What We Do
STEM TLC supports, celebrates, and sustains teachers’ efforts to include enriching, rigorous, and responsive science and engineering in elementary classrooms in high-needs schools.
Professional Learning
We support STEM TLC teachers who are committed to exploring new ways of learning and doing by offering ongoing, professional learning opportunities throughout the school year.
STEM TLC professional learning opportunities connects and re-connects STEM TLC teachers offering opportunities to continue STEM learning and development. Teachers need time away from the hustle and bustle of their school environments to reflect meaningfully on and plan for next steps to improve their practice. Offered through a variety of formats, STEM TLC professional learning focuses on exploring and developing a plan of action for problems of practice, common across many classrooms. As is the case with all STEM TLC professional learning, these events are full of interactive learning, meaningful dialogue, and inevitable lighthearted humor. We design learning experiences based on suggestions from and experiences of STEM TLC teachers.
Summer Institutes
Teachers gather for a week on UNCG’s campus to engage in interactive, practical, and inspiring professional learning.
We currently offer two Summer Institutes. Science and engineering are the foci of the institutes, but we explore connections to other content areas as well.
Our Institutes celebrate, nurture, and re-energize teachers as professionals—the “TLC” acronym not only stands for “Teacher Leader Collaborative”, but emphasizes our commitment to treat teachers with care, respect, empathy, and kindness. We want teachers to leave the institutes with new, innovative ideas for their science and engineering instruction. Equally important, we want them to feel empowered to make instructional changes they deem important, to take instructional risks, to reconnect with the vision that brought them to teaching, and to learn with new colleagues who can help them remember, grow, and sustain their passion and vision.
STEM Support
We extend teachers’ professional learning opportunities by offering in school support and coaching, virtual supports, including webinars, virtual and a lending library of online resources.
We offer coaching sessions for STEM TLC teachers because we’ve found that job-embedded professional development is an effective way to meet teachers’ learning needs. Teachers value professional development that is directly linked to the realities of their context and targeted to their level of experience. If you’re interested in setting up a coaching session or would like a STEM Coach to support you, please contact us at uncgtlcollaborative@gmail.com.
We offer real-time webinars focused on specific problems of practice related to engineering and science instruction. Led by experienced educators, the webinars offer real-time participants a chance to interact and share ideas around a primary problem of practice related to student learning, participation, equity, science, and engineering. Webinars are open to all—those who are a part of or are curious about the STEM TLC.
We offer many online and material resources to help teachers in their efforts to integrate science and engineering throughout their curriculum. Access the lesson plans, resources, and the STEM TLC Lending Library through the navigation tabs.