{"id":1109,"date":"2018-09-12T20:02:07","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T00:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/edt431-531\/?p=1109"},"modified":"2018-09-12T20:11:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T00:11:30","slug":"how-to-become-every-students-favorite-science-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/2018\/09\/how-to-become-every-students-favorite-science-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Become Every Student\u2019s Favorite Science Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up, our families always ask us what our favorite subject in school is. I always said science, and when I got to high school it was naturally more specific \u2013 zoology or biology. But I was always met with a response akin to \u201cEw, why? I hate science, I could never remember everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.education.vic.gov.au\/PublishingImages\/school\/teachers\/teachingresources\/discipline\/science\/continuum\/auburn2.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"Image result for doing science\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At the time, this didn\u2019t bother me much, my memory was good \u2013 it\u2019s how I skated through grade school. \u00a0But as I\u2019ve gone through college taking primarily science courses in geology, biology, and chemistry, and even gotten a Bachelor\u2019s degree in a scientific field, I\u2019ve come to realize that our interaction with and conception of science is almost never <em>genuinely<\/em> scientific.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bigpicnic.net\/media\/images\/TBI_diagram_1UVuK0U.width-800.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"Image result for inquiry\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The notion of science as a body of facts meant to be memorized is something most people and, unfortunately, students share. It&#8217;s necessary to emphasize the importance of &#8220;I don&#8217;t know&#8221; in science as somebody teaching it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u201c<em>In science, knowing a lot of stuff isn\u2019t the point<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 -Stuart Firestein<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Stuart Firestein: The pursuit of ignorance\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nq0_zGzSc8g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Students need to be made comfortable with not knowing. To change this fundamental misunderstanding of science, the way it is taught has to become exemplary.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The epidemic of the &quot;I Know All&quot; expert | Mikhail (Doctor Mike) Varshavski | TEDxMonteCarlo\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gLDQr9i7LkM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What is exemplary science teaching? That\u2019s honestly a hard question to answer.<\/p>\n<p>My example when thinking of this question is always my high school Physics and AP Biology teacher, who\u2019ll be known as Ms. M. Ms. M was one of the first teachers whose classes I genuinely looked forward to.<\/p>\n<p>All of my favorite science activities were done in her classes, and they all had these things in common:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Engaging, and <strong>hands-on<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Worked toward solving a <strong>problem<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Encouraged <strong>questions<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Self-guided<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Encouraged <strong>dialogue and discussion<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>And most importantly, were <strong>fun<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These sorts of lessons are easy, and actually put a smaller load of work onto the teacher. Some examples of great activities that I did, that I think were exemplary are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Doing a human re-enactment of the <strong>citric acid cycle<\/strong>;<\/li>\n<li>Building bridges (literally) to learn about <strong>distribution of force and strain<\/strong>;<\/li>\n<li>Slingshotting water balloons at the principal to learn about <strong>projectile motion<\/strong>;<\/li>\n<li>Creating a board game to simulate the life cycle of <strong>viral diseases<\/strong>;<\/li>\n<li>Interacting with live animal specimens to learn about\u00a0<strong>animal anatomy<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Encouraging students in a science classroom to actually do what scientists do is what makes an exemplary science teacher, it\u2019s all about asking questions and performing experiments.<\/p>\n<p>Science is a process, not only a body of knowledge. By encouraging inquiry, discussion, critical thinking and problem solving, science becomes every student\u2019s favorite subject.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">If pundits tells you something is true, and you don\u2019t have the critical thinking skills to evaluate their statements, then you are putty in their hands, as they shape your world view to their will.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/neiltyson\/status\/1008427135818579968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 17, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>When your students are grown and have children of their own, because of you, they won\u2019t say \u201cEw, why? I hate science.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/cwistipher\/status\/1040026176159449088<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Growing up, our families always ask us what our favorite subject in school is. I always said science, and when I got to high school <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/2018\/09\/how-to-become-every-students-favorite-science-teacher\/\" title=\"How to Become Every Student\u2019s Favorite Science Teacher\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2516,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}