I just came back from the CA Science Teachers Association in Long Beach — a very good time. I like science teachers. They’re erstwhile, smart, and care about kids. I gave a presentation on electrostatics — you can download my handouts.

I saw one very good presentation on how to transform traditional cookbook-type labs to be more inquiry oriented and engage the kids. Check out his pretty pictures of dissolving M&M’s! I also liked his activity for showing radioactivity using M&M’s, and showing the probability wave around an atom using markers.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

For science geeks like me, there are a lot of really fun shops with neat-o science gifts. Send me yours, and I’ll add them to this list! It can be hard to find stuff like this — if someone wants to start a web-business, creating an online catalog of this sort of stuff would be a great service!

Made with Molecules

This is my previous co-worker’s site — silver jewelry in the shape of molecules — caffeine (for the coffee addict), serotonin (when you’re feeling blue), oxytocin (for valentine’s day)… they’re really lovely!

Trilobite

For the bio-inspired, this site has clothing centered on evolution and paleontology.

If you google “Science t-shirts” you’ll find a wealth of places online, like ThinkGeek. I’d love to hear specific recommendations.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

I’ve posted a new episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast…

Episode: 18. Take it outside

Sometimes kids don’t have much experience with nature. TI teacher coach Kim Marie Hansen tells us how she got her inner city students outside and observing the world, by using nature journals.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

One thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately is the special place called academics. I was very happy at the Exploratorium, because I could see the results of my work every day. I was working directly with teachers and giving them tools that they needed, and that felt good. Now, I am doing much more meta-level work: I am studying the practices that make teaching more effective.

So, what I’m doing may eventually assist teachers (and thus students) but it’s certainly not as “fun” as being out there in the trenches, figuring out the conductivity of play-doh.

I find myself wondering — am I having an impact? It takes SO long to create knowledge. That is the case in all science. It takes years to learn to crystallize a certain molecule. It will take me years to come up with evidence regarding how students grapple with concepts in this one course (electricity and magnetism) that I’m studying. So, it will take years to discover information about how people think about this one topic.

Will this information help teachers, and thus, eventually, students? I would be curious to hear from any educators on this topic. Do you read the results of education research? I have not seen much evidence, so far, of active outreach on the part of education researchers, to disseminate their findings among K-14 teachers. I would be interested to know of any such efforts!

When I first came into this position, one of the professors in the department realized that I was an activist. And suggested that this position will help make me an informed activist. At the least, I feel that that’s true.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

Hey, I’ve posted a new episode on my podcast: “Science Teaching Tips”
Episode: 17. Think Positive

Got a tough kid in your class? TI Staff Educator Modesto Tamez tells us a story from his teaching career – a powerful technique that has helped him win over the stubborn, negative students.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

I used to tell people “I’m a visual learner.” I liked seeing things, and organizing things graphically. But now after a bunch of reading, I’m not so sure.

There’s been a lot of research on learning styles. For example, one rubric classifies people as:

• Active/Reflective
• Sensing/Intuitive
• Visual/Verbal
• Sequential/Global

You can take this test here. On a 11 point scale, I scored between 1 and 3 on all measures (except sequential, where I scored a 5. I am pretty darned linear and logical). The score sheet tells me that that means that I have a “balanced” approach. I’m not so sure. I just think that means that the way I learn really depends on whether I’m in a classroom, for example, or on a dance floor. In other words, it’s “context dependent.”

While a lot of people ascribe to the idea that different people have different learning styles, there is also a fair amount of critique of the idea. For one, research has found that people’s learning styles aren’t generally very stable — they change over time and depending on the situation. So, that might mean that we’re not measuring what we think we measure with these questions. Here’s one sample question from the test I took:

When I think about what I did yesterday, I am most likely to get
(a) a picture.
(b) words.

You know what, it really depends on what I did yesterday, and what I’m doing right now.

The recommendation for teachers has been to teach in a variety of ways (lecture, group work, talk about applications of the science, give broader context, show detailed linear steps, etc.), and that way they will address a variety of learning styles without having to know the particular learning style of each student. That makes sense, and students will definitely benefit from seeing the material presented in a variety of formats. So, if learning styles are false, are they necessarily harmful if they result in information being presented in multiple ways?

Some may argue “yes,” because it gives students an excuse to tune out certain types of instruction because it “doesn’t fit my learning style.” Yet, there is some research that people actually learn more when they are presented with information in a way other than the one they prefer! I wonder if this is because, if I like pictures and it’s easy for me to understand them, then being presented with text makes me work harder to make that connection and I end up having deeper learning?

So, the learning styles debate is an interesting one. For teachers, I think it’s best to just figure that people need to grapple with information in a variety of ways, and so the more diversity you can provide, the better.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.