English learners (ELs) bring a wealth of ideas, perspectives, and solutions to STEM education. However, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018), the nearly 5 million students classified as ELs in public schools are falling behind when it comes to STEM education. Particularly, as it relates to learning science and mathematics, ELs lack opportunities to engage with challenging disciplinary practices and content.
English learners (ELs) bring a wealth of ideas, perspectives, and solutions to STEM education. However, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018), the nearly 5 million students classified as ELs in public schools are falling behind when it comes to STEM education. Particularly, as it relates to learning science and mathematics, ELs lack opportunities to engage with challenging disciplinary practices and content.
English learners (ELs) bring a wealth of ideas, perspectives, and solutions to STEM education. However, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018), the nearly 5 million students classified as ELs in public schools are falling behind when it comes to STEM education. Particularly, as it relates to learning science and mathematics, ELs lack opportunities to engage with challenging disciplinary practices and content.
English learners (ELs) bring a wealth of ideas, perspectives, and solutions to STEM education. However, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018), the nearly 5 million students classified as ELs in public schools are falling behind when it comes to STEM education. Particularly, as it relates to learning science and mathematics, ELs lack opportunities to engage with challenging disciplinary practices and content.
By Carole Hayward
Posted on 2019-02-13
“So I can inspire more students to love science!” That’s why middle school teacher Katherine W. told us she wanted to come to our national conference. Inspiration is high on the list for most people who come to an NSTA conference, as is the best science ed PD you’ll find anywhere, plus lots of amazing people. Here are eight more things middle level educators won’t want to miss at #NSTA19 in St. Louis this April.
Many of the sessions are particularly useful for middle school teachers, including the following:
Can’t Attend But Want the Experience?
Follow along on Twitter and Instagram using #NSTA19, like NSTA on Facebook and check out our St. Louis album, or follow the Science Scope editor on Twitter for middle school–specific information about the conference and other happenings at NSTA.
Pro Tips
Check out more sessions and other events with the St. Louis Session Browser. Follow all our conference tweets using #NSTA19, and if you tweet, please feel free to tag us @NSTA so we see it and share.
Need help requesting funding or time off from your principal or supervisor? Download a letter of support and bring it with you.
And don’t forget, NSTA members save up to $90 off the price of registration. Not a member? Join here.
Future NSTA Conferences
8th Annual STEM Forum & Expo, hosted by NSTA
San Francisco, July 24–26, 2019
The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
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By Carole Hayward
Posted on 2019-02-12
As a member of her local nature preserve, Katie Dunbar learned so much about the symbiotic relationship between animals and their environment. Take beavers, for example. The absence or presence of this one species has the ability to completely alter its ecosystem.
“Beavers are considered a keystone species for the vital role they play in their ecosystems,” said Dunbar, a K-5 librarian for the Palisades School District in Kintnersville, Pa. “If you remove them, the whole ecosystem changes. Their very existence ensures a healthy balance across plant life, animal species, and water levels.”
When Dunbar learned that NSTA was seeking authors, she wanted beavers to factor prominently in her storytelling. She admitted to having “great fun researching these fascinating, three feet-long little rodents” for her eBook+ Kids interactive book, Beavers Building Ecosystems.
While on a visit to Maine, Dunbar hunted down known beaver habitats, but admitted to being “completely surprised” upon discovering some of them.
“There was a huge variety in their dams, some of which I didn’t know were there until I stepped on them,” Dunbar said. “Between the trees and the brush, I couldn’t even tell that a pond was there.”
Dunbar’s eBook actively encourages K-5 students to participate in hands-on, three-dimensional learning. The content takes students through science and engineering practices; crosscutting concepts; and disciplinary core ideas. A detailed teachers’ guide supplements the e-book and can be used as a tool for class-wide, small group, or independent study of the content; provides additional ideas and activities; and assesses students on the content standards to which this e-book is aligned.
