Teaching Students to Think Like Scientists


Book Description

It is essential that students learn to examine, review, and evaluate knowledge and ideas through a process of scientific investigation and argumentation. Using these instructional methods and lesson scenarios, teachers of all disciplines will gain the tools needed to offer students a richer, lasting understanding of science, its concepts, and its place in their lives and the global community.




Thinking Like a Scientist


Book Description

Thinking Like a Scientist focuses on high-interest, career-related topics in the elementary curriculum related to science. Students will explore interdisciplinary content, foster creativity, and develop higher order thinking skills with activities aligned to relevant content area standards. Through inquiry-based investigations, students will explore what scientists do, engage in critical thinking, learn about scientific tools and research, and examine careers in scientific fields. Thinking Like a Scientist reflects key emphases of curricula from the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary, including the development of process skills in various content areas and the enhancement of discipline-specific thinking and habits of mind through hands-on activities. Grade 5




Think Like a Scientist in the Classroom


Book Description

Complete a variety of fun science experiments using the items found in your classroom at school.




Why Don't Students Like School?


Book Description

Easy-to-apply, scientifically-based approaches for engaging students in the classroom Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham focuses his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning. His book will help teachers improve their practice by explaining how they and their students think and learn. It reveals-the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences. Nine, easy-to-understand principles with clear applications for the classroom Includes surprising findings, such as that intelligence is malleable, and that you cannot develop "thinking skills" without facts How an understanding of the brain's workings can help teachers hone their teaching skills "Mr. Willingham's answers apply just as well outside the classroom. Corporate trainers, marketers and, not least, parents -anyone who cares about how we learn-should find his book valuable reading." —Wall Street Journal




Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards


Book Description

Humans, especially children, are naturally curious. Yet, people often balk at the thought of learning scienceâ€"the "eyes glazed over" syndrome. Teachers may find teaching science a major challenge in an era when science ranges from the hardly imaginable quark to the distant, blazing quasar. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards is the book that educators have been waiting forâ€"a practical guide to teaching inquiry and teaching through inquiry, as recommended by the National Science Education Standards. This will be an important resource for educators who must help school boards, parents, and teachers understand "why we can't teach the way we used to." "Inquiry" refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and in which students grasp science knowledge and the methods by which that knowledge is produced. This book explains and illustrates how inquiry helps students learn science content, master how to do science, and understand the nature of science. This book explores the dimensions of teaching and learning science as inquiry for K-12 students across a range of science topics. Detailed examples help clarify when teachers should use the inquiry-based approach and how much structure, guidance, and coaching they should provide. The book dispels myths that may have discouraged educators from the inquiry-based approach and illuminates the subtle interplay between concepts, processes, and science as it is experienced in the classroom. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards shows how to bring the standards to life, with features such as classroom vignettes exploring different kinds of inquiries for elementary, middle, and high school and Frequently Asked Questions for teachers, responding to common concerns such as obtaining teaching supplies. Turning to assessment, the committee discusses why assessment is important, looks at existing schemes and formats, and addresses how to involve students in assessing their own learning achievements. In addition, this book discusses administrative assistance, communication with parents, appropriate teacher evaluation, and other avenues to promoting and supporting this new teaching paradigm.




Inquiry-based Science Education


Book Description

Students often think of science as disconnected pieces of information rather than a narrative that challenges their thinking, requires them to develop evidence-based explanations for the phenomena under investigation, and communicate their ideas in discipline-specific language as to why certain solutions to a problem work. The author provides teachers in primary and junior secondary school with different evidence-based strategies they can use to teach inquiry science in their classrooms. The research and theoretical perspectives that underpin the strategies are discussed as are examples of how different ones areimplemented in science classrooms to affect student engagement and learning. Key Features: Presents processes involved in teaching inquiry-based science Discusses importance of multi-modal representations in teaching inquiry based-science Covers ways to develop scientifically literacy Uses the Structure of Observed learning Outcomes (SOLO) Taxonomy to assess student reasoning, problem-solving and learning Presents ways to promote scientific discourse, including teacher-student interactions, student-student interactions, and meta-cognitive thinking




What Is a Scientist?


Book Description

Simple text and full-color photographs depict children engaged in various activities that make up the scientific process: asking questions, noticing details, drawing what they see, taking notes, measuring, performing experiments, and more.




