Teaching Science 2.0

Quite often, U.S. students are compared to International students and found “lacking.” The Third World College Exam gives you the chance to see actual questions from India’s 11th grade entrance exam.  Many of these questions would challenge the best U.S. students…and many U.S. adults.  There is a lot of talk about reforming U.S. education so that we can remain competitive in a global economy.  So, here is my question…  Does this exam identify what you want U.S. high school kids to be able to do?  If not, what questions would you suggest?

Teaching should be about building on student’s ideas.  Here is a great “opinion” article fro Matthew Kay, a teacher at Philly’s Science Leadership Academy.

I really liked this excerpt about helping students to open up and share their ideas.

So it is with the inquiry based learning that we model for the other schools in Philadelphia. Our ninth graders come to us shy about asking questions that are often scattered and incoherent. When encouraged, they open up, and then incessantly offer their ideas. (I illustrate this for all classes on the first full day of every year, when I put a big rubber ball under my shirt and pretend to give laborious birth to it. We name this child “my idea.” I pass it around nervously, and when someone drops it, I snatch it up and curl into the fetal position. They laugh. I eventually get over my shock and learn to trust again, slowly passing it, then throwing it around the room for everyone to touch. There are two morals: first, you can’t protect your idea forever, and second, our ideas grow when, by dialogue and debate, others are allowed to get their fingerprints on them.)

I started this blog earlier this summer (after “nuking” my previous blog) as a way to post ideas, strategies and ramblings for teaching…specifically, science teaching.  Life got in the way over the past 6 weeks as I accepted a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh and moved my family across the state.  We finally moved in on Labor Day, just in time for classes to start!

Now that I am settling in, I’ll start posting on a regular basis.  For this week, I thought it best to post this great video…What do teachers really make?  (Not Safe for Work)