PBL3 STEAM Institute in Detroit
ABOUT
The PBL3 STEAM Institute in Detroit is a four-day professional learning experience introducing teachers to project-, problem-, and place-based learning. The institute leverages Detroit's histories, culture, museums, community organizations, and outdoor spaces as launching pads for PBL3 unit ideation.
The institute is designed by InnovatED313, a nonprofit that creates and enacts educational programs and teacher PD in Detroit (313 area code).
This year's institute is funded in part by a Midwest Region Teaching with Primary Sources grant. As part of the institute, teachers explore possibilities for integrating historical primary sources into PBL3 STEAM units. Institute learning experiences incorporate sources and strategies from the Library of Congress.
STEAM
Project-, Problem-, and Place-based Learning (PBL3)
Historical Primary Sources
Visitng the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant
Visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts
Facilitators
Dr. June Teisan is a National Board-Certified Teacher and career STEM+CS educator with over thirty years of work within public schools and across informal learning institutions. Dr. Teisan served as 2008 Michigan Teacher of the Year, was selected as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow to serve in Washington, D.C. at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, received the White House Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching, and is a National Teacher Hall of Fame Inductee. She is the K-12 Alliance and Regional Initiatives Manager with the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Dr. Teisan is a visiting lecturer at Oakland University in Michigan, teaching future educators, and serves on the leadership teams of the Michigan Teacher of the Year Network, statewide MiSTEM Science and Engineering Consortium, Network of Michigan Educators, Michigan Science Teacher Association, and the Out-of-School Time Advisory Council for the State of Michigan.
Trey Smith teaches K-8 students in a multidisciplinary makerspace at the Marian Anderson School in the School District of Philadelphia. He also serves as a teacher consultant with the Philadelphia Writing Project and an adjunct methods instructor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. For the 2015-16 school year, the Library of Congress selected Trey to be its first-ever Science Teacher-in-Residence. He has also served as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow on Capitol Hill, studied as a graduate research assistant with the Next Generation Science Storylines project and the Tinkering Afterschool Project at Northwestern University, and has co-facilitated the PBL3 institute at Belle Isle for the past three summers.
