Looking for better ways to reach your students? Wondering how to equip your science teachers well? Interested in using Pivot Interactives in new and exciting ways? Back by popular demand, our FREE (interactive!) professional development science webinars are back with the 2022 Summer Series!
Join us throughout the Summer from 1 PM - 3:30 PM EST to learn more about science, teaching, and Pivot Interactives! Sign up TODAY before they fill up!
Webinars are FREE and open to the public. Whether you’re a new teacher or a veteran, first-time Pivot-er, or long-time user, there is sure to be a webinar for you! Don’t forget to invite a friend. At the end of each webinar, participants will receive a certificate that they can print to give to their school indicating that they attended the session.
Check out full webinar descriptions below
Unable to attend? We understand! Sign up for any session to receive a recording of the session after the event.
Got ideas for a webinar? We would love to hear them! Send your thoughts to linda.detwiler@pivotinteractives.com.
Sign up before they fill up!
Join us as we focus on pedagogical strategies for every part of your learning cycle.
You want to get your students started with Pivot Interactive, or any tech tool really. You did your onboarding, but now comes the MUCH more difficult part: how do you onboard STUDENTS to a tech tool? How do you introduce the platform? How do you select the PERFECT first activity? How do you promote student buy-in? What issues might you run into, and how can you fix them? In this session, we will address all of the tips and tricks needed to be successful in the starting implementation of Pivot Interactives.
In science, active learning is often equated to “just a lab” and that means it’s pretty much only used in the Explore category! But, active learning IS science, so why not use active learning strategies in every area of the 5E lesson? In this session, we’re going to focus on use cases for Pivot Interactives in all five parts of the 5E instructional model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate).
Equity in a science classroom is a major concern when juggling the vast impact of social-emotional, physical, and socio-economic factors on the learning of our students. As science teachers, we are faced with the real dilemma that some activities are just not accessible to all of our students. In this session, we will look at some of the various factors that impact science students and we will find ways to address them in a safe and inclusive method, making science a study for all.
Ever heard someone talk about “grit?” They tell you ‘students these days!’ and shake their fists. Learner independence can be a struggle for all students, especially in a world of easy answers. Rather than accept the defeat and reducing rigor, we as teachers should expect our students to overcome these hurdles. But, we have to TEACH them how to do this first. Learn what learner independence means, and how to build it for years to come, in this session.
Chegg got your test bank? Admin wants you to give a performance-based exam? Not sure how to equip your teachers to do more alternative assessments? Worried about student engagement in ANOTHER project? In this online world, traditional assessments are harder and harder to give. In this session, we will show you how to use Pivot Interactives activities as alternative assessments for science.
Wondering how to implement best practices in your classroom? Looking for a tool that lets you customize activities for your needs? Ready to get in and edit activities in Pivot Interactives? Join us as we learn how to craft the best learning experiences for our students and see how to use the editor at the same time.
Giving rigorous assignments can be a challenge for teachers. We often worry if it's going to be "too hard" or if our students will be "ready." As teachers, we know that we NEED to give these challenges, but we don't want the experience to be so poor that the students give up. To get them ready for those difficult learning experiences, we scaffold activities in our class. To help you to reach these goals with your students, we also provide scaffolding in Pivot Interactives. But, how can you find these resources? And, how can you make them for your students? That’s the focus of this make-and-take session.
In this make-and-take session, we’re going to focus on how to build an activity from scratch. This session will focus on all of the skills you need to build any activity you want in Pivot Interactives. So, join us as we build an activity from start to finish.
Another make-and-take session: in this one, we will focus on videos that YOU make! Did you know that you’re not bound to the videos made by the Pivot Interactives team? You can upload your own videos, and so can your students. Learn how to make activities based on video uploads, how to upload videos, and how to calibrate your videos. Then, we’ll focus on how to do this with the students as well.
Did you know that Pivot Interactives has bluetooth connectivity with the Vernier Go Direct ® Sensors and the Pasco Wireless ® Sensors? In this session, we’re not only going to practice building an activity, but we’re going to practice adding bluetooth sensors to our activities! We’ll see how they connect, the data capabilities, and suggestions for making your own activities that use sensors.
