Master Teacher Led Groups

Ambitious Chemistry

Professional Interest Group co-facilitated by Elizabeth Davies and Stephanie Lane

How might Chemistry teachers collaborate together to better transition to a classroom centered in the new 3D NYSSLS? In this PLT, educators will explore the Ambitious Science Teaching book and its transformative framework. Our primary goal is to become more empowered to shift towards a student-centered model that fosters discovery, inquiry, and scientific exploration. Our group welcomes high school Chemistry teachers eager to enhance their instructional practices. Anticipated activities could include collaborative unit and/or planning, peer observations via video recording, and/or reflective discussions centered on implementing the book's strategies. Participants will engage in hands-on experiments and inquiry-based projects that stimulate student curiosity and engagement. We will utilize resources such as the book itself, along with supplementary texts on inquiry-based learning and digital tools, including interactive simulations and virtual labs. In addition to continuing the activities started last semester, we will explore the newly released Regents exams for Chemistry to identify key instructional practices that will lead to success on the assessment.

Building Thinking Classrooms in Math (K-6)

PLT co-facilitated by Joshua Schwind and Kristin Stark

How might we reorganize almost everything in a classroom to increase STUDENT engagement and real THINKING? This PLT will create a space where people feel safe to explore a WILDLY different way to organize a class in order to support student thinking over student mimicry.  Participants will deploy some of the elements of Peter Liljedahl's Building Thinking Classroom practices and then reflect with peers to see how to maximize those elements in future lessons and experiences. Each PLT meeting would focus on the elements through experiencing tasks, reflecting on the tasks deployed in the intervening weeks and then planning for new tasks coming up.

Building Thinking Classrooms in Science

PLT co-facilitated by Deanna Przepiora and Jamie Mancuso-Dulak

How might we use BTC structures to increase engagement and equitable participation in science classrooms? This PLT will explore how to adapt and implement Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) strategies—originally developed for mathematics—into science instruction to promote inquiry, collaboration, and student-centered learning. Aimed at K-12 science teachers, the group will engage in collaborative study of BTC concepts, align strategies with NGSS science and engineering practices, and co-design tasks that make student thinking visible. Activities will include refining, expanding, and organizing the toolkit developed last semester so that each SEP and CCC includes multiple elementary and secondary mini-lessons and thinking tasks that can be used across units and grade levels. We plan to continue using tasks in our classrooms, analyzing student thinking and engagement, and revising tasks to better support productive struggle, scientific discourse, and authentic sensemaking in the science classroom.

Assessing Assessment: How can we create assessments that serve our students

Collegial Circle co-facilitated by Tom Wall and Mark Izydorczak

The Problem:  I notice I often struggle to get tests back to my students in a timely manner with the feedback they actually need. When I do manage to return them quickly, I don’t have the class time to review them, and students rarely look at my comments anyway. I wonder: Is there a better way to assess our students that breaks the rigid "chapter quiz, chapter test, repeat" cycle? 

 The Invitation: Join us to collaboratively explore and implement concrete improvements to our assessment, feedback, and grading systems. This PLT is ideal for middle and high school teachers of any discipline in traditional schools looking to shift their practices to be more mathematically accurate, bias-resistant, growth-oriented, and motivational.

Our 4-Session Roadmap:

Session 1: Unpacking the Routine: Using Joe Feldman’s Grading for Equity as our anchor, we will examine how traditional grading practices can introduce mathematical inaccuracies and biases, while identifying individual areas of focus for our own classrooms.

Session 2: Hacking the Mechanics: We will study practical approaches to grading reform, including the mechanics of alternative grading systems and methods for "hacking" traditional gradebook software to work for us.

Session 3: The Micro-Pilot: We will focus on planning and implementing a small, low-stakes, but impactful shift toward grading reform within our current classrooms.

Session 4: Reflection & Feedback: Teachers will share their experiences, reflect on their implementation, and receive collaborative feedback from the group.

Our work will be supplemented by excellent, bite-sized resources from the Grading for Growth blog and The Grading Podcast.

Elementary STEAM

PLT co-facilitated by Joshua Cooke and Leah Farnum

Elementary STEAM is a PLT that will focus on the many elements that make elementary classrooms engaging, supportive, and successful. Building on our work with STEAM mindsets, we will explore research-based practices that strengthen student engagement in science and mathematics, foster meaningful communication with families and communities, support effective assessment, and create positive, student-centered classroom environments. Together, we will reflect on our current practices, share ideas and strategies, and explore ways to thoughtfully integrate new approaches into the curriculum and standards we already teach. Our goal is not to add more to your workload, but to reimagine what is already happening in your classroom and find opportunities to make learning more meaningful through student choice, real-world connections, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and cross-curricular learning. Elementary STEAM is about embracing the whole elementary experience, supporting educators as we create classrooms where students are curious, connected, challenged, and empowered to learn.

