Gaston College SPARC3 Professional Development Day Conference

Description

Gaston College is hosting its third annual SPARC3 Professional Development Day Conference on Friday, March 13, in the Rauch Science Building on the College's Dallas campus. The conference, geared chiefly to college and high school educators, welcomes counselors and instructors from all schools throughout North Carolina. The SPARC3 (STEM Persistence and Retention through Curriculum, Cohort, and Centralization) initiative was developed by Gaston College to ignite student curiosity and prepare future Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) professionals for success in an evolving work environment. Instructors in all disciplines, not just STEM-related, are encouraged to attend the conference, which highlights inquiry-based learning techniques, active student engagement, increased student persistence and retention efforts, undergraduate research, and teaching with technology. Attendees will earn six hours of professional development credit. The conference consists of a plenary session on the SPARC3 initiative at Gaston College followed by a series of hour-long concurrent sessions. The 2014 conference included sessions on topics such as Interactive Notebooks for the Science or Math Classroom, Successfully Assessing Student Writing, and Moving the World by Making New Knowledge. Gaston College is currently accepting proposals for interactive and poster presentations for the 2015 sessions.