Summary, Guiding Question #4

How can scientific ocean drilling's professional development be enhanced to develop critical scientific and transdisciplinary skills for educators?

Note that Guiding Questions2 and4 are tightly linked and should be addressed in concert.

Values and Priorities

Barriers to access must be lowered. It is essential that high-quality online and face-to-face professional development related to scientific ocean drilling be accessible to a broad range of educators.
School of Rock programming is of exceptionally high value. The program is life changing and its strengths should be well-leveraged.
Discoveries from scientific ocean drilling programs are highly interdisciplinary, reveal the nature of complex systems, and are central to our understanding of how Earth's climate is and has changed. This makes SciOD discoveries model content for addressing vitally important issues that are underserved by most current curricula.
Past programming has not paid due attention to issues of Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (JEDIA), and future work must improve upon these shortcomings. While substantial progress has been made related to gender issues, work remains to be done there. Minoritized communities have been underserved throughout the history of the program and in the education system at large.

Recommended Tools and/or Strategies

Use best practice strategies for professional development programming. These include:
- Long term programming (avoiding one-off workshops)
- Engaging educators as collaborators in programming and resource development
- Working in cohorts or professional learning teams
- Focusing programming on both building knowledge of content and the special skills and knowledge needed to teach that content.
Attention to justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (JEDIA) in all professional development programming offerings. This will include developing partnerships and collaborations to co-lead and organize workshops and trainings with groups that focus on building community and inclusion (e.g. labor unions, local rights groups, diversity programs). This includes engaging with HBCUs and groups/organizations that support and promote scientists with historically excluded identities in STEM, such as the International Association for Geoscience Diversity, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, Black in Geoscience among other groups.
Develop online infrastructure and strategies for providing continuing quality professional development. These will include:
- Coordination of professional development with an organized and maintained user-friendly database of open access resources.
- Better publication and coordination with existing programming.
- Expansion of face-to-face and online professional development programming opportunities, and publicizing them well.
- Prioritization and rewards (recognition) for providing and receiving quality professional development across the grade span in formal education and across the age span in informal education.

Challenges

Many educators are unaware of existing programming and resources. Extensive opportunities exist but are unknown to many educators.
Professional development offerings that align with best practice are the exception rather than the rulefor a wide range of reasons. They are expensive, time consuming and require extensive effort to maintain.
Professional development programming - either giving or receiving - is not a substantial part of the reward structures or traditions in higher education.
Funding needs to be identified to support these efforts.
See also the challenges listed underGuiding Question 2.