Science teachers are savvy users of instructional technology. They use a multitude of digital resources to help students explore and learn, to differentiate instruction, support collaborative classroom projects, and develop formative assessments. Science teachers also use technology (a lot) and rely on the Internet and webinars to help them increase their content knowledge, prepare for a lesson, or share ideas with others.

Earlier this year NSTA partnered with Project Tomorrow for the 2015 Speak Up survey of parents, students, and teachers to find out more about how technology supports student learning. Since 2003, Project Tomorrow has collected input from more than 30,000 schools and more than 4.5M responses have contributed to the national discussion on the use of instructional technology in the classroom. NSTA created a subset of targeted questions for teachers of science in light of A Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013). More than 3,100 science teachers completed these targeted questions (33% indicated they were members of NSTA).

In addition to these key points, the survey tells us:

• When science teachers were asked what they would need to more efficiently and effectively integrate digital content, tools, and resources into their daily instruction, the number one answer was “Planning time to work with colleagues (63%),” followed by classroom access to technology, funding support, student safety, and professional development.
• Science teachers think these types of professional development formats are most effective to help teachers learn how to integrate technology within instruction in their classroom:
  • 49%: Observations of other teachers
  • 48%: In school peer coaching and mentoring
  • 47%: Teacher led trainings
  • 45%: In-service school or district training days
  • 44%: Face to face conferences with expert presenters

• Survey respondents said these student learning experiences are most effective in improving students’ engagement and achievement in science:
  • 81%: Learning from a teacher who is excited about science
  • 74%: Conducting real research on topics that students are interested in
  • 71%: Learning from a teacher who is well trained in science
  • 67%: Watching animations, videos, or movies about science topics
  • 64%: Taking field trips to places where science happens

Technology clearly supports student learning, and science teachers are quite adept at infusing technology into their classrooms.  But as states and districts turn to a new way of teaching and learning science, how can technology help to support and enhance teacher practice within the context of their schools and districts?

Supporting Teacher Learning with Technology

Teachers must see examples and gain practice in modeling new instructional strategies closely aligned with their curriculum, informed by student work samples and data, iterative over time, and part of geographically dispersed digital networks that may extend and enhance access to resources, experts and other professional colleagues.

With respect to the effective use of technology, science teacher professional learning should be ground in helping students explore locally relevant science phenomena and engineering solutions.

Students should generate their own questions for exploration, gathering data, designing investigations and solutions, and developing and using models to help them more deeply understand and communicate their level of applied knowledge and skill. This type of learning can be found in the Framework for K–12 Science Education (Council, 2012) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013).  (In a February, 2016 blog post  I outlined some of the latest research-based strategies in designing professional development solutions that will be critical to the enactment and application of the three-dimensional teaching and learning espoused in the Framework and NGSS).

For example, augmenting a student’s reality can enhance learning as they investigate their local outdoor garden, pond, or school grounds, where thought provoking suggestions for exploration may be pushed to learners based on their location within their local environment, e.g., making observations of the flora and fauna, or collecting data in situ, perhaps using digital probes measuring the PH or O2 levels in a small stream or pond and exploring implications to sustain local ecosystems.

Similarly, platforms that seamlessly integrate virtual environments with the physical realm, situated within the authentic context of local community challenges, leverage the affordances of diverse educational technology in a coherent fashion.

Teacher professional learning and the infusion of technology to aid formative assessment also hold the potential to transform teacher practice. Differentiating learning based on student understanding as they engage in learning opportunities creates the opportunity for formative assessment and a feedback loop (for both students and teachers) that holds much promise. This resonates with the Speak Up survey data results on the top instructional strategies leveraged with technology (encouraging student self-monitoring of learning and providing feedback to students and examining student performance trends to enhance instructional plans and differentiate learning).

The 2016 survey data also shed light on the need for targeted professional learning for educators as we seek to equip them, and the students they serve, to use these tools and be critical consumers of data to inform not only their immediate teaching and learning goals, but also to guide their decisions throughout their life, as they make informed decisions and participate in a scientifically literate society.

 Creating Professional Learning that is Locally Sustained

It’s interesting to note that a vast majority of teachers (71% of science teachers and 65% of non-science teachers) use online video to enhance their personal learning. This data resonate with the notion of blending onsite and online teacher professional learning into coherent growth opportunities.

