This evening the masters and doctoral students presented to science teachers at The World of Inquiry School, School 58. Masters students focused on their best lesson and presented the components of their unit bundle that make a highly effective science unit. The doctoral students presented their work from the science lessons on social justice, identity, respect, and indigenous knowledge.

Sherin and I presented on our studies in social justice in science education. Sherin focused on increasing access to science in informal spaces, specifically after-school programs. One of the key-takeaways from Sherin’s presentation is how informal learning opportunities greatly impact the fostering of […]

There’s a stranger in town …

Howdy Gang!  As I slide into the guest chair this week I wanted to wish you all a very happy post-Thanksgiving.  Maybe your turkey soup is simmering as you read this … Be sure to see my blog for further post-Thanksgiving instructions and remember, I’ll be following up with you!

You can do it if they can!1
As you learned from Lisa’s blog last week, the master’s students have completed their Ambitious Science Teaching mini-unit in their classrooms. Congrats to all!  In December, the rest of us will get to see the fruit of their labors during our […]

By the end of this week in the middle of November, each person in our Get Real! Science cohort will be teaching a mini-unit in our student teaching classrooms. Depending on our experiences with our cooperating teachers this semester, this may be the first time we will be leading instruction in these classrooms.

We have learned a lot of theory since we started in May, and we have had varied experiences in informal education settings. We have talked with each other and our cooperating teachers about what we plan to teach, and we have developed detailed lesson plans for review […]

Scale, proportion, and quantity in NGSS

In Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), scale, proportion, and quantity play an important role as one of the Crosscutting Concepts we consider when thinking about ecosystems, chemical reactions, particles, space, and so much more! According to NGSS Hub,
“…it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different size, time, and energy scales, and to recognize proportional relationships between different quantities as scales of change.”
From K-2, when learners discuss the sizes of objects and events in relation to one another (bigger and smaller, faster and slower), to High School, when learners use orders of magnitude […]

 
It would be Kim Possible for me to get through this post without including at least one of the numerous jokes that Dr. John VanNiel delightfully included in his presentation on Monday!
 

Dr. John VanNiel is a professor of Environmental Conservation and Horticulture at Finger Lakes Community College, and on Monday he was a guest presenter for our class, Theory and Practice in Teaching and Learning Science. An effortless pro in eliciting student ideas, he demonstrated for us how he presents information to his classes in a way that builds upon their funds of knowledge and fosters meaningful learning and […]

This week the GR!S Cohort pondered the following: How do we get our students to investigate their own questions? As educators how do you implement protocols that encourage students to identify and ask their own questions? How do we motivate learning in the classroom, and outside the classroom, in ways that encourage students to continuously seek out new questions?

Image: Huffington Post
According to the Right Question Institute “The ability to produce questions, improve questions, and prioritize questions may be one of the most important-yet too often overlooked- skills that a student can acquire in their formal education”. Traditionally, science laboratories have provided few […]