How Students Learn


Book Description

How do you get a fourth-grader excited about history? How do you even begin to persuade high school students that mathematical functions are relevant to their everyday lives? In this volume, practical questions that confront every classroom teacher are addressed using the latest exciting research on cognition, teaching, and learning. How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the bestselling How People Learn. Now, these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness. Organized for utility, the book explores how the principles of learning can be applied in teaching history, science, and math topics at three levels: elementary, middle, and high school. Leading educators explain in detail how they developed successful curricula and teaching approaches, presenting strategies that serve as models for curriculum development and classroom instruction. Their recounting of personal teaching experiences lends strength and warmth to this volume. The book explores the importance of balancing students' knowledge of historical fact against their understanding of concepts, such as change and cause, and their skills in assessing historical accounts. It discusses how to build straightforward science experiments into true understanding of scientific principles. And it shows how to overcome the difficulties in teaching math to generate real insight and reasoning in math students. It also features illustrated suggestions for classroom activities. How Students Learn offers a highly useful blend of principle and practice. It will be important not only to teachers, administrators, curriculum designers, and teacher educators, but also to parents and the larger community concerned about children's education.




This Book Thinks You're a Scientist


Book Description

Hands-on science for children who love to investigate, experiment, and explore This Book Thinks You’re a Scientist, developed by the Science Museum, London, as a complement to their new interactive gallery for children, explores seven key scientific areas: force and motion, electricity and magnetism, earth and space, light, matter, sound, and mathematics. Each spread centers on an open-ended question or activity, with space on the page for the child to write, draw, or interact with the book. Bend water with static power. Pack a suitcase for a trip to space. Design a new musical instrument. At the end of the book, there is a section for children to record their own guided independent investigations, including surveys and space to log the results of their experiments. Hand-drawn illustrations and a collage-style photographs encourage creativity and help children to think like a scientist by noticing details, questioning everything, and dreaming up new ideas.




How to Be a Scientist


Book Description

Learn how to think like a scientist, look at the world in a brand-new way and have tons of fun with science comedian Steve Mould's bold and playful kids science book. Supporting STEM and STEAM education initiatives, How to be a Scientist will inspire kids to ask questions, do activities, think creatively, and discover amazing fun facts! A firm favorite in classrooms and homes alike, this science book for kids has earned itself a permanent spot on many family bookshelves. With more than 40 fun questions, experiments, games, and real-life scenarios that make scientific concepts fun and relevant, it's not hard to see why! Simple activities with undetermined answers encourage curious young readers to find new ways to test ideas. The stories of the great scientists and their discoveries (and failures) are told in an entertaining way to provide even further inspiration for budding young scientists. This educational book has the amazing ability to cover a wide range of ages, so if your children have an age gap this is a fantastic way to get them to engage with each other in a fun and educational way. It is informative, colorful, well written and draws you into its pages with an insatiable appetite for the simpler facts of science. Most of the home science experiments for kids are easy to do with items most people already have around the house, making it super easy to go from idea to execution. Explore, Investigate And Test Your Ideas! Discover the skills it takes to become a scientist. Being a scientist isn't just about wearing a white coat and doing experiments in a lab. It's about exploring, investigating, testing and figuring out how things work. How To Be A Scientist is packed with fun activities and projects that let you answer lots of tricky questions and help to explain the world around you. This kid's educational book challenges children to think for themselves and covers topics like: - Weather, making a tornado, the water cycle, how to make a compass - Energy, hot air balloons, electricity, Newton and Einstein - The solar system, making a sundial, creating your own sunrise, phases of the moon How to be a Scientist (Careers for Kids) is one of four fantastic books in the How to... educational books series, including How To Be A Math Genius, How to Be Good at Math, andHow to Make a Better World. Official reviews include: International Literacy Association's Children's Choices 2018 Reading List "Readers will be inspired to learn more about how to think and act like these famous scientists while uncovering deep scientific knowledge they can apply through fun-filled science projects." Minnesota Parent "This mix of classic and unusual science anecdotes and experiments is just the thing for budding STEM/STEAM fans, including tips for learning how to think and act like a scientist with fun activities and simple scientific explanations of biology, anatomy, physics, astronomy, chemistry and more."