K-12

Books of classroom demonstrations (A Demo a Day)

February 23, 2009

Here is a very nice review (from a teacher’s listserv I’m on) about what sounds like a great book for the chemistry teacher: A good book about Chemistry for the middle school and high school:  “A Demo a Day, A Year of Chemical Demonstrations”, by Gross, Bilash and Koob.  It has “Separating Metallic Iron from [...]

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Body metrics: Helping students learn the metric system

February 21, 2009

Students really struggle with the metric system.  I know I still do.  I have a rough iea of how long an inch is, and how long a foot is, but I don’t have a great sense of how long a centimeter or meter is.  In this episode of Science Teaching Tips, TI staff educator Lori [...]

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Let’s Find Out!

February 10, 2009

We’re up to Episode 67 of the Science Teaching Tips podcast! Woo hoo, over a year of science education podcasts!  This one is with one of the most brilliant folks at the Exploratorium (and that’s saying a lot) — Dr. Thomas Humphrey makes my brain spin.  And it’s because he’s just so interested in so [...]

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Teaching abroad

December 19, 2008

For this week’s episode of Science Teaching Tips, I’ve got a story from a veteran teacher about her first year of teaching — which was quite unusual.  She was placed in a rural school in Guatemala.  You think you’ve got it tough?!  Hear about her challenges in Episode 63 – Teaching Abroad.

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Mastery learning in K-12 classrooms

December 12, 2008

Two local teachers in Colorado (Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams)  just put together a wonderful little video about how they completely transformed their high school chemistry classrooms, so that students would actually master the material.  In the video, two dynamic presenters show and talk about how they used video podcasts to make better use of [...]

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Free webinar with Michio Kaku for teachers and students

December 11, 2008

Wow, I was just sent this information about a wonderful chance for teachers and students to connect (for FREE) with a really dynamic scientist, Michio Kaku.  You can see my previous post about a talk he gave on the Physics of the Impossible at AAPT last summer — he was an incredibly gifted speaker. Funny, [...]

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Make your own phonograph (Repost)

December 6, 2008

I’ve got so many different posts that I want to write… scribbled notes on different science myths and beautiful everyday things, but I have been so very busy. I’m sorry. I will get back to writing detailed posts in a few weeks! In the meantime, I’d like to recycle a good old post on making [...]

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The mathematics of a bouncing ball

December 5, 2008

Have you ever really listened to the sound of a bouncing ball? There’s some elegant mathematics to be had in this simple thing. In this episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast, staff educator and physicist Tom Humphrey takes us to the most perfect bouncing ball I’ve ever seen (or heard) — an exhibit at [...]

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Ask a science education question

December 2, 2008

I just found out about a neat free service for science educators.  It’s mostly for those in Colorado, but those outside Colorado are welcome to use it as well.  It’s a free email servicer for teachers to ask questions directly of a science education expert, who will go out and find the answer for you.  [...]

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The Last Straw (teaching science with soda straws!)

December 1, 2008

Despite my better judgment, I invite TI staff educator Eric Muller to do one more set of activities on my Teaching Tips podcast —several things you can do with soda straws.  Listen to the episode – The Last Straw. Holding Charge activity (PDF) More of Eric Muller’s activities

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Mini Labs OR How to teach scientific reasoning without using a lot of class time

November 24, 2008

I just posted a new episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast on Mini Labs. Give it a listen!  “Zeke” Kossover is a teacher in the bay area, and he’s always posting wonderful tips about teaching — from great organizational tips to the best places to find cheap electronic components to astute tips for teaching [...]

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Workshop: Chemistry of Water

November 24, 2008

A free workshop for educators on December 9th from the National Science Digital Library: This Web Seminar will focus on dynamic online resources you can use to teach your students about the chemistry of water through the NSDL Chemical Education Digital Library. Join presenters Dr. John Moore, W. T. Lippincott Professor and director of the [...]

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How to write assessments for students to learn how to learn

November 20, 2008

This is the last in a series of three posts on Dan Schwartz’s work on preparation for future learning, or helping students learn skills instead of rote facts so that they can apply their knowledge to new situations. All pictures in this post are courtesy of Dan Schwartz. Contrasting cases In the previous post, I [...]

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Why students fail to transfer what they learn

November 17, 2008

We had a visit from Stanford education researcher Dan Schwartz last week, and what he told us about how people learn just rocked my world. I always enjoyed his work (and it was a real pleasure to tell him how much he’s influenced my thinking about education), and have blogged before about his A Time [...]

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Hey neat! (OR The importance of hooking your students’ interest)

November 7, 2008

I had the great pleasure to work at the Exploratorium with a wide variety of master teachers, each with their own unique style.  I learned something new from each one of them.  What I learned most from Modesto Tamez –  who taught K-12 science with aplomb for 18 years — was about how to work [...]

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Resources for teaching about voting and mathematics

November 6, 2008

The NSDL has pulled together some classroom resources for teaching about voting and polls, voting technology, and the history of voting.  These are taken from the NSDL Expert Voices blog. Annenberg/CPB: Cast Your Vote From the NSDL Middle School Portal: Math and Science Pathways Multiple polls claim to know how public opinion shifts day-to-day during [...]

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The drama of the immune system

October 24, 2008

Hey guess what!  Science Teaching Tips was just highlighted in the Websights section of The Physics Teacher.   Woo hoo! I’ve got a new episode of  the podcast posted – The drama of the immune system. This is one of the favorites of our group at the Teacher Institute, and teachers are always asking Tory to [...]

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Science of sports

October 20, 2008

One of the NSDL blogs — Exemplary Resources for Middle School Math and Science — just posted a very nice list of several places you can find information on science & sports for use in your classroom: These resources take an in-depth look at how chemistry and technology have had a huge impact on all [...]

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How to see that light is a wave

October 17, 2008

It can be hard to change your view of things. I was just talking about this with a friend last night — we get used to a certain model of the world in science, and it’s rather revolutionary to see the world in a different way. If you see something that doesn’t fit your view [...]

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Put kids’ skepticism to work

October 10, 2008

In the latest episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast, you can hear (the wildly funny) children’s book author David Schwartz talk about how he used kids’ skepticism to get them to do some good measurement problem.   A class disagreed with the numbers in one of his math books, and set out to prove [...]

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