The Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human perception founded in 1969 and located in San Francisco, California. The Exploratorium’s mission is to create a culture of learning through innovative environments, programs, and tools that help people nurture their curiosity about the world around them.

Housed within the walls of San Francisco's landmark Palace of Fine Arts, the Exploratorium is a collage of hundreds of interactive exhibits in the areas of science, art, and human perception. Since the Exploratorium’s inception, the museum’s exhibits and programs have focused on human perception: how do we see, hear, smell, feel, and otherwise experience the world around us? In addition to its exhibits and public programs, the Exploratorium also supports an extensive array of teacher professional development programs locally, nationally, and internationally, and has developed significant partnerships with universities and other organizations in the field of science education.

Described by Encyclopaedia Britannica as “the archetype of the experiential, ‘hands-on’ science center”, the Exploratorium welcomes more than a half a million visitors, including 110,000 children and teachers on school field trips, each year. The Web site receives over 17 million visits annually, and more than 145 million people see Exploratorium-designed exhibits displayed at science centers around the world. The
museum is a not-for-profit organization with an annual operating budget of over $32 million and 460 employees (266 are full-time employees).

The Exploratorium has become internationally known for its innovations in exhibit design and science education. Around the world, museums have emulated the Exploratorium’s interactive style of exhibit building, or quite literally become our partners in an international Exploratorium network established in 1999. It stands in the vanguard of the movement of the "museum as educational center." It provides
access to, and information about, science, nature, art, and technology.

Noted physicist and educator Dr. Frank Oppenheimer, who devoted his efforts as Director until his death in 1985, founded this unique museum In 1969. Dr. Goéry Delacôte, a renowned French scientist, educator and public servant, was Executive Director of the Exploratorium from 1991 to 2005. In 2006, Dr. Dennis Bartels, a nationally known science education and policy expert, became the Exploratorium’s Executive Director.

Dr. Bartels’s expanded vision for the Exploratorium is to change how the world learns, with the goal of changing individuals from passive consumers of information to active, personal explorers, whether adults or children, professional teachers or amateurs, anywhere in the world, given that in today’s world, technology enables all. Under Dr. Bartels, the Exploratorium continues its educational research and development capacity as it continues to scale its innovation.

Informal Science Education through Public Exhibition

The Exploratorium’s educational approach provides maximum exposure to the phenomena of science. Amidst the excitement of blinking and beckoning exhibits is a carefully devised science curriculum, appropriate for the informal and formal teaching of science. It stresses the presentation of authentic experiences, in an unpretentious manner, in a public learning environment.

Three-dimensional exhibits, built on site, offer the kind of experimental learning that is difficult, if not virtually impossible, to obtain through any other medium, whether it be the classroom, books, television or the Internet. Yet, media and technology innovations are used in exhibitry and public programs, as well as to extend the Exploratorium beyond its walls.

Formal Science Education through Learning and Teaching

More than 500 elementary, middle and high school science and mathematics teachers from the Bay Area and the nation annually attend Exploratorium institutes that use our exhibits as the basis for inquiry-based training of educators. In a unique collaboration of informal and formal educational institutions, the Exploratorium’s Teacher Institute has partnered with school districts, universities, business and
government to improve science instruction and decrease the number of teachers leaving the profession. The Teacher Institute’s Novice Teacher Program, for example, offers professional development and support to beginning teachers in middle and high schools. The Exploratorium staff has testified before education committees of both houses of Congress about its national model.

The Exploratorium’s Institute for Inquiry © is a national center that supports educators from districts, museums and universities who are dedicated to developing innovation and leadership in elementary science education. The Institute provides a variety of workshops, forums and an on-line professional development curricula designed to increase an understanding of the true nature of the scientific process, and how that process leads to developing an understanding of important science content in a deep and personal way.

Another program is CILS. Taking a cue from the public’s enthusiastic response to “informal science centers” like science and natural history museums, zoos, and aquaria, the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) integrates the best of the “informal science learning” with the formal learning that takes place in schools. A collaboration between the Exploratorium, King’s College London (KCL), and the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), CILS trains in informal science instruction and examines the strategies that make such centers powerful learning venues. CILS prepares leaders in informal science education, conducts research, supports students pursuing advanced degrees in science education, and provides professional development opportunities for science museum staff.

It is important to note here that each year, 100,000 school children visit the museum with their teachers through the Field Trips Program. The Children’s Educational Outreach Program provides educational services to 7000 young people in underserved areas.

Science Teaching through Media and Communication

The Exploratorium uses interactive and traditional media to extend the Exploratorium’s learning approach to audiences — teachers, students, the general public — within and outside the museum.

An example is the Exploratorium’s 4-time Webby-award-winning Web site, a true extension of the museum. A resource without walls, free to everyone, it offers educational content and experiences to people around the globe.

International Impact and Influence

The Exploratorium is one of San Francisco’s most prominent museums, drawing visitors from across the country and around the globe. In any given year, representatives from some 35 museums in 18 different countries personally visit the Exploratorium for the express purpose of planning a new science museum or
enhancing an old one. At least 90 percent of the nation’s science museums, and 70 percent of the museums worldwide, have borrowed ideas from Exploratorium exhibits or programs.

The Exploratorium’s annual attendance is over half a million. The museum’s impact is extended to approximately 20 million people per year through the dissemination of its exhibits and programs to other museums.