“The e-book allows students to make so many more connections with the content than if they were just reading a printed book,” Dunbar explained. “You can tell kids the connections, but they are not going to remember. If they get to interact with ideas and make connections themselves they will remember.”
Once considered a nuisance, more recent evidence points to the positive effects beavers have on ecosystem repair, esp. in the west, in managing storm water runoff, elevating low water tables, preventing river bed erosion, and creating of new wetlands.
“I hope that students who interact with this e-book get excited about this little critter who makes so many positive changes,” Dunbar said.
The author is hard at work on her second e-Book about pygmy mammoths. Did you know that the Chanel Islands are the only place in the world where pygmy mammoths are known to have existed? Dunbar shared that they evolved from the Columbian mammoths of North America after swimming out to the Chanel Islands.
Stay tuned!
Find out how to order Beavers Building Ecosystems.
Read an excerpt from the Teacher’s Guide.
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By Gabe Kraljevic
Posted on 2019-02-11
Have you ever been challenged by student teachers and the methods they bring to the classroom that differed from yours? Have students ever favored your student teacher over you? How did you react?
— R., Ohio
On a few occasions I did learn some new activities or labs which I would gladly discuss with the student teacher and look at employing myself. I think because I dedicated myself to keeping current on new ways of teaching and tried many different techniques throughout my career, there weren’t really too many times that a student teacher came up with a completely new way to teach something. In fact, even though I and many other teachers have switched to student-centered approaches, some preservice teachers still start in a teacher-centered manner, much in way they themselves had been taught in school!
It was quite a blow to my ego whenever students preferred my student teacher and moaned when I took over the class again! I would brush it off, justifying it as their attraction to someone younger (and better looking). If I only had to teach for five weeks with a reduced workload I could be a rock star, too, I told myself. However, I also had to face up to the fact that some were better than me and that there will always be teachers better than me. And that’s a good thing for everyone. If teachers don’t improve then our education doesn’t move forward. And that means that we stop progressing.
Better said by John Dewey:
“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”
Hope this helps!
Sound Attribution via Creative Commons 3.0: “Sad Trombone Sound” by Joe Lamb. Released: 2011.
By Kate Falk
Posted on 2019-02-08
This week in education news, physical computing has established a presence in a number of schools around the country; Senator Lamar Alexander is on mission to overhaul the federal Higher Education Act by the end of the year; Sal Khan envisions a future of mastery-based learning; educators teach not just content but a range of skills students will need to be successful as adults; registration for advanced placement exams will move to Nov. 15 starting this fall; performance assessment is not a new idea in K-12 education; and students who can see the impact of their work are often more invested in their learning.
Hatch Gets Environmental Award from SeaWorld
Harrison Middle School EAST Lab teacher Mary Beth Hatch has received a substantial reward for environmental excellence. In the application for the award, Hatch explained that she had decided to make a concerted effort to get her sixth, seventh and eighth grade students outside as much as possible. In order to keep their hands and minds busy, she knew they needed projects for the entire year. Read the article featured in Harrison Daily.
Physical Computing’ Connects Computer Science with Hands-On Learning
Physical computing, an emerging instructional strategy that tries to teach students about computer science and computational thinking through physical tools and hands-on activity, has established a presence in a small number of schools around the country. In many cases, there’s just one teacher or administrator who’s trying it, but supporters of the concept believe its role will grow. Read the article featured in Education Week.
A Mission to Overhaul Higher Education
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is on a mission to overhaul the federal Higher Education Act by the end of the year – and with his recent track record, he just might do it. Read the article featured in U.S. News & World Report.
Sal Khan Envisions a Future of Active, Mastery-Based Learning
Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy and keynote speaker at the recent 2019 Future of Education Technology Conference in Orlando, discusses how technology will impact education in the years ahead. Read the article in District Administration.
Understanding a Teacher’s Long-Term Impact
As every teacher knows, educators teach not just content but a range of skills students will need to be successful as adults. A recent study shows just how important fostering those skills is: Teachers who help students improve noncognitive skills such as self-regulation raise their grades and likelihood of graduating from high school more than teachers who help them improve their standardized test scores do. Read the article featured in edutopia.
