Dear Administrator:

"Concept to Classroom" is a free professional development workshop series that addresses a variety of relevant topics in education today. The workshop series is a production of Thirteen Ed Online, the online professional development site of the Educational Resources Center at Thirteen/WNET New York. You probably received this letter from an educator in your school/district who is interested in receiving credit for their participation in one of the workshops.

The "Concept to Classroom" workshops were developed by experts in the field and reviewed by a select set of education professionals. Each workshop contains information that is directly applicable to the classroom, and is also appropriate for use in pre-service and in-service training in teacher education programs. The course your teacher is interested in is Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning and was developed in collaboration with expert Jacqueline Grennon Brooks, Ed.D. We invite you to visit our "Concept to Classroom" site at http://www.thirteen.org/wnetschool/concept2class/index.html.

In the Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning workshop, the educator will have the opportunity to test out ideas about constructivist learning in her/his classroom. In particular, the educator will implement a three-step lesson design that can be used as a general framework for many kinds of constructivist activities which investigate the nature of how students build knowledge. The time involved to complete the workshop is approximately thirty to thirty-five hours. Thirteen Ed Online's education experts feel that the time and effort required to participate is worth professional development credit, and recommend that educators who successfully complete this workshop receive two credits.

You should also find two attachments with this letter. We have provided you with some tools to help in your consideration and assessment: a rubric and a syllabus. The Constructivism Rubric is an important conceptual tool that can help you judge the educator's three-step lesson design based on specific evaluative criteria. We encourage dialogue between staff members and administration to ensure that everyone is using the same vocabulary and a similar background from which to draw on experiences and their work in the classroom. The syllabus presents an outline of the course, including topics that are covered, assignments, and a list of resources.

We hope that these tools will help you and your educator to determine the awarding of professional development credit.

We thank you for your dedication to continued professional development of educators at your school.

Sincerely,

Thirteen Ed Online Team