Professional Development Opportunities for Informal STEM Learning Professionals

In order to engage visitors, guests, participants or audiences in positive STEM learning experiences, informal learning institutions need professionals who understand how to design for and facilitate engaging activities. Initial professional training for informal STEM educators, and subsequent ongoing professional learning create considerable challenges. There is a need for providing informal STEM educators with pathways to professionalization that guarantee high quality educators who can support successful informal STEM education. In this symposium, we propose to share research on key aspects of training and developing informal STEM learning professionals, including a framework to identify and support job competencies and knowledge gaps, results of a study on museology programs, as well as 355 multiple models for ongoing professional development. Our intent is to share an overview of the state of the field and current tools and programs for supporting this population of education-focused professionals, while also providing an opportunity to debate and discuss next steps in the field around standards and expectations and related opportunities for ongoing professional learning.