Blog

7 ways to get a head start on New Year’s resolutions for your classroom

A visible target-match in Geniventure

Social media has been exploding with New Year’s resolutions since early fall. If you’d like to get a head start on your own educational resolutions for the next calendar year, we’ve got you covered. Want to help students see Earth science as a lab science? Add more data science activities to your high school classes? […]

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Research on system modeling for classroom use

Epidemics model in SageModeler

From local environmental justice issues to global phenomena such as climate change, complex problems often require systems thinking to address them. Since 2018, the National Science Foundation-funded Multilevel Computational Modeling project, a collaboration between the Concord Consortium and the CREATE for STEM Institute at Michigan State University, has researched how the use of our SageModeler […]

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Under the sea: How a dive to the seafloor can help students unlock Earth’s past

Seafloor spreading modeled in TecRocks Explorer

Stephanie Seevers is an Earth science teacher in Colorado and a consultant on the TecRocks project. I was talking to my 9th grade Earth and Space Science students recently about why they think so many people lack a solid understanding of our planet and its history. We brainstormed ideas, and while several theories sounded valid, […]

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Learning science practices with moths and collaborative software

Teachers and MothEd project staff in lab at Michigan State University

Moths live around the world. Despite their ubiquity, they haven’t been studied nearly as much as their daytime counterparts, not even by entomologists. Butterflies have gotten most of the attention. The MothEd: Authentic Science for Elementary and Middle School Students project is exploring ways to deepen independent science inquiry learning in young learners using technology […]

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From science teacher to Scrum Master

Screenshot from Zoom meeting of Scrum teams

Science teacher to Scrum Master may not seem like a natural transition. Indeed, my friends and family wondered about my recent career switch to Scrum Master at the Concord Consortium. Let me explain how I got here. According to Scrum Alliance®, a Scrum Master is “the Scrum team member tasked with fostering an effective and […]

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The Scrum cycle

Scrum cycle

As an organization dedicated to innovating and inspiring equitable, large-scale improvements in STEM teaching and learning through technology, we develop a lot of technology. I mean a lot. Our Scrum approach to technology development is always evolving. We adapt to each research project, team, person, and circumstance to be as efficient and effective as possible. […]

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A rocky road to curiosity

TecRocks Explorer

Ambitious Science Teaching now includes a focus on equity and reaching diverse student populations. One principle of the Critical and Cultural Approaches to Ambitious Science Teaching (C2-AST) framework (Thompson et al., 2021) is to situate learning around phenomena that prioritizes students’ communities and cultures, their local environment, and daily experience. While this can be a […]

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Concord Consortium Webmaster

Are you interested in supporting outreach and use of innovative educational technology for K-12 STEM learning? The Concord Consortium, an educational nonprofit located in Concord, MA, and the California Bay Area, seeks a part-time talented webmaster to manage its web properties, lead web strategy and design, and aid in promoting our innovative, open-source materials to […]

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Announcing Two Tinker Fellows for 2023

2023 Tinker Fellows Colby Tofel-Grehl and Cristián Rizzi Iribarren

The theme for this year’s Robert F. Tinker Fellows Program, which aims to promote innovation, creativity, and cross-disciplinary conversations, focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM education. We are delighted to announce two Tinker Fellows in 2023. Colby Tofel-Grehl will collaborate on a geoscience project and plans to develop companion professional learning materials for […]

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