You can quit the teacher hustle.
What is your time worth?
Get everything you need with the Spark Subscription to shift ownership to your students tomorrow.
Forget unit planning.
Go home early tonight.
Spark Subscription
Student-Driven Learning starts with a SPARK.
Reimagine your science curriculum and empower your students to own their 3D learning.
You know there is more to science class than textbook facts,
recipe-book labs, and one-size-fits all curriculum.
You know learning doesn’t look the same for every student.
You know the greatest teachers are responsive,
and the greatest learning happens when students are engaged.
Because the one doing the work is the one doing the learning…
So who is learning in your classroom?
It’s time to let your students work harder than you.
But how...
- do you spark wonder (without doing the learning for them)?
- do you cultivate curiosity (without staying up till midnight, day after day)?
- do you light a fire for learning (without completely burning yourself out in the process)?
And how do you then turn that into a journey that ultimately meets the standards of the system?
How do we truly turn our students into scientists in a learner-centered classroom?
And most importantly:
How do we do it all without losing ourselves
our free time, our quality moments with friends and family, our own wellbeing
in the process?
In case you need to hear this:
You can be the amazing teacher you want to be
and have a full and joyful life outside the classroom.
You don’t have to choose.
Hey, I’m Nicole.
For 7 years, I was the “overachiever teacher.” I was the first one in the building and the last one to leave. I had it all mapped out all the time, the explorations and the labs and the discussions. I had the pieces together and every journey planned.
I thought that was what made me great.
But it wasn’t sustainable.
It wasn’t fair — to my husband, to my newborn, to myself.
And when I couldn’t keep it up, when I couldn’t keep running the whole show all the time, I realized — it had never been serving my students at all.
Ifinallyrealized...
The best teachers aren’t the ones carrying the torch.
They just light the spark.
And once I figured that out, everythingchanged.
My work day ended when it ended.
- There were cars in the parking lot when I arrived, and teachers in the building when I left. (Hello, standard work hours!)
- The clerks at the local coffee shop did not know my name. (Bye bye, Sunday workdays!)
- And probably most importantly, my kids didn’t have to crawl across my laptop to get my attention every night. (Knock it off the #momguilt list.)
My life was more balanced.
And my students were the better for it.
- They asked the questions that determined the path forward.
- They made connections from one lesson to the next.
- They persisted to the aha, because they discovered it was worth it.
- They genuinely wondered and were motivated to figure it out.
They knew they were capable, because they had experienced it.
And they stepped up.
The Spark Subscription was designed to empower you to implement a student-driven curriculum unique to the needs of your classroom.
A curriculum where…
relevant phenomena spark student curiosity and wonder
foundational lessons suggest pathways to the standards while empowering students and teachers to follow their own way there
three dimensional assessment tasks engage students in authentic work while evaluating growth and mastery
and you don’t have to recreate the wheel each and every day.
With the Spark Subscription, each month you receive
- a SPARK Anchor Experience to engage students with a new phenomenon
- a flexible storyline map with suggested pathways and content connections
- an engaging three dimensional assessment task with supporting student organizers, guides, and rubrics
- up to three weeks of explorations and investigations that support student mastery of the focus standards
- a student content workbook to support practice, transfer, and reflection
- weekly quick-implement strategies, teaching tips, and extension ideas
"The resources, education and support offered by Nicole are truly invaluable. She has a gift for taking an overwhelming process… and making it actionable from the very first day! I will be a member for the rest of my teaching career."
Missy I.
Middle School Teacher, New Hampshire
What IsIncluded?
Spark Anchor
Each month, an engaging Anchor Experience sparks curiosity and establishes relevance for the science content targeted by the focus standards. The Spark Anchor engages students in three dimensional learning over several classes to build buy-in and generate quality questions that will drive student learning forward throughout the entire storyline.
The Spark Anchor solves the problem, how do I set my students up to take ownership of the storyline?
Science In The Storyline Educator Guide
The Science In The Storyline Educator Guide provides a clear overview of how the anchor phenomenon connects to suggested content.
The Educator Guide answers the question, Where do we go from here?
Pathways Map
The Pathways Map allows you to be responsive to students while still planning ahead. By suggesting potential routes student learning could take – and framing these routes as questions your students will answer – you as the educator can look ahead to the explorations that move students toward your unit objectives while still giving you space to respond to their interests and needs.
Three Dimensional+ Assessments
Assessment tasks are opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery while taking their learning further. In the Spark Subscription’s 3D+ assessment tasks, students have the opportunity to tackle tasks that matter, pairing their own interests, experiences, and identities with the focus science content to provide evidence of their growth and mastery through the storyline.
Explorations, Investigations, Student Materials, and Support
Each month, you will receive ready-to-go resources and tools, plus a ton of inspiration, to support student learning through the suggested pathways and assessment tasks. You can be confident you are utilizing best-practices when it comes to three dimensional exploration and discovery-based learning without sacrificing hours upon hours of your nights and weekends.
The Spark Subscription isn’t just about your students.
It was created for you, the educator — to give you your nights and weekends back.
To take the weight of planning it all off your shoulders.
What will you do with your extra time?
I just wanted to say thank you for the amazing work you are doing! I finished up parent teacher conferences today and so many were impressed and excited about what is happening in my classroom. The kids are talking about science at home and are loving science!! You deserve all the credit! The Body Invaders unit is incredible, and my students are thriving. I have never had a class so engaged and learning at this level ever before!!
Cadena P.
Middle School Teacher, South Dakota
Bonus
BringWonderBack: Intro To Teaching In 3D
Create engaged and active science learners. Wrap your brain around the 3D teaching mindset and transform your science classroom.
- understand why “teaching topics” is killing curiosity and what to do instead
- redefine your role as an educator and shift the work of learning where it belongs which means less work for you
- transform your students into scientists which means creating a generation of creative, critical-thinkers
Bonus
Why This?: CreatingAnchoredScience Experiences
Phenomena are fundamental to real, relevant science — and your student-owned science classroom. In this workshop, learn how to create truly rooted science experiences centered on real-world phenomena.
Bonus
ExplorationAlchemy:Flip Your Lesson For Discovery
You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel, even when you’re aiming for exploration-based three-dimensional learning. Learn how to transform a flat lesson into something three-dimensional.
"Joining [the iExploreScience] community has been the best professional development I have ever done! I have learned so much about the NGSS and how to implement them in my classroom. I have been able to shift the way I teach to the point that my students don't even know they are learning... My kids love it... I have really been able to transform things "we have always done" into the NGSS way."
Mercedes G.
Middle School Teacher, Wisconsin
Will the Spark Subscription meet your curricular needs?
Explore what’s available below!
August 2021
September 2021
October 2021
Whathappensnext?
- After you complete your enrollment, you will receive an email with additional details. Please follow the instructions in the email.
- If you do not receive this email, please contact Nicole VanTassel at nvantassel@iexplorescience.com.
- You will have immediate access to all of the lesson resources and on-demand workshops in your membership level. Log in to your account below.