AP Participation, Performance Reach New Highs
Seniors in the class of 2018 took 4.22 million exams — a 65% jump over the past decade — and were more likely to persist when faced with harder material. Read the article featured in Education DIVE.
The International Space Station as a Teaching Tool
We live in a technology-driven world where accelerating innovation and change are dominant themes. The challenge to our educational systems is twofold. First, we must provide our nation’s youth a comprehensive education, including science, to prepare them for the world in which they will live and work in the coming decades. Read the article featured in Scientific American.
Performance Assessment: 4 Best Practices
Let’s get this out of the way first: Performance assessment—the idea of measuring what students can do, not merely what they know—is not a new idea in K-12 education. Teachers have been told to engage students in projects at least since the days of John Dewey, and probably long before that. Nevertheless, performance assessment has a bit of a riddled history in the United States. Read the article featured in Education Week.
Seeing Tangible Outcomes Builds Deeper Student STEM Engagement
At four San Francisco high schools, students in beginning computer science classes are programming human-like robots as part of an initiative to get more pupils excited about coding and robotics. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.
How to Assess Group Projects: It’s About Content and Teamwork
Group work is a time-tested strategy in many classrooms, but educators are starting to rethink how to evaluate these projects not just on the content students learn, but the skills they hone to work in teams as adults. Read the article featured in Education Week.
Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.
The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.
The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
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By Carole Hayward
Posted on 2019-02-06
The biggest science education conference of the year is happening in St. Louis this spring! Elementary teachers who want to be the student for a few days should join us. Here are 11 reasons why.
Can’t Attend But Want the Experience?
ONE-DAY LIVESTREAM EVENT—Saturday, April 13, 8:00 AM–1:45 PM
Join us on Saturday, April 13, for a livestream event specifically for elementary teachers. We’ve developed an entire event just for your professional learning needs. The event will take place in St. Louis during our National Conference on Science Education.
We will kick off the event with Sean Carroll’s The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics. Join Sean as he discusses the ongoing dilemma of how we still don’t truly understand the theory of quantum mechanics, despite its use on an everyday basis.
In between each of the breakout sessions, we’ll be featuring interviews from WebsEdge. The TV segments will profile prominent science educators and scientists, highlight the hard work of teachers and organizations committed to elevating the quality of science education in the United States.
In our first breakout session, Picture-Perfect Science authors Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry will present Picture-Perfect STEM Lessons: Using Children’s Books to Inspire STEM Learning, K–5. Karen and Emily will share model lessons that integrate STEM and literacy through the use of engaging STEM-related picture books.
Carla Zembal-Saul, professor of science education at Penn State, will present the second breakout session of the day: Bringing English Learners into Focus Through Next Generation Science. Learn strategies and processes to intentionally design science instruction with ELLs at the center.
In the final breakout session, Linda Froschauer, former NSTA President and field editor of NSTA’s Science & Children, will present Facing Challenges, Making Changes, Changing Lives. In this talk, Linda will look back to what brought us to this point in the evolution of elementary science teaching.
We’re offering this program at a special introductory rate:
$75 for NSTA members; $99 for nonmembers.
We hope you’ll join us for this day of professional learning geared specifically toward elementary teachers.
Pro Tips
Check out more sessions and other events with the St. Louis Session Browser/Personal Scheduler. Follow all our conference tweets using #NSTA19, and if you tweet, please feel free to tag us @NSTA so we see it!
Need help requesting funding or time off from your principal or supervisor? Download a letter of support and bring it with you.
And don’t forget, NSTA members save up to $90 off the price of registration. Not a member? Join here.
Future NSTA Conferences
2019 STEM Forum & Expo
San Francisco, July 24–26
The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
The biggest science education conference of the year is happening in St. Louis this spring! Elementary teachers who want to be the student for a few days should join us. Here are 11 reasons why.
