Ambitious Science Teaching

Ambitious Science Teaching
Author: Mark Windschitl
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2020-08-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1682531643

2018 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Ambitious Science Teaching outlines a powerful framework for science teaching to ensure that instruction is rigorous and equitable for students from all backgrounds. The practices presented in the book are being used in schools and districts that seek to improve science teaching at scale, and a wide range of science subjects and grade levels are represented. The book is organized around four sets of core teaching practices: planning for engagement with big ideas; eliciting student thinking; supporting changes in students’ thinking; and drawing together evidence-based explanations. Discussion of each practice includes tools and routines that teachers can use to support students’ participation, transcripts of actual student-teacher dialogue and descriptions of teachers’ thinking as it unfolds, and examples of student work. The book also provides explicit guidance for “opportunity to learn” strategies that can help scaffold the participation of diverse students. Since the success of these practices depends so heavily on discourse among students, Ambitious Science Teaching includes chapters on productive classroom talk. Science-specific skills such as modeling and scientific argument are also covered. Drawing on the emerging research on core teaching practices and their extensive work with preservice and in-service teachers, Ambitious Science Teaching presents a coherent and aligned set of resources for educators striving to meet the considerable challenges that have been set for them.

Scientific Teaching

Scientific Teaching
Author: Jo Handelsman
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2007
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781429201889

Seasoned classroom veterans, pre-tenured faculty, and neophyte teaching assistants alike will find this book invaluable. HHMI Professor Jo Handelsman and her colleagues at the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching (WPST) have distilled key findings from education, learning, and cognitive psychology and translated them into six chapters of digestible research points and practical classroom examples. The recommendations have been tried and tested in the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology and through the WPST. Scientific Teaching is not a prescription for better teaching. Rather, it encourages the reader to approach teaching in a way that captures the spirit and rigor of scientific research and to contribute to transforming how students learn science.

The Chicago Guide to College Science Teaching

The Chicago Guide to College Science Teaching
Author: Terry McGlynn
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2020-11-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 022654253X

Higher education is a strange beast. Teaching is a critical skill for scientists in academia, yet one that is barely touched upon in their professional training—despite being a substantial part of their career. This book is a practical guide for anyone teaching STEM-related academic disciplines at the college level, from graduate students teaching lab sections and newly appointed faculty to well-seasoned professors in want of fresh ideas. Terry McGlynn’s straightforward, no-nonsense approach avoids off-putting pedagogical jargon and enables instructors to become true ambassadors for science. For years, McGlynn has been addressing the need for practical and accessible advice for college science teachers through his popular blog Small Pond Science. Now he has gathered this advice as an easy read—one that can be ingested and put to use on short deadline. Readers will learn about topics ranging from creating a syllabus and developing grading rubrics to mastering online teaching and ensuring safety during lab and fieldwork. The book also offers advice on cultivating productive relationships with students, teaching assistants, and colleagues.

Teaching Science Through Trade Books

Teaching Science Through Trade Books
Author: Christine Anne Royce
Publisher: NSTA Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2012
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1936959135

If you like the popular?Teaching Science Through Trade Books? columns in NSTA?s journal Science and Children, or if you?ve become enamored of the award-winning Picture-Perfect Science Lessons series, you?ll love this new collection. It?s based on the same time-saving concept: By using children?s books to pique students? interest, you can combine science teaching with reading instruction in an engaging and effective way.

The Art and Science of Teaching

The Art and Science of Teaching
Author: Robert J. Marzano
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2007
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1416606580

Presents a model for ensuring quality teaching that balances the necessity of research-based data with the equally vital need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of individual students.

Teaching Science in Diverse Classrooms

Teaching Science in Diverse Classrooms
Author: Douglas B. Larkin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2019-08-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0429578490

As a distinctive voice in science education writing, Douglas Larkin provides a fresh perspective for science teachers who work to make real science accessible to all K-12 students. Through compelling anecdotes and vignettes, this book draws deeply on research to present a vision of successful and inspiring science teaching that builds upon the prior knowledge, experiences, and interests of students. With empathy for the challenges faced by contemporary science teachers, Teaching Science in Diverse Classrooms encourages teachers to embrace the intellectual task of engaging their students in learning science, and offers an abundance of examples of what high-quality science teaching for all students looks like. Divided into three sections, this book is a connected set of chapters around the central idea that the decisions made by good science teachers help light the way for their students along both familiar and unfamiliar pathways to understanding. The book addresses topics and issues that occur in the daily lives and career arcs of science teachers such as: • Aiming for culturally relevant science teaching • Eliciting and working with students’ ideas • Introducing discussion and debate • Reshaping school science with scientific practices • Viewing science teachers as science learners Grounded in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), this is a perfect supplementary resource for both preservice and inservice teachers and teacher educators that addresses the intellectual challenges of teaching science in contemporary classrooms and models how to enact effective, reform

