Professional Development

Classroom of teachers participating in professional development
STEM Teaching Professional Development at UMaine

 

The RiSE Center offers a variety of professional development opportunities, both workshops and ongoing, for teaching in STEM. These opportunities are open to faculty, administration, staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and post-doctoral associates and are focused in STEM disciplines and scientific teaching, but are open to all.

The professional development opportunities we offer are data-driven by research being done at the RiSE Center and globally in the fields of STEM education and discipline-based education research.

 

Teaching Symposium

We currently host an annual Teaching Symposium for STEM educators at the undergraduate level across Maine. The first Teaching Symposium will be held on June 27 at the University of Maine. See the Teaching Symposium page for more information about this event, instructions on how to register, and how to submit for a session or poster.

Past professional development workshops have included:

  • Active learning for large enrollment classes
  • Evidence-based strategies for using clickers
  • Encouraging peer discussion
  • Facilitating collaborative group work
  • Teaching evaluations
  • Panel discussions with K-12 teachers

Ongoing professional development opportunities have included a year-long faculty peer observation program, observation/feedback results from teacher observations, and a STEM teaching and learning journal club.

The RiSE Center frequently partners with the University of Maine’s Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning to offer workshops.

For more information or any questions, please contact Erin Vinson, the RiSE Center’s Campus Programs Coordinator, at erin.vinson@maine.edu.