Great video! I was chuckling out loud- you clearly have the skills for making excellent tutorials for the facilitators.

The WISE Guys and Gals team and I hope that you find this video interesting and informative. We are in the final year of a five year project working with Boys & Girls Clubs and have developed a robust virtual professional development model for non-STEM trained facilitators. We believe this lean video production model could be applied in a number of different settings to lower costs and barriers associated with professional development. We excited to hear your comments and questions about our challenges and successes.

Engaging video! I appreciate you clearly listing some of the constraints that guided the development of the PD videos. I’m wondering what advice you would give to others who were embarking on a similar path of creating PD videos. Also, you mentioned that one of the things the videos addressed were STEM careers. Could you provide more detail about how you approached that topic (what aspects/features did you choose to highlight)?

This is the first time I have chuckled watching an NSF Video Showcase.  Fun delivery!

If anyone is interested in seeing a sample activity with the supporting facilitator video and guide check out this link.  You will need to scroll down a few frames:  https://www.stemgineeringacademy.org/

Thanks for tackling PD for informal science educators. Could you describe  how you evaluated how well the videos supported the providers?  

Thank you, your video is fun! I am too very interested how were you able to evaluate whether these video guides were effective. Can you provide your instruments used for evaluation?

The students in your program were certainly having fun engaging in learning about design challenges.  Are there plans to broaden impact beyond New York, Connecticut, and Virginia?  You mentioned that dissemination is in the works. Can you provide more details of your plans? Thank you.

Thanks for sharing this project! It's so great to see free, user-friendly resources for non-experts.

What are the other strategies you're using to get the word out about this project?

Do you find that access to materials/resources is a barrier for some groups? 

Best, Sheila

This is such a creative video.  I loved how you created a solution to address training for facilitators.  Virtual PD has so many benefits and provides an opportunity for greater engagement.   Our video, "If You Give a Teacher a Network", also highlights the benefits of utilizing a virtual approach for learning to overcome barriers encountered in a rural school district.   

We have been evaluating our professional develop approach by collecting feedback (surveys and interviews) from facilitators after they have used the WGG support materials and delivered the WGG activities.  We also collect youth data (from within WISEngineering, the WGG computer interface and from youth surveys and interviews following the design challenges.) These data indicate the WGG activities are being delivered as hoped and the videos are perceived as helpful.  Facilitators view the videos to both learn about the activities and how to deliver them as well as a refresher if they have previously delivered them. 

Great idea for managing the PD problem. Teachers do not need to be physically separate to need an asynchronous solution; even teachers in the same building can have schedules that do not allow face-to-face training.

You hinted that you had a standard format for the information you included in each of your PD videos. Would you be willing to share your standard content list? We're looking to build some similar videos for graduate TAs, and want to build on what others know works.

Agree!  The "anytime anywhere" flexibility is a big benefit of virtual PD.

We structured the video to fit our activities starting with the real world context and associated career, covering the materials and steps of the activity, tips for how to engage kids and finally facilitator tips we call "where the gotchas can getcha".  If you would like to view one of our facilitator videos just scroll down to the "Free Activity" section of stemgineeringacademy.org 

Great video!  Do you have data on facilitator engagement with the training videos? 

Thanks!

We have feedback data from facilitators after using the videos.  this information has been particularly helpful for creating additional video supports