By Martin Horejsi
Posted on 2019-02-05
By Edwin P. Christmann
Posted on 2019-02-05
Introduction:
Pitsco’s Straw Rocket Launcher and its Getting Started Package gives students an introductory rocket activity where they can grasp a variety of subjects including force and motion, thrust, center of gravity, prediction, measurements, and more. For example, from the materials, students can experiment and hypothesize about how to construct the most stylish and dynamic rocket.
The kit contains a variety of materials, i.e., a Straw Rocket Launcher, a Straw Rocket Class Pack, and a Straw Rocket Video. The kit also contains teacher instructions, student instructions, and a Straw Rocket Launcher user guide. The package can be found by using the following like: https://www.pitsco.com/Straw-Rockets-Getting-Started-Package. As seen in Image 1, the Straw Rocket Launcher comes almost completely assembled. Subsequently, all users have to do is to attach the angle plate and the cylinder tube. Once that’s done, The Straw Rocket Class Pack contains enough supplies for 30 students, and additional class packs can be purchased separately if needed. The Straw Rocket Video is a DVD which contains helpful tips for getting started, such as tips for designing rockets and the variables that can impact the flight of the rockets.
Here is a User Guide for the Straw Rocket Launcher:
https://asset.pitsco.com/sharedimages/resources/straw-rocket-launcher-ii-ug-20426.pdf
Image 1: The assembled Straw Rocket Launcher.
After the launcher is fully assembled, the first step is to construct a rocket. Students use plastic straws, modeling clay, and index cards to construct their own rockets. An example of a straw constructed rocket is pictured below in Image 2. Teachers can give students as much or as little freedom to construct their rockets.
Image 2: An example of a constructed straw rocket.
After constructing their rockets, students are ready to launch their straw rockets! Once ready, as shown in Image 3, their place the straw rocket over the launch tube can then adjust the trajectory angle of their straw rocket as illustrated in Image 4. After selecting the desired trajectory angle, students need to lift the launch rod up to the desired height. After doing that, as shown in Image 5, the launch rod is then dropped. Students can observe that varied launch rod drop heights results in differing flight distances.
Image 3: The straw rocket sitting on the launch tube ready to be launched.
Image 4: Students can adjust the trajectory angle of their straw rocket.
Image 5: Students lift their launch rod to the desired height then drop the launch rod to propel their rockets forward.
Classroom Applications:
Undoubtedly, the Straw Rocket Launcher is a useful science teaching and learning tool for students in grades K-12. Included with the kit are a variety of inquiry-based activities students could participate in with this fun and educational kit. Students will benefit from the variety of opportunities to experiment with design variations and different propulsion forces. Hence, students can modify their rockets and improve on previous designs. For example, students can design their own fins for their rocket. Included in the kit are suggestions for fin shapes; but students are free to come up with whatever type of fin they desire. Additionally, students can trim their straw down to experiment with how different lengths could alter the flight of their straw rockets.
Finally, students can use different amounts of clay to create different nose shapes for their their rocket and can find out how these different nose weights and shapes impact the flight trajectory. For teachers in elementary grades, an activity can be found in the following link from the Pitsco website (https://asset.pitsco.com/sharedimages/resources/straw%20rocket%20activity%20sample.pdf). With three alternative shapes, this particular activity allows students to explore how different nose shapes and weights can alter the rocket’s flight path. In conclusion, this kit is a great value and offers science teachers a fun, meaningful, and safe activity for launching rockets.
What’s Included:
– Straw Rocket Launcher
o Comes almost entirely assembled
o A tube of silicon based lubricant is also provided
– Straw Rocket Class Pack
o 120 Plastic straws
o One package of modeling clay
o 100 index cards (3”x5”)
– Straw Rocket Video
What’s Not Included:
– Scissors
– Tape
– Pencils
– Rulers/Tape Measures
Cost:
– $209 (For entire starter package)
OR
– $174 for Straw Rocket Launcher
– $26.50 for Straw Rocket Class Pack (supplies 30 students)
– $24.95 for Straw Rocket Video
About the Authors:
Edwin P. Christmann is a professor and chairman of the secondary education department and graduate coordinator of the mathematics and science teaching program at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. Emily Ferraro is a graduate student in the mathematics and science teaching program at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.