Creating Culminating Projects with Real World Connections

Collegial Circle co-facilitated by Michael Delmont and Alison Camp 

This MT-Led group will investigate how teachers can design and implement multidisciplinary capstone projects that create authentic real-world connections while supporting the competencies outlined in the New York State Portrait of a Graduate. Facilitated collaboratively by a science and a math teacher, the group is intended for teachers across grade levels and content areas who are interested in creating meaningful, student-centered learning experiences that extend beyond traditional assessments. The work will focus on helping educators develop projects that encourage students to apply disciplinary knowledge to real-world issues, engage in collaboration and problem-solving, communicate effectively, and demonstrate growth in skills such as critical thinking, innovation, and civic readiness. Throughout the PLT, participants will examine existing models of project-based and performance-based learning, analyze examples of multidisciplinary capstone projects, and collaboratively design or revise projects for implementation in their own classrooms. Teachers will engage in activities such as curriculum mapping, identifying authentic community or career connections, developing project prompts and rubrics, and exploring strategies for assessing both content knowledge and transferable skills. Time will also be dedicated to interdisciplinary collaboration, peer feedback, and reflection on implementation challenges and successes. Potential tools and resources may include the New York State Portrait of a Graduate framework, NYSSLS and content-area standards documents, project-based learning design frameworks, exemplar performance tasks, rubric development tools, and digital collaboration platforms. Participants may also explore research and professional texts related to authentic assessment, inquiry-based learning, and interdisciplinary instruction in order to support the development of rigorous and engaging capstone projects.

Data Warriors Implementation in WNY

PLT facilitated by Sarah Kszanak and Sarah Proctor-Bates

This MT-led group will support teachers in implementing the Data Warriors model to integrate data literacy, student voice, and community-based research into classroom instruction. The goal is to help educators design meaningful, student-driven learning experiences where students investigate real-world issues, particularly those impacting their local communities, and use data to analyze patterns, draw conclusions, and propose solutions.

The target audience includes any teachers who are interested in increasing student engagement through inquiry-based and culturally relevant instruction. This group is particularly valuable for educators working in urban or high-needs settings where connecting learning to students’ lived experiences is critical.

Participants will engage in collaborative planning, analysis of sample student work, and hands-on exploration of model activities (e.g., investigating environmental issues such as lead exposure using data). Teachers will develop classroom-ready materials aligned to NYSSLS and other standards, while also exploring strategies for facilitating student research, incorporating surveys and community data, and supporting student communication through presentations or projects. Opportunities for peer feedback, reflection, and troubleshooting implementation will be embedded throughout.

The group will utilize tools such as publicly available datasets, Google Sheets/Excel, and basic data visualization or mapping platforms. Instructional frameworks will include CER (Claim-Evidence-Reasoning), inquiry-based learning, and connections to science fair or citizen science initiatives. Resources may also include partnerships with local organizations and examples from the Data Warriors program.

This group aims to empower teachers to create engaging, relevant learning experiences that position students as researchers and active contributors to their communities.

Lab Minds: Physics Investigation

PLT co-facilitated by Yianna Russo and Dan Graf

Lab Minds is a Master Teacher-Led professional learning community focused on the exploration and implementation of New physics investigations that promote scientific inquiry and deeper conceptual understanding. How might we best prepare high school physics students with the understanding, knowledge, and skills to execute the science investigations? This group is committed to fostering collaboration among educators to enhance physics instruction through hands-on, student-centered learning experiences.  Our goals are to 1. Strengthen teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical skills in physics teaching in the area of using investigations as part of instruction.  We will use current resources to enhance our knowledge in this area; and 2. Develop, test, and refine NGSS-aligned physics investigations that are accessible and engaging for diverse learners.

Physics Olympics Outreach

Outreach Group co-facilitated by Jennifer Gazdovich and Joel May

How might we develop and use competitive physics and engineering challenges in our Physics Classrooms to enhance student learning and motivation? In this outreach group, we will meet monthly to develop and revise physics and engineering challenges that have a friendly competitive feel and that meet the curriculum in a Regents physics classroom. We will develop clear scoring that schools can use across our area to motivate the teachers to use these activities with their students. At the end of the school year, we will organize a Physics Olympics event at the Buffalo State campus open to middle and high school students. Our target audience is physics teachers and possibly middle school science or engineering teachers.

Growing STEM in School Gardens

PLT facilitated by Mimi Joint and Tony Eberle

How might STEM teachers leverage school gardens as a tool for learning both academic content and real-life skills? The goals of this PLT are to research best practices for using school gardens to engage students and to develop student activities and experiences that are aligned to appropriate grade-level standards. We hope to implement the activities, critically examine the results, and make appropriate adjustments to the activities.

Science Buddies

Collegial Circle co-facilitated by Katie Wheeler, Andrea Armstrong, and Arianne Dunlap 

How might we create a collaborative learning environment between upper grade-level students and lower grade-level students? We would like to explore ways to create cross-grade collaboration activities for K-12 science students and shift science learning from "textbook" heavy, to social, experiential learning. We will begin by exploring best practices as defined by research about how to create multigrade-level learning environments and "events". Our goal is to create multigrade-level learning activities that can deepen conceptual understanding of science topics for student mentors through teaching while providing younger students with relatable role models and hands-on guidance in scientific inquiry. The audience could be any teacher K-12 in any STEM class.

