I’ve applied for several teaching positions, and the thought of an interview (assuming I’m lucky enough to get one) makes me nervous. How should I prepare? What kind of questions will the committee ask?
—McKenzie, Columbia, Missouri
Having been on both ends of the interview process for faculty and administrative positions—as part of the interview committee and as the interviewee—I’ve found it’s impossible to eliminate the butterflies. I’ve talked with some colleagues to compile suggestions to make interviewing a positive experience.
Interviewers may ask, “What do you know about our community or school?” Rather than saying “not much” (which one applicant actually said), do some background work:

• Explore the community before the interview. Look for nearby resources (parks, museums, library, recreation facilities, and colleges for example). Learn a little about the history of the community and what it’s famous for.
• Visit the school’s website to learn about the facilities, extracurricular activities, staffing, and the school calendar. Look over the student and faculty handbooks if they are available online.

First impressions are lasting ones. Your behavior and attitude should reflect the accomplishments on your resume:

• Even if teachers have relaxed dress code, choose a professional style for the interview—a jacket and tie for men or a tailored outfit for women, appropriate footwear (no flip-flops or sneakers), and apparel free of advertising logos. If you can subtly include the school colors, do it!

• Invest in a professional-looking bag to replace a tattered backpack. Include a portfolio with sample lesson plans, pictures, materials you developed, products that reflect your technology skills (e.g., videos or podcasts you produced, class webpages) and any requested items. Bring several pens and a small pad for taking notes. If you are asked to do a presentation (see below), bring enough materials for your audience and make sure any technology you plan to use is in working order.
• Arrive a few minutes early. When you enter the room, stand straight with a smile on your face. Shake hands firmly and look at people directly. Repeat their names as you are introduced. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Johnson.” Be sure your cell phone is off.

In addition to asking what you know about the school, the committee will have questions such as

• How do you describe your teaching style or philosophy of teaching?
• How would you structure a class for cooperative learning?
• How do you adapt science lessons for special education or English language learners?
• What is your favorite lesson or unit to teach?
• What are you most passionate about in terms of science?
• What strategies have you used (or would you use) with students who are struggling or unmotivated?
• How would you incorporate any science-related work experiences (park naturalist, lab assistant, etc.) into your lessons?
• What is one “big idea” you would like students to develop in your class?
• What would your ideal classroom look like?
• How do you incorporate literacy skills (vocabulary, reading, and writing) in science?
• How do you use formative assessments?
• What do you do to make sure students are working safely in the lab?

Answer the questions completely and succinctly. If asked about something you’re unfamiliar with, don’t fake a response or answer with unrelated information. Write the question down on your notepad and respond that although you’re not acquainted with the topic, you’ll add it to your list of things to learn about. (If you’re called back for a second interview, be sure to mention what you’ve learned.)
Sometimes, the interview process has a performance component. You may be asked to

• Analyze or comment on examples of student work.
• Write learning goals and activities for a given a topic and grade level.
• Teach a brief lesson—you should know ahead of time if this is required, with a description of the audience (the committee, real students), how much time, and whether the lesson will be in a lab. Do an activity that engages the audience in learning. (The “probes” in the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science books from NSTA might be useful).

The committee may ask at the end if you have any questions. Although discussions of salary and benefits are not appropriate at this time, you might be curious about

• What is the school’s philosophy toward inquiry in science?
• Will I be teaching in a lab or a regular classroom?
• Who is the school’s safety officer?
• How are new teachers evaluated?
• Is there a mentoring program for new teachers?
• What professional development activities are available (e.g., workshops, conferences)?
• What kind of technology is available for teachers and students?
• What is the role of extracurricular activities (e.g., sports, music, clubs) in the school?
• How do teachers use the community resources (that you identified before the interview)?

After the interview, send a note of thanks to the committee. Good luck!

The first days of school offer teachers an opportunity to set a positive tone and convey to students that their classrooms are supportive learning environments for all. Free chapter excerpts offered in the August 2011 issue of NSTA’s Book Beat include helpful tips from NSTA Press authors. Consider adding several of them to your classroom toolkit this fall.
Jill Swango and Sally Steward open Help! I’’m Teaching Middle School Science (grades 6–8) with a wonderful collection of ideas, games, and activities designed to captivate students’ enthusiasm for science and problem solving. Book Beat offers the free chapter “The First Day,” which provides clever icebreaker activities like The Simplest Quiz and Just Read the Directions. These opening activities can help create a comfortable, lively, and active atmosphere for learning. Elementary teachers can use author John Eichinger’s activity “What Do You See? Visual Observation” (from Activities Linking Science With Math, K-4) to boost students’ observation skills; students observe closely and then sketch familiar and unfamiliar objects, honing key science process skills as they go. High school teachers will find a wealth of ideas in Lynn Bell and John Park’s chapter “Digital Images and Video for Teaching Science” from Technology in the Secondary Science Classroom (grades 6–12). The chapter includes suggestions for using images or video to introduce just about any science topic and then following up with creative questioning to capture students’ attention and set the context for later comprehension of the topic being investigated. As Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” Check out the August issue of NSTA’s Book Beat for these resources plus tips on how to ask the right questions and one resource that might address that question “when we will use this in real life?” Best wishes for the new school year!