SUMMARY

The K-12 Professional Development Group is concerned with making education more understandable, more dynamic, and more effective for all. The major goal of the Group is to support the development of creative professionals in the field of education (formal as well as informal settings). One of the ways to achieve this goal is to develop partnerships with school districts, state educational agencies, education
funders and major universities and to offer professional development for in-service teachers and teacher developers employing innovative teaching approaches, with attention to cognitive research and the relationship between science, art, and human perception and the use of technology.

Presently, the K-12 Professional Development Group consists of two teaching programs. Each program has a director and faculty and administrative staff. The Director for the K-12 Professional Development Group provides leadership to the program efforts, coordination between the individual K-12 programs and the other Exploratorium program activities and liaison to outside educational agencies and funders.

The Institute for Inquiry (IFI) conducts workshops for elementary teachers and district, university and museum developers of elementary school teachers, and the Exploratorium Teacher’s Institute (TI) provides lifelong professional development for middle and high school teachers from undergraduate through retirement and participates in university led research programs on professional development.
Programs encompass science, mathematics, art, and technology and include projects working especially with underserved and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students, novice teachers and reform project leaders. Both IFI and TI supplement their regular staff with teachers in residence and post doctoral fellows who learn from the museum’s exhibits, complement the museum’s methodology with their own
practice perspectives, and enable the museum’s programs to be applied more broadly when they return to their own classrooms. Both programs are national models and serve national audiences.

The Director for the K-12 Professional Development Group will report to the Executive Associate Director of the Exploratorium, and will work in collaboration with the Associate Directors for Program, the other program group directors and the Exploratorium’s other senior leadership.

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES & ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

The Group Director will have responsibility for directing and providing vision for the K-12 Professional Development Group, including the overall ongoing effort to strengthen and position the current programs as well as lead the initiation and development of new significant program directions.

Specific responsibilities will include:

* Leading new major program directions:

(1) Creation of regional, statewide and national collaborative efforts for K-12 science teacher development and;

(2) An educational technology program for K-12 teacher development to enhance the reach of Exploratorium professional development activities.

* Supporting the efforts of the CTL’s two teaching programs; setting goals and guiding priorities; providing both programmatic guidance and financial direction; and optimizing collective pedagogic effectiveness.

* Designing and directing new K-12 initiatives, including program design, funding, and partnership strategies, budget, and recruitment of staff.

* Developing collaborations and interactions to heighten visibility and understanding of the museum’s exhibit-based teaching programs, and advocating for them at the local, state and federal and international level.

* Pursuing public and private financial support for programs in conjunction with the museum’s Development Department.

* Developing and managing contracts and fee for service arrangements with local and regional agencies, school districts and funders for professional development and other services.

* Leading, evaluating, and managing staff consistent with museum policies.

* Participating as a member of the Program Management Council, ensuring programmatic integration with other museum centers and divisions.

* Providing oversight for the $3 million K-12 budget.

REQUIRED BACKGROUND AND QUALIFICATIONS:

The Director of the K-12 Professional Development Group should have outstanding organization, management, and leadership experience, and should have achieved recognized national stature within the professional community. It will be very important for the director to support and be interested in the three areas of focus for this group: (1) inquiry into science through hands-on investigation; (2) inquiry into
learning through cognitive exploration of concepts and methods; (3) development of new learning environments and tools, and (4) teacher professional growth.

A graduate degree in a scientific discipline or education is required and a Ph.D. would be ideal. Experience in teacher education is essential; and actual teaching experience would be an added bonus.

The Director must have demonstrated the ability to manage a diverse staff that includes experienced teachers, science and science education Ph.Ds and artists. They should have experience managing in a collaborative and creative environment. In addition, the Director should have experience in the generation of funding through grants and general budgetary management experience. Previous experience in
managing National Science Foundation grants is essential.

Excellent written and oral communication skills, including public speaking is required. Also strong analytic and problem solving skills, negotiation and presentation and political/policy experience would be a definite plus.

ATTRACTIONS

The successful candidate will be attracted to this position by the challenge as well as the opportunity to direct and expand this key and highly visible leadership position. The Exploratorium teacher education programs are already recognized as innovative, unique, and exemplary in the science education field and as a leader within the informal education field. This person will be dedicated to the interdisciplinary,
exploratory, and experimental approach to teaching, and will embrace the notion of outreach to diverse communities.

The Exploratorium last year announced that it is a step closer to moving to a new home on the Embarcadero at the Piers 15 and 17. The city's Port Commission has approved a 66-year lease which will allow this world renowned science museum to locate to the waterfront, making it just a short walk from the Ferry Building. The lease deal for side-by-side Piers 15 and 17 marks a major milestone for the
Exploratorium where it will soon be readily accessible to pedestrians as well as public transportation services including ferry, BART and Muni. The new site will be three times larger than the Exploratorium's current home in the Palace of Fine Arts and will have an observatory, indoor and outdoor exhibits, classrooms, a theater, a cafe and a remake of the popular Tactile Dome.

An excellent compensation and benefit package will be discussed in detail with seriously interested candidates. For more information about the Exploratorium, please visit our web site at www.Exploratorium.edu. The Exploratorium is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity. We urge qualified minority candidates to apply. To learn more about the position or to apply, please contact:

TRC Executive Search
2750 Bardy Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95404; FAX: 707-527-7996
e-mail, trc_corp@ix.netcom.com