“Oh, you’re going to be a teacher…?” “Teaching is just like being a glorified babysitter, right?” “At least science is cool, but I hated my high school biology teacher.”
These quotes are things all science education majors have heard. Little do they know, there is SO MUCH MORE to teaching! It’s not all easy and I’m about to tell you why.
Classroom Engagement
Imagine being placed in a room of 25-30 adolescents of all different backgrounds and different hobbies or interests and being expected to keep them engaged in punnett squares for 45 minutes. Not so easy, now is it?
Classroom management can be one of the hardest things to get a grasp of in the classroom, but when achieved successfully, it can become second nature. Keeping students engaged and interested in the content could be the first step.
How do you do this?
- Start class off with something exciting or funny to get their attention! From my experience in the field, some teachers love to show their students videos at the beginning of class to bring them together.
- Try doing a demo! Demos are a great way to get students interested in whatever the new topic may be. Try to involve your students or use inquiry-based learning when doing the demo to get the students thinking!
- Connect the topic to real-world examples! For example, with punnett squares, ask a student for their eye color or their parents eye colors and show the class how the punnett square works with a real example.
Content
Being a science teacher means having to teach new concepts that students might’ve never been exposed to before. This can make the learning process difficult if a teacher is not totally prepared with how they’re going to teach it or the variety of students planning to learn it.
What can a teacher do to ease this process?
- Feel your classroom. Not all your classes are going to learn things as quick as another, causing you to have to adjust your lesson plan. This is OKAY! Being sure the students can understand and apply the knowledge is most important.
- Know your students. Similar to different classes, students are all different and learn at different paces and styles. Try incorporating several activities with different learning styles to help ALL your students understand the content!
- Be prepared for misconceptions. Some students may have misconceptions that they developed in a previous class that they are going to bring to yours. Being able to identify and target those in a lesson plan will allow for you to knock them down and will allow the students to gain the correct knowledge!
Other Challenges Teachers Face
- Standardized Tests
- Testing can be hard on the students and the teachers, especially because many tests are given about a month before school actually ends! Planning out lessons and being flexible are ways that teachers can be prepared for testing as well as make sure the students get all the content they need to be successful.
- At the same time, teachers feel the pressure to make sure their students do well because often times, it’s a part of their evaluation, too. This goes back to planning and making sure there’s enough time and practice for students to be able to firmly understand the topics and perform to their best ability!
- Budgeting
- Finding money for materials to complete different activities in class can add up over time. Teachers are often paying for things on their own when it is not provided by the school. Investing in science equipment early on can save money later because you will already have it! Also, try getting materials that can be used over again in activities so you aren’t wasting hundreds of dollars on the same things year to year.
- Time
- Many classes are only about 45 minutes, which may sound like enough but when a teacher wants to do a lab, it may need more time than that. Although a teacher can’t change how much time they get with a class, they can be sure to budget their time during the class period. Being flexible is also a good way to combat time restraints because an activity might take two class periods instead of one, and when a teacher is planned, they can budget it out!
In this is video, real teacher’s talk about the difficulties in teaching all over the world:
Although teaching may seem like a ray of sunshine, there are challenges and difficulties teachers face, too.
Science teaching can seem easy to the average person, but it is full of different challenges teachers have to face everyday. Being prepared for those challenges and having strategies for combating them can be the key to a successful career! @AnnMacKenzie #EDT432 #ScienceTeaching
— Kacey Kopack (@kopack_sci) May 1, 2019
Great post Kacey! I really like that you started out the blog with things that so many of us have heard about teaching. It is sometimes really discouraging to hear what people have to say about the profession as if teaching isn’t one of the most important things in society. I totally agree with all the challenges you included. What do you think is the most challenging thing of all that you listed?
Hello Kacey,
Awesome post! I like how you talk about engagement. This is key. In field, I engaged the students with a demo. You have to remember to always try the demo out at home first! I did separation of acetone and water upon the addition of salt. The kids were amazed. I feel that they were really engaged. It helps when you travel to the margins to uncover a subject. I like your punnett square example too. I also wrote in my blog about making the content relevant to real life. It is important. Students will have a reason to learn it and they will be more engaged. I also like how you write about standardized tests. They are a pain. What I do in the classroom is ask many questions that probe for understanding. I have found that this works wonders. Ask them the whys and hows of a topic. I enjoyed watching your video. It was a good supplement to everything else you had on this blog. I did laugh at the “glorified babysitter” comment and the other one. I have heard too many of these! One lady that I told that I was becoming a teacher said, “Man, those kids are going to eat you up!”. lol. I have been into field and that is not true. My question for you is how do you find engaging things on a budget and what places can you get these from? My other question is what kind of demos would you do in your classroom? Great post!
Delaina 🙂