When teachers were asked what they would need to more efficiently and effectively integrate digital content, tools, and resources into their daily instruction, a whopping 63 percent said they needed “Planning time to work with colleagues.” This supports recommendations from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and Council of St
ate Science Supervisors, who call for support and delivery mechanisms that will “Enhance teacher practice through professional learning situated within the context of their schools and districts, where teachers must see examples and gain practice in modeling new instructional strategies.”

The survey also found that 81% of science teachers found information on the Internet to prepare/delivery a lesson, 58% watched Ted Talks or videos on a topic of interest, 46% attended a face-to-face conference, 31% pinned a classroom lesson plan idea to Pinterest, and 30% participated in a webinar or online conference.

Obviously the connectivity and connectedness provided via the Internet is a significantly critical support mechanism for educators. As stated in the 2016 National Education Technology Plan online learning provides immediacy, convenience, and access to other like-minded colleagues, experts, and resources that might not otherwise be available.

It is interesting to note the rise of mobile applications and social media sites like Pinterest for supporting teacher self-directed learning.  What is most important though is not what platform, app, or tool is the “flavor of the month” but in how the technology is used to enhance and personalize learning. What affordances increase connectedness, sharing promising strategies, and collegial discourse among educators? Teachers realize their passion for their subject matter, learning with like-minded colleagues, and facilitating research in topics their students are interested in energizes their students’ engagement and learning of science.

Professional Learning that Transforms Practice

Research suggests that educators are more effective and that greater student learning occurs when teachers have a deeper understanding of their subject matter, and how to teach it.

NSTA recognizes and integrates online teacher activity when collaborating face-to-face and vice versa to create a coherent experience, avoiding a bolt-on, separate and isolated, click-next, home alone activity. NSTA online networks provide immediacy, convenience, and access to colleagues, experts, and resources that may otherwise not be available.

Online personal learning and an abundance of rich content are the two cornerstones of the NSTA Learning Center. There teachers will find over 12,000 digital resources, web seminars and online virtual conferences, forums with like-minded colleagues sharing the latest practices, innovations and resources in science teaching and learning, and a suite of tools that allow them to create long term professional learning plans and document their growth over time.

NSTA formally collaborates with over 180 districts and universities across the country, helping them implement their strategic goals and course offerings in support of NGSS and STEM, both at the in-service and pre-service levels, respectively. Our NSTA Learning Center platform may be configured to enhance local onsite efforts with private cohorts and administrator dashboards to help document teacher growth as they create and complete long term professional growth plans catering to their unique needs and district and school strategic plans.

The NGSS@NSTA Hub, which is integrated with the Learning Center, contains over 300+ curated resources specifically aligned to the NGSS standards, including vetted lessons, activities, simulations, models, and other type of materials that might be used for instruction and meeting the new standards. The Hub has become a central source for science educators to locate professional learning, materials and resources to work towards the vision of the NGSS and Framework.

The NSTA Position Statements on a number of key issues including the role of technology in science education, NGSS, and inquiry support high impact and transformative instruction.

NSTA is now beginning to collaborate with districts to support  local efforts to build capacity by providing districts with targeted, face-to-face onsite programs (beyond our conferences), and with focused online webinars and moderated discussion on three dimensional learning through the NGSS@NSTA resource portal and NSTA Learning Center.

We are proud of the work NSTA does to combine online and onsite experiences that provide teachers of science with these multi-year, sequenced growth opportunities and we invite you to learn more at www.nsta.org.

Al Byers, Ph.D., NSTA Associate Executive Director, Strategic Development and Research

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Future NSTA Conferences

2016 Area Conferences

• Minneapolis, October 27–29
• Portland, November 10–12
• Columbus, December 1–3

2016 National Conference

• Nashville, March 31–April 3

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Building an Understanding of Physical Principles

Our Earth is round, although it was not always thought to be that way. It looks flat. But if the Earth is viewed from a tall building, especially near the ocean when the horizon is clear, its curvature can be seen with the naked eye. This is helped with the aid of a straightedge held

Figure 1. From a high elevation, a straightedge held at arm’s length shows that the horizon is not quite level but curved.

at arm’s length aligned with the horizon (Figure 1), a popular activity of residents of tall high-rises near the seashore. 

