Professional Development

 - Helping teachers become great leaders

	"What a fantastically successful and effective program!  I'm tremendously impressed.  It's the best, most innovative program I've seen in a long time." — Professor Ola Edwards, Biologist, University of Washington

The Private Eye Workshops —
Hands-on Inquiry Across the Curriculum K-16 through Life

This way to the Slideshows...

One-Day Workshop for 30 participants* (6 - 6.5 hour day, plus one hour for lunch)
A lively experience with the hands-on, interdisciplinary Private Eye: a journey into the drama and wonder of looking closely at the world, thinking by analogy, changing scale and theorizing. The Private Eye develops higher order thinking skills, creativity, literacy, and scientific literacy for both students and teachers across subjects. Surrounded by interactive displays, tabletop fieldwork specimens (live and preserved), and examples of student work, participants will write, draw, theorize, and do outside fieldwork. Whether you’re working in science, writing, math, art or social studies, whether your students are elementary, middle or secondary, you’ll learn how The Private Eye’s simple tools produce "gifted" results. The Private Eye is a natural way to meet the Standards, providing one of the easiest and most complete means for blending Inquiry with Content.
Take a look at some scenes from workshops we did at Trussville, Alabama.

Two-Day Workshop for 30 participants* (12 hours)
Participants deepen their understanding and use of The Private Eye with: more teamwork theorizing; extended loupe-analogy writing; change of scale drawing; loupe-math and the mathematical mind; preserving a specimen; personal lesson plan design; and more.

Course materials: As part of the workshop each participant will receive:

The Private Eye Teacher Guide The Class Loupe Set (36 loupes in polygrid case) The Private Eye Deluxe World-in-a-Bag (two loupes and eight specimens) The Private Eye Notebook The Private Eye Poster Lesson Handouts Loupe Leash and Head Leash Pivotal overheads used during the workshop—makes it easy for teachers teaching The Private Eye in the classroom. One master set (paper) of 18 overheads given to district in advance. Districts typically duplicate these and hand out one set to each course participant. Download a pdf of our Workshop & Materials Portrait

Follow-up Workshop Options:

Writing Workshops (choose Science Research Writing or Literary Genres) Botanical Garden Workshop Connect-a-Kit Workshop (link to Gems, Insights, Foss) Art and Design Extravaganza Workshop Energy, Power and Conservation Workshop Customized Workshops One to Three Unit Courses can also be arranged

Time: The one-day training course (6.5 hours of contact) or the two-day course (varies from 5 hours per day to 6.5 hours the first day and 5-6 hours on the second day) — gets teachers started in using The Private Eye. Includes a prep day of on-site setup of model hands-on learning environment and displays. *(Longer/shorter training packages can be tailored to organizations' needs.)
Facility Requirements
Instructors

"I really can't remember the last time I came back from a training day so excited that I implemented what I'd learned within a day or two."

-Marie Lagos, Sonoma School, CA

"The best presentation in years.”

  -Rachel Delworth, teacher, Sheltered English Class, Franklin School, Modesto, CA