I once worked with a principal who encouraged us to check off the comments boxes on progress reports and report cards. Most of these were rather generic and impersonal. We thought—wouldn’t it be great to have database of comments to choose from that really reflected our science activities and goals? Fast forward a few years to Report Card Comments, an online tool that that can be customized to do just that.
As with many tools, you need to register (it’s free). You can use existing comment banks, or (better yet) create your own—with comments related to skills or specific learning goals (e.g., Demonstrated how to use a microscope to prepared slides. Created a wet mount slide.). This would be very useful if you’re using standards-based or narrative reporting. The student’s name and gender is added to the comments. At this point, you must copy and paste the “report” you create, but it’s better than doing a lot of original typing and the comment set can be saved and modified. I suspect you could paste into a document and then merge into letters or other documents. Or it’s interesting just to see the range of comments that other teachers use.
Another way to provide feedback to students is through rubrics. Many articles in NSTA journals include examples of rubrics for the activity or project, and they are often made available in the Connections for the issue. There are also many online tools for creating and formatting rubrics. I recently became aware of iRubric, which is part of the RCampus site (which is described as “a comprehensive education management system and a collaborative learning environment”). This is free, but it does require a registration. You can create rubrics from scratch, but the real value seems to be in the “gallery” of rubrics already created. You can use these as is, or modify them and re-save them. It seems a little overwhelming at first, but learning about and using the tool could be a project for a team of teachers.
If you’re looking for opportunities to create an individualized professional development plan, learning about and using tools such as these could be part of a goal to improve communications with students and parents or to provide meaningful feedback on activities. Just a thought …
 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahlness/424645772/

My neighbors just drove off, heading towards the first day of kindergarten for their daughter. I love to see the excitement on children’s faces as they go to “the big school” for the first time. Middle school and high school teachers hope to see that kind of excitement in their students too! On  the NSTA member listserves  these teachers are discussing what to do on their first day with the students—how to accomplish some of the necessary tasks like seating charts, addressing safety rules, and setting up homework folders. The suggestions for these upper level teachers range from demonstrations to skits to scavenger hunts to writing about what science is. What science investigations can begin on the first day of an early childhood classroom when there are so many social-emotional learning goals to attend to? Some of the same ideas can be used (at an age appropriate level) to engage young children on their first days at school and to begin an on-going investigation. At the open-to-all NSTA Learning Center online forums, early childhood teachers are talking about science activities they use on the first day of school.
Here are a few more ideas.
Take your children on an outdoor sensory-scavenger walk, around the school yard, to list what they felt—the rough brick wall of the school, the smooth window glass, the wet grass, the gritty sand, and the cold handrail. Take the walk in a “Simon Says” style, with the teacher as Simon, so that not only will the children touch safe objects, they will also all touch the same objects and their experience can later be compared. Tell the class not to touch any trash, mushrooms, or plants that the teacher does not touch. Exploring our senses is part of an inquiry about living things (living things respond to their environment).
Plant seeds of quickly-maturing and heat-resistant crops indoors in cups or a large class pot. It won’t matter very much how many seeds the children plant or how deep they are planted—some are bound to come up! Depending on your location, transplant the seedlings to a school garden later on, when the children are settled into the routine, or put the pot outdoors to get as much sunlight as possible. Make watering the seeds and seedlings one of the classroom jobs for children. Possible fall crops include carrots, beets, broccoli, Swiss chard, kale and other greens. Check on the seed packet and look for a low number of “days-to-maturity”. (The National Gardening Association has tips and you can get detailed information from your state Cooperative Extension Service). Caring for seedlings indoors or outside helps develop a routine while teaching about the needs of living things.
Freeze water in large containers and put these ice blocks into a water table or large tub for exploration into the properties of water. Freeze small (but not too small) toys inside the ice for fun and to give children a reason to persist in wondering about how ice melts. Provide towels to mop up the spills. Physical science explorations into the nature of water and water flow can be a year-long inquiry—from filling the top of a coin with water drops to  pouring water or dropping ice down rain gutter ramps to filling tubes and directing the flow.
Pair pictures of local or world-famous buildings with small blocks at a table or larger blocks on the floor to help develop spatial thinking. Spread out the blocks on a number of trays to keep a few children from monopolizing them. Soon children will be asking, “How long?” “How high?” and “How many?”
Trays are also a good way to focus children’s use of space as they work with spinning a variety of tops. This can grow from an individual activity to a group activity as the children begin to compare the motion of the tops and offer tips on how to make tops spin longer. With further exploration,  children will begin quantifying pushes and pulls in motion.
Each of these activities can be somewhat independent for the children and provide observational assessment opportunities for you to begin to  understand your class. Include writing and drawing materials at every center for children to document their observations and thinking with pictures, writing or dictation to an adult.
Comment below to share your first day science activities or join the discussion at the NSTA Learning Center. Science on the first day engages children in experiences which can lead to exploration in greater depth.
Peggy