Good learning requires good instruction and even better feedback. Most students grow the most from the tidbits we give them after they try. But, giving good feedback effectively is HARD. Giving good feedback efficiently feels impossible some days. Using Hattie's guidelines for quality feedback, we will address skills and tricks for better feedback, both automatic and personalized.
With a nationwide focus on science practices through NGSS, we will spend the week deep-diving each of the science practices to learn about the various expectations (and best practices) at every level of learning.
The Next Generation Science Standards are all about the idea of "3D learning": learning that goes beyond the content standards and becomes applicable in life. But, as science teachers, many of us are left wonder HOW to actually achieve the goal! In this introductory session, we will focus on defining three dimensional learning, identifying 3D learning, and learning how to naturally enhanced lessons to pop into 3D!
Our students tend to be great at asking questions, like “when is lunch” or “do I really need to know this?” But, some students struggle with asking scientific questions. In this session, we’re going to focus on strategies to encourage authentic and appropriate scientific questioning in Pivot Interactives using Co-Lab ® activities.
Modeling and Experimental design are perhaps the most daunting of the science practices: experimental design involves an element of the unknown. It can be hard to prepare for experimental design, because you’re not sure what you need, if you’ll have it, and if you’ll have the time, money, or energy to prepare it! Add in the chaos of 30 students all doing something different and suddenly you have a nightmare on your hands. It’s no wonder that experimental design tends to be the least used scientific practice in classrooms. But, it doesn’t have to be this way. In this session, we will focus on how to do authentic and appropriate experimental design and model making in our science classroom, with the help of Pivot Interactives.
Say it with me: Math is not mean. Math is not scary. Math is fun! Now, better mantra: my students can do math without me gaining grey hairs. With so many science practices built around number sense, it’s no wonder that students often complain that science feels like another math class. In this session, we’re going to learn about authentic and appropriate uses of mathematic scenarios, how to handle data analysis, and how to do this without going crazy!
I have yet to meet a teenager who can say that they cannot argue. However, if you’re ever read a scientific argument, you know that the path to strong arguments may take in a bit. In this session, we’re going to tease out the difference between “explanation” and “argumentation,” define the authentic and appropriate expectations for their work, and define strategies you can use right on our platform to grow your students’ skills!
This last week, we want to focus on maximizing use of Pivot Interactives, highlighting the new and exciting content that has been released in the last year. We hope you’re as excited as we are!
Whether you’re a first year AP teacher or a veteran, teaching advanced courses like AP can be a stressful event. You have a ton of material to cover in a very small amount of time, so it’s important that what you use is planned and precise: it needs to do the job and do it well. In the effort to get through all of the content, laboratory experience often hits the chopping block first.
“Review” is just a few weeks at the end of the year; reviewing is a strategy we do all year long. Many AP teachers plan several weeks of review time for the AP exam. Why cram Free Response Questions (FRQs) and Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs) when you and your students can experience the science questions with Pivot Interactives. In this session, we will cover how to find AP specific material, how to select material based on the Course and Exam Descriptions for AP Courses, how to pair FRQs and MCQs with premade Pivot activities for optimal reviewing, and how to add MCQs, FRQs, documents, videos, and more to premade activities for one-stop reviews. Not an AP teacher? Not a problem! While the content will include specific tips and tricks for working with AP material, these review techniques could be used for any assessment.
Science relies on math, and math relies on practice. But, it can be hard to give math practice when students can so easily find answers to questions online. That’s why we offer numerical autograding questions. Here, you can not only automatically grade student responses, but you can also make those answers dependent on previous responses and even randomized! During this session, we will make a math-based activity to show you how a little forward thinking can save you a ton of time the day of.
Have you ever wanted to see energy? How about wavelength? Concentration? So many of the measurements we make in science are based on color, and with the new Iris™ tool, you can finally see and measure all of those values easily. The Pivot Interactives Iris™️ Light and Color Measuring Tools allow you to take light- and color-based quantitative measurements directly from a video. This can be used for videos both from the Pivot Interactives collection as well as instructor- and student-uploaded videos. Learn more about new Iris ™ tool in this brand-new session.
In this session, we will explore techniques administrators can apply to help teachers master not only Pivot Interactives but new and effective teaching strategies as well (Featuring new & updated administrative tools!)
AP is a registered trademark by the College Board which is not affiliated with and does not endorse Pivot Interactives.
