KID Museum’s school partnerships and professional development programs have kicked into high gear as educators seek to engage students in meaningful ways during an ongoing pandemic. With most schools planning to be entirely remote this coming year, teachers must combat unprecedented learning loss among our most vulnerable students.
KID Museum is working directly with schools to design hands-on, virtual curriculum and train teachers to successfully deliver it. We piloted this work over the summer, partnering with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) to bring multi-week summer school programming to over 3,000 third through fifth graders from Title I schools, and an additional 500 rising second graders from eight Title I schools through the LEAP program. We worked with MCPS to design curriculum and trained over 250 teachers to deliver a series of lessons that introduced students to STEM and science concepts through making. KID Museum educators also teamed up with teachers to deliver content and support classroom learning.
In August, we conducted a multi-day professional development workshop for District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) Media Specialists to create maker-based learning experiences for all grades. These lead librarians will now use the knowledge and skills they gained to train librarians from other schools.
With the aim of expanding invention education further, KID Museum is now partnering with Lemelson Center at the National Museum of American History to design a pilot professional development program and develop best practices for educators across the nation.
Throughout this ongoing educational crisis, KID Museum remains committed to being a partner and resource to educators, helping them to reimagine what’s possible virtually, and deepening access to high-quality maker learning experiences for kids across our region and beyond.
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