{"id":3772,"date":"2021-09-23T19:19:48","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T23:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/edt431-531\/?p=3772"},"modified":"2023-01-27T16:27:44","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T21:27:44","slug":"the-hitchhikers-guide-to-exemplary-science-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/2021\/09\/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-exemplary-science-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Exemplary Science Teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Don’t you ever look back to your high school years and wish you were sitting at a lab desk listening to your teacher drone on about testcrosses, ecological zones, or transcription factors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, me neither.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you may ask, or at least think in the back of your head, why is this guy enrolled in a teacher education program studying to be a science teacher? Well, even though my science classes were filled with notes, worksheets, and exams, I also experienced the wonder that is biology through explorative labs, activities, and guest speakers. The love of science instilled in me by my science teachers has propelled my drive to become a teacher that prioritizes actually “doing” science, not simply reading a textbook that describes hundreds of older white men that have done science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how does one become a teacher like this in a world where standardization is becoming the norm and students and teachers alike face increasing pressure to perform?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After studying the practices of many exemplary science teachers ranging from kindergarten all the way to high school, I want to offer three simple tenets for exemplary science teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Be Inventive<\/strong>

    One theme that underscored each exemplary science teacher’s teaching philosophy was the ability to create lessons and activities that truly engaged the students, allowing the students to actively participate in their own learning. Yet one might be hard-pressed to do these things with some infamously rote science concepts.

    Even topics as “boring” as learning the Periodic Table can become engaging if a teacher is inventive enough, as the blog Science Lessons that Rock asserts:<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    https:\/\/www.sciencelessonsthatrock.com\/blog\/previous\/2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    This method brings fun into the chemistry classroom, yet it feels very disconnected from reality. Many students often leave the science classroom with nothing but isolated knowledge in their head, not realizing the impact this knowledge has on every part of their lives. What can teachers be in order to foster inquiring minds in their students? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. Be relatable<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Students want to learn things that actually matter to their lives. Luckily for us, science is very<\/strong> applicable to our lives, but students don’t often understand this. Cue inquiry-based learning. In this technique, used in virtually every exemplary science classroom that I studied, students become conductors of their own learning; they pose their own questions, gather their own data, and communicate their own results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    To demonstrate a real-life example of inquiry in action, let’s watch Casey Middle School in Boulder, CO where students decided they wanted to explore the river they walk by each and every day on their way to class:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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