Are we teaching students how to be great at doing science or at memorizing science? Of course, we all want students to be good at doing science. This why we do labs, find engaging activities, and have students practice important science skills. This is why we take students on field trips. But, is there a…
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Does the development of new curriculum – where skills like analysis, critical thinking and collaboration are valued – mean that unit or chapter tests are obsolete? Absolutely not. However, teachers do need to make improvements to their tests. Especially if tests are important to both students and teachers. For teachers, chapter or unit tests help…
Should you start using interactive notebooks in your class? In theory, interactive notebooks are supposed to welcome creative thinking into the classroom and accommodate the multiple ways of learning can be observed in our classrooms. They’re supposed to help students organize their notes and assignments as well as give students the opportunity to express their…
How do you make learning hazardous household product symbols & categories fun? Make it relevant and interesting, of course. But, how do we do that? How do we make hazardous household product symbols relevant and interesting? Some may argue that these symbols are already relevant because they are there to keep us safe. That may…
Are you constantly looking for exercises to practice science skills like graph and data analysis and CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning)? For me, it’s not that I can’t find science skills practice exercises – it’s that I can’t find relevant ones. Ones that my students can connect with. Ones that are fun to do. That’s why…
Can teachers use multiple choice to test critical and scientific thinking in the new science curriculum? The short answer is, yes, teachers can use multiple choice to test critical and scientific thinking in the new science curriculum. However, this requires some modifications to how teachers write their multiple choice questions. In our previous post,…
Does the development of new science curriculum like the Next Generation Science Standards mean multiple choice questions are no longer acceptable? Does it mean that short answer or essay/written responses are the only responses that assess critical thinking? The short answer is no. Written responses are not the only way to assess critical thinking. Multiple…
How do you teach students to write a good scientific hypothesis? Many teachers use “If, then” statements to teach this important science skill. But, at the end of the day, do they really know how to write or identify a good scientific hypothesis? According to results from a recent REAL Science Challenge contest, many students…
As science teachers, we probably do an awesome job teaching the concept of independent vs. dependent variables to students. But, how many students can actually identify those variables in a lab? Or when given some experimental data? From the results of REAL Science Challenge Volume 2 Contest 3, approximately 50% of participants struggle to identify…
How do we teach CER (Claim Evidence Reasoning) in a fun, engaging way? Whether you’re introducing CER (Claim Evidence Reasoning) for the first time to your students or looking for ways to reinforce it, it’s easier to do if we use real life examples. And, on top of being fun and interesting, it would be…
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