A Framework for K-12 Science Education

A Framework for K-12 Science Education
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2012-02-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309214459

Science, engineering, and technology permeate nearly every facet of modern life and hold the key to solving many of humanity's most pressing current and future challenges. The United States' position in the global economy is declining, in part because U.S. workers lack fundamental knowledge in these fields. To address the critical issues of U.S. competitiveness and to better prepare the workforce, A Framework for K-12 Science Education proposes a new approach to K-12 science education that will capture students' interest and provide them with the necessary foundational knowledge in the field. A Framework for K-12 Science Education outlines a broad set of expectations for students in science and engineering in grades K-12. These expectations will inform the development of new standards for K-12 science education and, subsequently, revisions to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for educators. This book identifies three dimensions that convey the core ideas and practices around which science and engineering education in these grades should be built. These three dimensions are: crosscutting concepts that unify the study of science through their common application across science and engineering; scientific and engineering practices; and disciplinary core ideas in the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences and for engineering, technology, and the applications of science. The overarching goal is for all high school graduates to have sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on science-related issues, be careful consumers of scientific and technical information, and enter the careers of their choice. A Framework for K-12 Science Education is the first step in a process that can inform state-level decisions and achieve a research-grounded basis for improving science instruction and learning across the country. The book will guide standards developers, teachers, curriculum designers, assessment developers, state and district science administrators, and educators who teach science in informal environments.

Small Teaching

Small Teaching
Author: James M. Lang
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2016-03-07
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1118944496

Employ cognitive theory in the classroom every day Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that's easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference—many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Learn, for example: How does one become good at retrieving knowledge from memory? How does making predictions now help us learn in the future? How do instructors instill fixed or growth mindsets in their students? Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides firm examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines. Small teaching techniques include brief classroom or online learning activities, one-time interventions, and small modifications in course design or communication with students.

Science Teachers' Learning

Science Teachers' Learning
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2016-01-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309380189

Currently, many states are adopting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or are revising their own state standards in ways that reflect the NGSS. For students and schools, the implementation of any science standards rests with teachers. For those teachers, an evolving understanding about how best to teach science represents a significant transition in the way science is currently taught in most classrooms and it will require most science teachers to change how they teach. That change will require learning opportunities for teachers that reinforce and expand their knowledge of the major ideas and concepts in science, their familiarity with a range of instructional strategies, and the skills to implement those strategies in the classroom. Providing these kinds of learning opportunities in turn will require profound changes to current approaches to supporting teachers' learning across their careers, from their initial training to continuing professional development. A teacher's capability to improve students' scientific understanding is heavily influenced by the school and district in which they work, the community in which the school is located, and the larger professional communities to which they belong. Science Teachers' Learning provides guidance for schools and districts on how best to support teachers' learning and how to implement successful programs for professional development. This report makes actionable recommendations for science teachers' learning that take a broad view of what is known about science education, how and when teachers learn, and education policies that directly and indirectly shape what teachers are able to learn and teach. The challenge of developing the expertise teachers need to implement the NGSS presents an opportunity to rethink professional learning for science teachers. Science Teachers' Learning will be a valuable resource for classrooms, departments, schools, districts, and professional organizations as they move to new ways to teach science.

Help! I'm Teaching Middle School Science

Help! I'm Teaching Middle School Science
Author: C. Jill Swango
Publisher: NSTA Press
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2003
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1933531800

Like your own personal survival guide, Help IOCOm Teaching Middle School Science is a nontechnical how-to manualOCoespecially for first-year teachers. But even veteran teachers can benefit from the plentiful ideas, examples, and tips on teaching science the way middle-schoolers learn best. The book covers all the basics: .: .; what to do on the first day of school (including icebreaker activities), .; preparing safe and effective lab lessons, .; managing the classroom, .; working with in-school teams as well as parents. But its practicalOCoand encouragingOCoapproach doesnOCOt mean it shortchanges the basics of effective pedagogy. YouOCOll learn: how to handle cooperative learning and assessment; how to help students write effectively and; the importance of modeling for early adolescents."