About The Project
Let’s Talk Science! A Professional Learning Community Dedicated to Generating Teachers as Leaders & Learners Engaged in the Study of Science for the New Millennium
Typically, elementary teachers are underprepared to teach science and tend to be uncomfortable with both the pedagogy and the content. Let’s Talk Science! (LeTaS!) is designed to address this fundamental challenge in elementary education. Rather than idiosyncratic and haphazard, LeTaS! is research-based and classroom-focused. Rather than generic grand ideas, LeTaS! is curriculum-based and standards-driven. If professional development is to change practice it must be site-based, job-embedded, and long-term; it must include both teachers and administrators. LeTaS! is grounded in these beliefs and understandings about effective professional development. LeTaS! prepares teachers to engage students in deeper conversation and analysis of science concepts.
LeTaS! is a school reform project designed to:
- Deepen elementary teachers’ science content knowledge
- Prepare elementary teachers to implement an inquiry-based approach to teaching science
- Increase the amount, type, and quality of science instruction provided to students
Our unique approach includes:
- A school-wide focus that actively engages all teachers and their administrators
- Ongoing, hands-on training led by secondary science teachers who model an inquiry-based approach while supporting teacher learning in the big ideas of science
- Immersive professional development experiences in challenging concepts in earth and space, physical and chemical, and life and environmental sciences
- Specific support to help teachers address the most challenging big ideas in the new Sunshine State Science Standards
- A professional learning community that partners elementary teachers with UF’s K-12 laboratory school, P.K.Yonge Developmental Research School, and science educators at the University of Florida
Rather than overwhelm teachers, the LeTaS! schoolwide reform effort begins by organizing grade level teaching teams into triads:
- Each triad member is assigned to one of three concept strands: earth/space, physical/chemical, or life/environmental
- Triad members spend a year immersed in learning the content and concepts associated with their strand
- Triad members are supported in adapting available resources to develop grade-level specific, standards-driven, inquiry-based learning units
- The one-year immersion experience culminates in all teachers being trained in all content strands