Pathways to Scientific Teaching


Book Description

This book is based on a series of Pathways articles that illustrate effective instructional methods to help students gain conceptual understanding in ecology. It presents a philosophy of scientific teaching based on pedagogical principles designed to improve learning.




Ambitious Science Teaching


Book Description

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.




The Teaching Brain


Book Description

“A significant contribution to understanding the interaction among teachers, students, the environment, and the content of learning” (Herbert Kohl, education advocate and author). What is at work in the mind of a five-year-old explaining the game of tag to a new friend? What is going on in the head of a thirty-five-year-old parent showing a first-grader how to button a coat? And what exactly is happening in the brain of a sixty-five-year-old professor discussing statistics with a room full of graduate students? While research about the nature and science of learning abounds, shockingly few insights into how and why humans teach have emerged—until now. Countering the dated yet widely held presumption that teaching is simply the transfer of knowledge from one person to another, The Teaching Brain weaves together scientific research and real-life examples to show that teaching is a dynamic interaction and an evolutionary cognitive skill that develops from birth to adulthood. With engaging, accessible prose, Harvard researcher Vanessa Rodriguez reveals what it actually takes to become an expert teacher. At a time when all sides of the teaching debate tirelessly seek to define good teaching—or even how to build a better teacher—The Teaching Brain upends the misguided premises for how we measure the success of teachers. “A thoughtful analysis of current educational paradigms . . . Rodriguez’s case for altering pedagogy to match the fluctuating dynamic forces in the classroom is both convincing and steeped in common sense.” —Publishers Weekly




Interest in Mathematics and Science Learning


Book Description

Interest in Mathematics and Science Learning, edited by K. Ann Renninger, Martin Nieswandt, and Suzanne Hidi, is the first volume to assemble findings on the role of interest in mathematics and science learning. As the contributors illuminate across the volume's 22 chapters, interest provides a critical bridge between cognition and affect in learning and development. This volume will be useful to educators, researchers, and policy makers, especially those whose focus is mathematics, science, and technology education.




Preschool Pathways to Science


Book Description

To ensure they're meeting early learning guidelines for science, preschool educators need fun, age-appropriate, and research-based ways to teach young children about scientific concepts. That's just what they'll get with this hands-on guidebook. The basis for the PBS KIDS show Sid the Science Kid, this innovative teaching resource helps children ages 3 - 5 investigate their everyday world and develop the basics of scienfific thinking, skills they'll apply across subject areas when they enter school. A fun and engaging way to introduce science to young children, PrePS is a must-have because it: is based on the domain-specific approach to cognitive development; provides age-appropriate introduction to key science practices; makes the most of children's natural curiosity; encourages collaboration between teachers and children; enhances any curriculum; and taps teachers' creativity. This reader-friendly guide gives educators the guidance they need to work PrePS into their existing program; sample schedules designed for the preschool classroom; and detailed sample activites they can do right away or use as templates for their own creative lessons. And with the book's assessment guidelines, teachers will know PrePS is having a measurable effect on the classroom environment and student learning.




Teaching Science in Diverse Classrooms


Book Description

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




Scientific Teaching


Book Description

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.




College Pathways to the Science Education Standards


Book Description

This book targets students who are going to be K-12 teachers and points out the responsibilities that both science and education faculty members face. These responsibilities not only include providing fundamental information and skills related to teaching, but also mentoring teachers to reflect their understanding. The National Science Education Standards specifically address grades K-12; however, these standards have a great significance for higher education in that they also address systematic issues of teacher preparation and professional development. This document discusses ways in which the Standards are meaningful to higher education. Chapters 1 and 3 focus on the teaching and assessment standards. Chapter 2 concerns professional development standards. Chapter 4 addresses content standards. Chapter 5 discusses science education program standards. Chapter 6 describes the science education system standards. (YDS)




Enhancing Science Education


Book Description

This book helps meet an urgent need for theorized, accessible and discipline-sensitive publications to assist science, technology, engineering and mathematics educators. The book introduces Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and demonstrates how it can be used to improve teaching and learning in tertiary courses across the sciences. LCT provides a suite of tools which science educators can employ in order to help their students grasp difficult and dense concepts. The chapters cover a broad range of subjects, including biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics, as well as different curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. This is a crucial resource for any science educator who wants to better understand and improve their teaching.




STEM Learning with Young Children


Book Description

This teacher’s guide provides the background information, STEM concepts, and strategies needed to successfully implement an early STEM curriculum (Ramps and Pathways) with young children, ages 3–8. R&P actively engages young children in designing and building ramp structures using wooden cove molding, releasing marbles on the structures, and observing what happens. Children use logical-mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills as they explore science concepts related to motion, force, and energy. This guide helps teachers to: Structure and organize an engaging STEM learning environment. Understand and promote logical-mathematical and scientific thinking during investigations. Promote social settings that enhance communication, cooperation, and collaboration. Make the necessary accommodations and modifications for diverse learners. Integrate STEM concepts and skills with other content areas. Align teaching and learning with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Assess STEM learning using formative and summative assessments. Establish adult learning communities to support ongoing professional development. Help children develop habits and behaviors that contribute to positive attitudes toward STEM. This one-of-a-kind resource uses a newly created Inquiry Teaching Model (ITM) as the conceptual framework and devotes specific attention to the importance of an inclusive and social, STEM learning environment in which children are free to collaborate, take risks, and investigate within the context of exploratory and constructive play.