Eratosthenes’ observations
The first person credited with measuring the roundness of Earth was the Greek scholar and geographer Eratosthenes of Cyrene in 235 BC. This man of learning was the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. Just as the Sun and Moon are round, Eratosthenes assumed Earth was also round. He proceeded to measure “how round” and more.

From library information, Eratosthenes learned that the Sun is directly overhead at the summer solstice in the southern city of Syene (now called Aswan). At this special time in June, sunlight shining straight down a deep well in Syene was reflected up again—the only time the Sun’s reflection could be seen in the well. A nearby vertical stick in the ground at this time would cast no shadow, but farther north, in Alexandria, a vertical stick would cast a shadow.

This was evident to Eratosthenes, who noted the shadow cast by a tall, vertical pillar near his library during the summer solstice (Figure 2).

Figure 2. When the Sun is directly overhead in Syene, it is not directly overhead in Alexandria.

He measured the shadow, the shortest shadow of the year, to be 1/8 the height of the vertical pillar.

Eratosthenes’ calculations
Eratosthenes correctly assumed that rays from the faraway Sun are parallel. He then learned that while these parallel rays were vertical in Syene, they were nonvertical in Alexandria. Furthermore, he reasoned that if a line along the vertical well in Syene were extended into Earth, it would pass through Earth’s center. Likewise for a vertical line in Alexandria (or any point on the spherical Earth).

His knowledge of geometry told him that if the verticals at both locations were extended to the center of Earth, they would form the same angle that the Sun’s rays make with the pillar at Alexandria. Knowing the 8:1 ratio of the pillar’s height to the shadow length, Eratosthenes could calculate these angles to be 7.1° (Figure 3). Most

Figure 3. The 7.1° angle between the Sun’s rays and the pillar at Alexandria is the same 7.1° angle between the verticals from Alexandria and Syene.

importantly, 7.1° is about 1/50 of a circle (360 / 7.1 ≈ 50). Imagine Earth divided into 50 triangles, each with a 7.1° angle at Earth’s center and the angle’s opposite side equal to the distance between the two cities.

Aha! Eratosthenes reasoned that the distance between Alexandria and Syene must be 1/50 of Earth’s circumference! Thus the circumference of Earth becomes 50 times the distance between these two cities. This distance, quite flat and frequently traveled, was measured by surveyors to be about 5,000 stadia (800 kilometers today). Using this measurement, Earth’s circumference is 50 × 800 kilometers = 40,000 kilometers, which is very close to today’s accepted value.

Another line of reasoning that bypasses the 7.1° measurement is indicated by the nearly similar triangles in Figure 4. Just as the pillar is 8 times as high as the length of its shadow, the radius of Earth must

Figure 4. Similar triangles. Sides a and b have the same ratio as sides A and B. Just as the pillar’s height b is eight times the length of its shadow, Earth’s radius is eight times the distance between the two cities.

be 8 times the distance between the two cities. That is, Earth’s radius is 8 × 800 kilometers = 6,400 kilometers, very close to the currently accepted value. Once the value of the radius is known, the circumference is easily calculated (C = 2πr).

Eratosthenes’ legacy
Today, Eratosthenes is primarily remembered for his amazing calculation of Earth’s size, using only good thinking and a bit of geometry. Seventeen hundred years after Eratosthenes’ death, Christopher Columbus studied Eratosthenes’ findings before setting sail. Rather than heed them, however, Columbus chose to accept more up-to-date maps that indicated Earth’s circumference to be one-third smaller. If Columbus had accepted Eratosthenes’ larger circumference, then he would have known that the land he discovered was not the East Indies but rather a new world. ■

Paul G. Hewitt (pghewitt@aol.com) is the author of the popular textbook Conceptual Physics, 12th edition, and coauthor with his daughter Leslie and nephew John Suchocki of Conceptual Physical Science, 6th edition.

On the web
See complementary tutorial screencasts on physics by the author at www.HewittDrewit.com and on physical science and astronomy at www.ConceptualAcademy.com.

Editor’s Note

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of The Science Teacher journal from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

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