Coauthored by Tim Cannell, Education Manager

The past couple of years have brought a wide variety of challenges, which means there are opportunities to grow. At Pitsco, we always aim to grow with our customers and to support their needs. With a need for more remote classrooms and socially distant events, we’ve mirrored our professional development to match (of course, we still offer face-to-face PD as an option!).

Topics: BEYOND THE CLASSROOM, ROBOTICS, Teacher Resources, STEM, Resources, Teacher Development, Professional Development

Have you heard the buzz about project-based learning (PBL)? The educational community has been talking about it for a while, but what’s the big deal anyway? How is PBL different from other projects students complete in class? An easy and often-used way of understanding the difference between doing projects and PBL is to think of it in terms of food.

Topics: Middle School, IDEAS & INSPIRATION, Teacher Resources, Collaborations, STEM, Trends, Resources, Engineering, STEM Expeditions, Teacher Development, STEM Units, Professional Development, Activities, Hands-on Learning, STEAM

What do you do in the summertime? After the last few months of doing virtual/online schooling, your answer might be, “anything but schoolwork!” and I would wholeheartedly agree! But, there’s a lot of real-world learning that can happen in the summer — natural conversations to spur kids’ curiosity — with activities that you’re already planning!

Topics: BEYOND THE CLASSROOM, IDEAS & INSPIRATION, Teacher Resources, STEM, Authentic Learning, Activities, Hands-on Learning, STEAM

My mother was a professional organizer. Yup, it’s an actual profession. She’d go into homes, classrooms, and businesses and organize their chaos. Pretty sure I inherited very few of her organizational guru skills. In fact, as a novice classroom teacher I always knew where everything was, but it was usually buried behind a pile of papers or still in a box in the corner (sound familiar?). I mean, I kept the chaos to the edges, but it was far from organized. Luckily, the longer I was in the classroom, the better organized things became — I picked up a few tricks along the way from my mom as well as from colleagues. Now I’m out of the classroom and visiting many of yours!

Topics: IN THE CLASSROOM, Teacher Resources, Resources, Teacher Development, Activities, Maker Ed