Online Science Courses for K-12 Teachers

 

For additional information contact:

Milo Maughan
Utah State Board of Education
Science Education Specialist
(801) 538-7808
milo.maughan@schools.utah.gov

Melissa Mendenhall
Elementary Science and STEM Specialist
Utah State Board of Education
801-538-7547
Melissa.mendenhall@schools.utah.gov

USBE CANVAS Courses for Science

There are two different types of CANVAS courses for K-12 Science:

• Implementing the Utah Science with Engineering Education (SEEd) Standards (K-12)
• SEEd Content Courses for each grade (K-8)

Implementing the Utah Science with Engineering Education (SEEd) Standards K-12

The course’s purpose is to support educators in understanding shifts to instruction that are required to effectively implement the Utah SEEd Standards. The CANVAS-based course contains six modules: Introduction to the SEEd Standards, Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs), Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), Engineering Design, and Using Phenomena.

This course is free for participants and is self-paced. K-12 educators may register at any point. Successful completion of the entire course is worth 2.0 USBE Credits. Credit will be assigned three times during the year as delineated in Table 1 below.

SEEd Content Courses Grades K-8

The purpose of these courses is to build and support teacher science conceptual knowledge of the Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) used within the SEEd Standards. The Grade K-6 courses are developed specifically for elementary educators and therefore only licensed K-6 teachers will be awarded USBE credit upon completion. Completing content courses for Grades 6-8 DO NOT qualify teachers to earn a Middle Level Science Endorsement to teach these grades. For information on the course requirements for this teaching endorsement, review the Secondary Science Endorsement Application.

For these content courses, each grade level or content area has one main course in which to enroll. Within the course, there are mini-courses that explore the content knowledge expectations of each strand within the SEEd Standards for that grade level. The number of mini-courses available for each grade level are equal to the number of strands within the SEEd standards for that grade level. Educators may select which mini-courses they want to pursue and the order they want to take each one after a short introduction module is completed within the main course. Educators do not need to complete all of the mini-courses. Credit for the K-5 mini-courses is either .5 or 1.0 for each strand mini-course depending on the number of standards within the strand (2-5 standards = .5, 6+ standards = 1.0). Credit for 6-8 courses is listed as you sign up for the course. Credits will post in MIDAS three times during the year as delineated in Table 1 below. These courses are free for participants and are self-paced. Educators may register at any time.

To receive credit for a mini-course or for the K-12 Introduction to Three-Dimensional Instruction course, educators enrolled in any of the courses must receive 90% on the quizzes, complete the discussion posts, and submit the required feedback survey for the mini-course or the entire Introduction course. Once enrolled in a course the participants will continue to have access to the CANVAS course content even after they are finished so that it can be used as a reference in the future.

Table 1
Posting Dates of USBE Credit for Science CANVAS Courses

Critical Registration Note:

Log into your CANVAS account before clicking on the enrollment links provided above. If you are already logged in when you enroll, the self-enrollment process will be much smoother. This is important because if you cannot remember your password, the login page will provide a Forgot Password link to fix the issue. The self-enrollment page of each course does not provide that option. If you do not have a CANVAS account when you self-enroll in a course, you will not be asked for a password at that time. You will receive an email asking you to finish setting up your account.