Introduction:
Pitsco’s Straw Rocket Launcher and its Getting Started Package gives students an introductory rocket activity where they can grasp a variety of subjects including force and motion, thrust, center of gravity, prediction, measurements, and more. For example, from the materials, students can experiment and hypothesize about how to construct the most stylish and dynamic rocket.
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2019-02-04
Since educators began adopting flipped classroom strategies—in which instruction that typically occurred in class happens outside class, and instructors help students apply what they learned during class—many have developed new perspectives and new methods. “I don’t think of it as [a] ‘flipped classroom’; I think of it as [an] ‘open classroom,’” says David Osmond, assistant professor of science education at University of North Georgia (UNG) in Oakwood, Georgia. His preservice elementary science education students “do what they need to do [and] choose their priorities.”
Osmond and his colleague Donna Governor, assistant professor of science education at UNG’s Dahlonega campus, have found that the NSTA Learning Center’s SciPacks—which have modules providing self-directed online learning experiences for teachers to enhance their understanding of a scientific concept and its related pedagogical implications for student learning—dovetail nicely with the flipped classroom model. “SciPacks cover the breadth of what preservice elementary teachers need to know: content and pedagogy and its implications, [using] moving images, simulations, and interactive questions to see that they’ve understood the topic,” Osmond contends.
Governor says she discovered that students “don’t always do what they’re supposed to do before class” as part of a flipped classroom. “I expect them to get the content online [outside of class], but it doesn’t always happen before class. [In class,] I go over a little bit of content, the essential ideas, and hit the highlights for the day’s lab activities. Then instead of listening to lectures, students engage in the practices of science, investigate concepts. It can even be meaningful when they dive into the concepts later because they’ve had the experience and can better understand the content,” she adds.
With SciPacks modules, students aren’t just reading, “they do lab activities and projects at home,” Osmond explains. This frees time for students to “do outside learning experiences [as part of class work,] attend conferences, see museum exhibits, and design their own outside lab experiences,” he observes.
While Osmond teaches physical science content, Governor teaches both Earth and life science in one course. “I don’t use a traditional textbook because it can’t include both subjects [and doesn’t provide that breadth of knowledge] to help [preservice teachers learn] to teach the standards,” Governor contends. “SciPacks have modules for both subjects,” and allow her to choose which modules best meet students’ needs; “it’s a build your-own-textbook [opportunity]” that allows targeted readings, she observes.
“If I didn’t have the flipped model, I’d have to spend that time lecturing. That’s not how students learn, so I don’t want to do it,” Governor maintains.
Osmond notes that SciPacks aren’t “the primary way students are in charge of their own learning…For each unit, there’s a variety of activities to [choose from], and students don’t have to worry about it destroying their grade if one doesn’t work out…Their responsibility is to choose what they do to be successful.”
The flipped format has allowed Osmond to relax deadlines. “I give students a suggested date…, but no sweat if it’s a little late,” he explains. During in-class lab activities, “I grade them at the end of class…I can give them immediate feedback and let them try it again…My goal is I want them to fail and know they can improve. If they’re not failing, they’re not learning anything new,” he says.
Michael Moore, a biology instructor and postdoctoral fellow in STEM Education at the Academy of Teaching and Learning at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, says he “spent four years in grad school [at Oklahoma State University], both as part of my research and my professional development, sitting in on my advisor’s flipped class. After completing my PhD, I came to Baylor as a postdoc and completely flipped my intro biology course the first semester;… the second semester, I did a hybrid co-instructed flipped course (lecture one day a week and active learning two days a week).”
