Many teachers assess engagement with video lectures by inspecting students’ notes at the start of class. However, notetaking doesn’t necessarily prove the comprehension of the material.
I had the opportunity to develop an advanced chemical lab design course for a small group of ambitious students. I have outlined the resources I used and how I pulled the course together,
This simple idea can help students learn the importance of honest self-reflection and foster meaningful conversation between the student and teacher.
I recently participated in a conference known as the Digital Pedagogy Lab as a fellow, which required leading a workshop (or an equivalent). I chose to structure my workshop around the ideas of critical pedagogy and STEM, and particularly how we use these ideas in a practical way in the classroom (both F2F (face-to-face) and DL (distance learning)). This blog will be one of a two-part series on these topics.
In order for students to be fluent enough with the CCCs and core ideas to use them to support their arguments, we teachers need a way to help students become familiar with them.
Doug Ragan been using magnets of elements and subatomic particles for some time to help his students visualize what is happening at the particle level of chemistry. Download the files attached to the post and print out your own set of elements and particles!
Since 2013, I have been creating video tutorials for use in a flipped classroom setting. Over the years, the format of my videos has evolved as I’ve uncovered the best practices in technique.
Having presented on the topic several times over the summer, I am sharing strategies for helping support diverse learners. As we teachers prepare to go back to school, I have summarized my presentation into a list of ways to help your classroom be inclusive for all learners.
When it comes to the best approach for student learning, there seems to be two very divided camps: those who promote direct instruction and those who favor inquiry. I have been thinking a lot about this issue for several years now and decided to finally write my reflections down, based on 6 years of experience as a science teacher.
I facilitate a working group of chemistry teachers in the New York area and we recently created our own activity surrounding the topic of oxidation. The goal of the probe was to force students to think about what the meaning of oxidation is, as well as to allow students to engage in the science and engineering practice of argumentation. This was an introductory lesson to my oxidation and reduction unit prior to students learning the terms oxidation and reduction.