Science Storyline Curricula: From "Ugly" to Actionable

PLT facilitated by Pamela Patterson 

How might we use best practices from several curricula to generate a storyline unit? Let’s be real: pivoting to NYSSLS is a heavy lift to do alone. This PLT is a collaborative "think tank" for 6-12 science teachers to share the load. We’ll start by swapping honest stories about the curricula we’ve used—the wins, the fails, and everything in between. Together, we’ll analyze them through a critical lens and use NYS Performance Level Descriptors to bridge the gap between "theory" and "the classroom." We will trial run some storyline modifications in our classrooms and analyze student data to measure the effectiveness of our storylines. The Result: you’ll walk away with a ready-to-teach storyline unit and a toolkit of best practices to make science stick. This PLT is suitable for science teachers in Grades 6-12. 

SCOPE

Collegial Circle facilitated by Stephen Johnson 

How might we utilize the combined experience of classroom teachers and Buffalo State University resources to help support pre-service teachers as they prepare to become our colleagues and successful teachers? Supporting Coaches of Pre-Service Educators (SCOPE) Outreach Group will utilize Buffalo State University resources and personnel to support pre-service teachers during early field and student teaching placements. Our central objective is to explore and identify best mentoring practices for supporting growth in our pre-service teachers. Our target audience consists of teachers actively working with pre-service teachers during early field experience and/or student teaching. We plan to develop several workshops that bring mentors, preservice teachers, and master teachers together to learn from each other, to model best practices for mentoring, and to generally help preservice teachers-mentor partners navigate the complex relationship.

The Anxious Generation - Collegial Circle to examine mental health concerns of our students

Collegial Circle facilitated by Christina Randazzo 

How might we use resources such as Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, to understand and respond to some of the drastic changes we are seeing in our classrooms? This collegial circle aims to help us understand the increasing mental health concerns we are observing in the era of "smartphones, social media, and big tech." Moving beyond just an "understanding," we will use paired readings to explore how we might address such issues on a day-to-day basis to help our students be more fully present in our classrooms. This group is appropriate for educators of all grades and content areas. 

The Crosscutting Connection: Tools for Sense Making

PLT co-facilitated by Sabrina Piaschyk and Bridget Lyon

This MT-Led group is designed to deepen educators’ understanding and classroom use of the NYSSLS crosscutting concepts, with the overarching goal of helping teachers integrate these ideas more intentionally and coherently across grade levels and interdisciplinary content areas. The group aims to support teachers in recognizing crosscutting concepts not merely as add-ons to instruction, but as powerful sense-making tools that help students deepen their problem solving, metacognition skill, and endurance. Utilizing the NSTA published book: "Crosscutting concepts: strengthening science and engineering learning" by Jeffrey Nordine and Okhee Lee, this PLT will engage participants in a cycle of learning, implementation, and reflection on the crosscutting concepts. This year we plan to focus on the CCCs of Cause and Effect, Scale, Proportion, and Quantity, Systems and Systems Models, and Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation. This PLT will be held at BOCES- Loguidice Center, Fredonia.

Warm Ups and Exit Tickets

PLT co-facilitated by Sam Stone and Robert Wardwell

How might we use class warm-ups and exit tickets to inform instruction and support student learning? The goal of this PLT will be to work collaboratively to create a cache of instructionally relevant warm-ups and exit tickets. We will analyze student data from these assessments to identify instructional moves that will help boost student achievement and develop classroom culture for all levels and science disciplines. During meetings we will develop short 2D and 3D formative assessments using The Wonder of Science Assessment Screening Tools, and other resources, that address the NYSSLS performance expectations, analyze student data, and identify instructional moves based on the data.

Connecting Classrooms to Communities for Deeper Learning

PLT co-facilitated by Nadezda Mease and Pamela Patterson

This MT-led Professional Learning Team (PLT) focuses on strengthening family and community partnerships to expand student learning both inside and outside the classroom. Its primary goal is to build educators’ capacity to create meaningful, sustainable relationships with families and local organizations that support student engagement and achievement. The group is designed for teachers and instructional staff interested in integrating community resources into their practice. Participants will collaborate through discussions, case studies, and shared planning to develop strategies for bringing community partners—such as Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, the Tuscarora Nation, Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the Buffalo Geological Society, and the New York Power Authority (NYPA)—into the classroom to enrich learning and connect content to real-world experiences. The PLT will utilize research-based frameworks and tools from the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement (NAFSCE), along with the text "Family and Community Partnerships: Promising Practices for Teachers and Teacher Educators" (Caspe & Hernandez, Eds.), and practical resources such as planning templates, engagement strategies, and reflection tools to guide implementation.