerski

[PhillipHare]

Thanks Joseph, things like this are some of what make you such a great part of the geo ed community! I have been looking at your "Complete First Course in GIS" to supplement some material I got from the GeoTech Center GeoSpatial Educator course. I also look forward to looking through the course you mentioned.

[EllenFoster]

I'm still following this...