3 Ring

Support teacher planning; improve science learning

“For me, there's a lot of anxiety that comes mainly from how I'm going to cover a standard; how I'm going to teach one thing all the way through. And 3Ring reduces or eliminates that anxiety. This is what I'm going to do, this is how I'm going to do it, this is why I'm doing it, these are the standards, these are the materials I need.”

- 6th Grade Teacher who piloted 3Ring 

At 3Ring, we believe teachers are the key to substantially improving our nation’s poor performance in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education.

3Ring is an early stage educational technology non-profit that works to improve teacher performance, reduce teacher turnover, and close achievement gaps in science.

We combine innovative web-based technologies, open content licensing, and our science teaching expertise to create curriculum guides and lesson building tools that drive significant increases in teacher effectiveness, teacher retention and thus student outcomes. 

The curriculum guides 3Ring develops are similar to guides travelers use when exploring a new country. When using a travel guide, a traveler knows that experts who know the country and its cities well have developed the guide. Travel guides provide background information to help them understand and feel more comfortable. They also have maps and recommendations on places to see, eat, and sleep that allow travelers plan itineraries based on their needs.  Travel guides are immensely useful to new travelers but are also useful to experienced travelers. 

The 3Ring online curriculum guides offer teachers many of the same features as travel guides; extensive background information; maps of science topics aligned to standards; and options for student activities and assessments developed and vetted by the 3Ring community experts that teachers can choose from to create instructional plans.

These guides represent a new model of online science teacher professional development, as they are a comprehensive resource for teachers in their learning, planning, and instruction. 

This past spring, we worked with St. Paul Public Schools to develop a 4 day lesson guide on the Middle School topic of convection. 3 teachers used our lesson guide and online planning tool to prepare for and teach 160 students. Our evaluation report found that teachers valued

• Experiences that lead to student learning and engagement
• Multiple supports for teacher learning and implementation
• Flexibility provided by the different activity choices
• The focus of the curriculum on teaching particular standards and topics
• The enhancement of teaching practices.  
• That it was fun to teach

 

Their students valued

• Experiment Based Curriculum
• Fun Experiences
• Engaging Science Concepts   

Your donation will help build upon our successful pilot and will help us create and test a unit guide on Thermal Energy Transfer within St. Paul Public Schools. It will also help us share this unit, for free, with science teachers across Minnesota and the nation. 

Thank you for helping us improve the lives of science teachers and the science learning of thier students!