The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has developed a new resource to improve the quality of science instruction in the nation’s schools: an online hub that provides affordable, on-demand professional development to help educators boost their knowledge about various science topics, as needed.

NSTA introduced its online Learning Center earlier this year with more than 3,000 electronic professional development resources and opportunities, including books, journal articles, web seminars, and online courses.

“As we [continue] into the 21st century, science will play an increasingly central role in our personal lives. To prepare students to be active and thoughtful participants in society, science education must be dramatically improved,” the organization said in a press release about its Learning Center. “Highly qualified teachers who have a solid grasp of science content are central to high-quality science education.”

As of July, more than 60,000 educators were signed up to use the Learning Center to diagnose their individual learning needs and track, document, and validate their professional growth over time, the asociation said. Many of the site’s resources are available free of charge to NSTA members and for a small fee to non-members.

More than 50 free, on-demand Science Object lessons allow teachers to increase their content knowledge at their own pace, said Al Byers, assistant executive director of e-learning and government partnerships for NSTA.

Byers said the resource is particularly useful for K-8 teachers, who might have a general education degree but no in-depth knowledge of some of the science content areas they are expected to cover in their classrooms.

“Many K-8 teachers don’t have the [specific] knowledge of the [science] content they teach,” he said. “They can do more harm than good if they don’t know the content.”

Byers said K-8 teachers often don’t consider themselves to be science teachers, but they are, in fact, teaching science. He said the Learning Center enables teachers to learn more about specific topics—such as Newton’s First Law or the differences between force and motion—based on the grade level they are teaching.

Science Objects, each of which focuses on a specific content area, are designed to enhance teachers’ understanding of a prescribed set of ideas based on the science literacy goals in the national science education standards, NSTA says. Each Science Object takes one or two hours to complete.

Teachers also can sign up for SciPacks that contain three to five Science Objects, as well as a pedagogical section that provides a larger context for teaching the content. SciPacks allow teachers to get certification credit if they pass an assessment upon completion.

Byers said several school districts and state education departments have partnered with NSTA in a model that allows the educational institutions to monitor the professional development of their teachers.

Partners include the West Virginia, New Hampshire, and Hawaii education departments; Cincinnati Public Schools; Gwinnett, Forsyth, and Lincoln County, Ga., schools; the Oregon Science Teachers Association; the University of Texas-Tyler, Texas A&M University, and Towson University. In West Virginia, participating teachers can qualify for graduate credit at Marshall University.

“We provide the accountability [for the institutions],” Byers said. “Teachers take pre-assessment tests to index their professional development needs.”

Through this “business-to-business” model, Byers said, teachers in participating institutions have full access to all of the Learning Center’s resources, with a customized page that allows an advisor to track their progress.

“This model has a unique added value that shows the access history and the percentage of the lessons that have been completed,” Byers said.

In both the business-to-business and business-to-individual models, teachers are able to develop a customized professional development plan based on their own individual needs and preferences.

The Learning Center “is not an end-all-be-all, but it’s a critical and unique niche that [helps teachers fulfill their] larger professional development plans,” Byers said.