JoinAll Blog Posts
Blog Post
My principal encourages all teachers to have students do class presentations during the year. I like the idea, but the thought of listening to 150 “oral reports” on a chemistry topic is mind-boggling, not to mention time-consuming. Do you...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
Beginning the year with a plan to support science talk
Calling on experienced teachers—what do you advise new teachers to do to establish routines that support discussion, especially discussion where children share their ideas and evidence for those ideas? Discussion can happen in small groups, with an...
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
Have you been to a meeting or conference presentation and seen people typing or texting? I often wondered: Are they taking notes? Checking email? Making dinner plans? Playing a game? I found this a little disconcerting, until I realized that they cou...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
You say derecho, I say “what?”
Like many other residents of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states, I learned a new weather term this week: derecho. After scrambling to the dictionary and Wikipedia, I learned that the word is pronounced deh-RAY-cho and comes from the Spanish word f...
By Claire Reinburg
Blog Post
What teachers can learn from students
I’m a first year physics teacher. I hear my colleagues talk about what they learn from their students. This puzzles me—what can I learn from students who don’t have the content knowledge that I do? —Wendy, Elizabeth, New Jersey...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
What are science teachers reading in June?
Science teachers are reading an eclectic selection of teaching resources this month, judging by the top content on NSTA’s website. You can look inside these books by downloading a free sample chapter at the NSTA Science Store. Post a comment or t...
By Claire Reinburg
Blog Post
Wrapping Up the Old Year, Preparing for the New Year
We’ve heard that after the school year ends, many teachers spend time catching up on NSTA Reports articles they didn’t have a chance to read thoroughly earlier. To help you make the most of this precious downtime and prepare for the year ...
By Debra Shapiro
Blog Post
In the July 2012 Science & Children I wrote about establishing a “Teach and Tell” circle time at the beginning of the school year....
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
At an NSTA conference this year, I got really charged up about using more inquiry with my students. But when I look at our curriculum, it’s full of traditional “cookbook” labs that we are required to do. How can I make time for inqu...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
Getting more science teachers to model “doing” science
–Occasional commentary by Robert E. Yager (NSTA President, 1982-1983)...
By Robert Yager
Blog Post
Bright ideas for instruction and assessment
Several resources appeared on my iPad this morning that made me put my coffee mug down and read (rather than tag for later on). A few were mentioned on MSP2 (Middle School Portal 2–Math and Science Pathways). Even if you teach upper elementary ...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
Migration—It's all about navigation and timing
I wouldn’t call it a misconception, but my middle school science students had an incomplete understanding of migration. They all knew that “birds fly south in the winter,” but they didn’t realize that for many birds, our location ...
By Mary Bigelow