Last year, I started giving pretests at the beginning of each unit. The students were upset because they didn’t know many of the answers, even though I explained I didn’t expect them to know everything and the pretest wouldn’t count as a grade. Are there other ways to find out what students know about a topic?
—Cheri, Bangor, Maine
One of the most important factors influencing students’ learning is not the activities you plan or the materials you use but what students already know about a topic. In her recent Edutopia blog Are You Tapping into Prior Knowledge Often Enough in Your Classroom? Rebecca Alber describes the research on the value of accessing the knowledge, skills, and experiences students bring to a learning unit.
Reflecting on my own experience with middle-schoolers, I probably did not “tap” enough at first. I was so excited about the unit topic and the great activities that students could do. But a student changed my mind. She turned in a test with tears in her eyes. “I know a lot about this, but you didn’t ask the right questions.” I asked her what she meant (the topic was marine invertebrates) and she described her summers at her grandparents’ cottage on the beaches of Florida and the extensive shell collection she had at home. I realized that if I had known that in advance, I could have asked her to share her experiences with the other students, many of whom had never seen the ocean (I should have known that ahead of time, too).
Alber mentions some activities that can help students access their prior knowledge and previous experiences. These can easily be adapted to science learning and included in science notebooks, as alternatives to traditional pretests. These are more open-ended and can tease out things that you may not have considered:

• KWL charts are three-column graphic organizers on which students note what they already (K)now about a topic, what they (W)ant to know, and finally what they (L)earn about a topic. The K and W columns can provide information prior to instruction on students’ knowledge and interests. If your students don’t know what they want to know (for the W column), ask them what they (W)onder about instead.

• Using a visual as a prompt, ask students to list what they know about a topic or to generate a list of related words. As with a KWL chart, students can include what they’ve learned about a topic from a variety of sources, including what they may have learned outside of school

• On a list of key vocabulary or concepts, ask students to put a plus sign next to those they’re comfortable with, a check mark next to those they’ve heard of but are not sure about, and a question mark next to those with which they are completely unfamiliar.

• Alber describes “ABC Brainstorming” in which students think of 26 words related to a topic from A to Z (I’d suggest students use words starting with “ex” for X). I used a similar version but instead of A-Z, students used the letters of their names or the letters in a related term such as “photosynthesis.” Student enjoyed sharing their lists. It’s interesting to do this again at the end of the unit to see if students respond differently or in greater detail.

Assessing students’ prior knowledge can also identify misconceptions or incomplete understandings. Page Keeley has created a series of books on Uncovering Student Ideas in Science. The “probes” in these books are brief activities that help teachers identify students’ preconceptions or misconceptions about a topic.
From a practical standpoint, if you find most have some familiarity with a topic, you won’t need to spend a lot of time reteaching the basics, other than perhaps a brief review. You can develop more in-depth activities and topics that build on the students’ knowledge and experiences. However, if students do not have the background knowledge and skills you expected, you’ll need activities that introduce students to fundamental concepts and processes.
Finding out a students’ prior knowledge can also be helpful in differentiated instruction. Once you identify what experiences and knowledge students have, you can plan activities for those who need basic instruction and for those who are ready for more advanced work.
I would be frustrated when students claimed they were unfamiliar with a topic I knew they’d covered in previous classes.  I found teachers in other years may have used different vocabulary. These activities can refresh students’ memories, helping them realize they knew more than they (and I) thought.
 
Photograph: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rongyos/2686415336/

In case you haven’t seen it yet, the July issue of Science Scope is themed around technology. We seem to think that technology means new cool tools, but I heard a social studies teacher define it as  “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes” and “tools and strategies that people use to solve problems.” He was teaching a unit on inventions, comparing the industrial revolution to the digital one. His students compared the telegraph and Morse code to the technology of texting and the “code” used to communicate.
Recently, on Twitter I saw a link to A Tale of Two Worlds: Old School, New School This infographic lists tools used in classrooms over the years from overhead projectors to smart phones.
Although it would be fun to nostalgically stroll down memory lane (I could add 16mm projectors, filmstrips, record players, and mimeograph machines to the list of extinct technologies that I used), it’s more important to reflect on the “practical purposes” that these technologies serve and which comes first—the purpose or the tool?
Do we invent tools to serve a need (doing things better), as in replacing overhead projectors with interactive boards for teacher presentations? Or do we invent a practical use for a new cool tool (doing better things)? I’m thinking of how in a short time iPads and smart phones have found a a place in the classroom as communication tools, as substitutes for other media, and for applications that didn’t exist a few years (or months) ago.