Moore helped establish Baylor’s Learning Assistant (LA) Program, in which trained undergraduate students facilitate discussions and encourage student engagement and responsibility for learning. He says he found that “undergraduates are better able to communicate with younger students because they use their language.” The LAs facilitate active learning, involving students in the learning process more directly—which is vital in flipped classrooms, according to Moore.
Moore assigned targeted readings, using basic concepts to teach students how to learn. “The flipped classroom can be done a hundred different ways… You need to understand the theory behind what you’re doing…to find resources that work and are easily implemented,” he contends.
“[I]t’s important to get feedback from students and from other faculty who can observe how what you’re doing impacts students,” Moore notes. He recommends “leveraging your networks to find those colleagues to give you that feedback” and cites NSTA’s e-mail lists and the Flipped Learning Network as examples of such networks.
Moore sees two trends in flipped learning. “You can add more structure on the tech end, more engagement points [such as] having students answer questions during lectures. Or you can remove the connection to technology and do targeted reading, give students a reason to go back to their textbooks and have them read about the relevant topics only.”
The goal of flipped learning should be “tying learning to a future career. Imparting skills is a key way to help students buy in…This motivates them, and we see the positive effects of this increase in motivation borne out in the literature,” Moore relates.
“I have been running a flipped classroom for about three years in my regents chemistry class, and it has changed each year…The change is always for the better,” says Terrie Hunter of Horseheads High School in Horseheads, New York.
When Hunter’s students watch her videos after class, they “take notes to prepare for the video check the next day” that reveals their understanding, she explains. She says she includes “a brainteaser or a relevant TED talk or crash-course snippet” along with “questions for students to answer, a definition of a word, for example.”
Hunter uses Google Forms—free online surveys—for the video checks “that will automatically grade students. I can assess their understanding [before] teaching the day’s lesson based on the results,” she relates. Hunter’s students’ understanding of the material has improved with these innovations. “I had 75 students last year, and only one failed the chemistry regents exam…The flipped classroom model allows for more time for [inquiry-style] labs,” she reports. “There is…[time to] allow [students] to make mistakes, then have the teacher ‘coach’ [them].”
When she taught high school, Drew Wallsworth—now teaching math and science at Lane Intermediate School in West Allis, Wisconsin—had two years of experience flipping the classroom. The first year, she did so for two students in her general environmental science class; the second year, she flipped her entire Advanced Placement Environmental Science (APES) class. Wallsworth notes that in her APES class, “98% of my students were English as a Second Language (ESL) students, and they really benefitted [from the flipped class] because…they could go back and look at resources [after class] and didn’t have to [take notes] in class.”
Now as a sixth- and seventh-grade teacher, Wallsworth says, “I’m gradually introducing flipped pieces, but as a modified in-class flip…Half of the class does the activity with me and the other teacher, while the other half of the class reads or watches a video. Then they switch.”
Doug Stith, science teacher at Londonderry Middle School in Londonderry, New Hampshire, says he is “doing what I call Learner-Paced Science with my sixth graders. I also use seventh- and eighth-grade student assistants to help me interview and guide my sixth graders” and “conduct both small-group and whole-group discussions,” he reports.
Before he instituted Learner-Paced Science, Stith says, “My classroom always involved a great deal of hands-on activities; however, all students… moved at the same pace.” He took time to write up all the activities, enabling students to work at different paces. “Now all students begin on Activity 1 for a given unit. When completed, students…[ are] interviewed” to ensure they did it correctly and understand what they learned, Stith explains.
“[I assign] no homework or paper- and-pencil tests. Instead,…students create a product (Google Slides, video, written narrative, annotated poster, etc.) and are interviewed on their product,” Stith notes. “I could never go back to my old way, but I rely on my assistants to run this program.”
This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue of NSTA Reports, the member newspaper of the National Science Teachers Association. Each month, NSTA members receive NSTA Reports, featuring news on science education, the association, and more. Not a member? Learn how NSTA can help you become the best science teacher you can be.
The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
Follow NSTA