The laptops of today will eventually join the museum, along with floppy disks and VCRs. There is one item on the list that I hope never exists—the robot teacher. Although, if a teacher can be replaced by a robot, perhaps he or she should be! It’s interesting to see the percentage of teachers who have embraced social networking for professional learning and communications—applying a tool to a purpose.
Speaking of social networking, join in on Tuesday evenings (8–9 pm Eastern) to #scichat on Twitter. Last week’s online tweetchat was an amazingly focused conversation on project-based learning in science with many educators sharing their experience and expertise (and links to relevant online resources). #nstachat occurs on a less frequent basis, but the conversations also focus on a specific topic. It’s interesting how these social networking sites have morphed from “here’s what I had for dinner” to highly engaging opportunities for professional communications.

This is the latest issue in a well-designed and informative series on inquiry learning. I would encourage secondary teachers to read these issues of Science and Children, especially if you’re new to the idea of inquiry learning or want to see what younger students are capable of. Many of the ideas can be adapted for older students.
Assessment is often an afterthought or something that happens at the end of a unit. As the editor suggests, every assignment can provide evidence of what (and how) students are learning. A formal “test” is not the only tool in your assessment toolkit, and none of the articles here describe how to improve standardized test scores. Rather, they focus on authentic observations, using feedback to choose instructional strategies, and providing useful and appropriate feedback to students. (For example, see Formative Assessment Probes: With a Purpose to differentiate between assessment of learning and assessment for learning.)
As the guest editorial The Changing Landscape of Assessment suggests, “Children, even before kindergarten, are more capable than we ever thought—capable when accessible contexts are used and the classroom environment is geared toward the critique and communication of ideas and information.” What may appear to be play could actually be children’s attempts to explore the world around them.  Measuring Learning includes an activity for younger students to explore temperature changes  [SciLinks: Systems of Measurement, How Can Heat Be Measured? How Can Matter Be Measured?]
You may have read that traditional “cookbook” labs can be revised into inquiry-based ones. Shifting to an Inquiry-Based Experience provides some suggestions for how to do this, along with a sample investigation in electricity. The authors note that the steps can be implemented gradually as students (and the teacher) become more familiar with inquiry. What causes a charge to move from one substance to another? provides background information for teachers. [SciLinks: Electric Current, Current Electricity, Static Electricity]  Whooo Knew? shows how a commonly used activity such as dissecting owl pellets can become an interesting, differentiated project. [SciLinks: Food Chains, Food Webs, Predator/Prey]

Teachers of young children will identify with the author of Capitalizing on Curiosity. He describes his experiences in using what he thought was “chaos” (and haven’t we all had that feeling) to realize that learning was still going on—just not exactly what he thought would happen. By reflecting on the “feedback” from observing and talking with students he gained a better understanding of how they can be involved in inquiry. (Young children seem eager to explore “what would happen if …” I wonder what happens as they get older?) [SciLinks: Buoyancy]
Scientists on a Mission illustrates how studying isopods (aka pillbugs) can be kicked up a few inquiry notches to engage students in making observations, posing questions, and designing an investigation. This could be a good introduction at the beginning of the year to assess students’ previous experiences with inquiry. If the closest your students come to lobsters is at a restaurant, you may have to think of other topics for research as your read The Case of Lobster Shell Disease. The authors provide examples of how they worked on projects with students to investigate a topic of local interest, and they share their tools, rubrics, and advice, including “Assessment of student progress is essential throughout the course of the project, not only to determine what methods work best and ensure that students grasped the concepts but also to continually incorporate student inquiries into the lesson material. [SciLinks: Arthropods]
Don’t be mislead by the title of the article Museum Connections. Although the author is a museum educator, the “connections” she’s making relate to how classroom design can facilitate inquiry learning, curiosity, and independence in young students. The self-assessment checklist (see the Connections) can be used to assess how inquiry-friendly your classroom is. (I’m already thinking of how it could be adapted for classrooms in secondary schools.) The article also describes how several teachers used the checklists to redesign their classroom spaces to accommodate various types of learning experiences
Feed Up, Feedback, Feed Forward  may sound confusing, but all three processes were used in a kindergarten lesson on conservation, with a focus on composting. The authors define and describe the terms. Feed up—what’s our purpose? Feedback—how are we doing? Feed forward—where do we go from here. The sample rubric is very student-friendly and could be adapted to other projects [SciLinks: What Is Conservation,  Composting, Decomposers]
And check out more Connections  for this issue (July 2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.
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