An Ice-Free Arctic: Why should you care ..read more

The most difficult portion of writing an article must be starting it. Not just do essays have to be adequately descriptive, they also must possess the standard of producing a disagreement either for or against the special essay subject. Article writing hints are crucial for every one of the pupils that lack the capacities or aren’t assured of their ability to write quality documents. If you opted to create an article about abortion, select an approach with a substantial body of research to back up your stance. If you choose to purchase customized essay, inexpensive tailor made essay and person ..read more

This week in class, we talked about investigable questions. Asking questions is a critical part of science. Wondering about the world and questioning the human experience has inspired many a scientist. Asking “why” will inspire the scientists of the future, as well. I believe that the old saying, “no such thing as a bad question,” has merit. However, not all questions are created equal. In science education, we focus on a particular type of question – investigable questions. Asking questions is one of the Science and Engineering Practices defined by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS ..read more

There is a very active NGSS Twitter community, and observing and participating in their discussions is providing our Get Real! Science team of teachers-in-training with invaluable insight into the struggles and accomplishments that current science teachers are dealing with and celebrating as they shift their traditional teaching approaches to better align with NGSS goals. On February 4, 2019, the NGSS Twitterverse tackled the questions of how to differentiate instruction with NGSS and how to balance NGSS with college prep. Responses from teachers discussed varying the amount of structure they ..read more

CLASS #2 We had our second class this semester in Implementing Innovation this past week. Many of us have started our second student teaching placement (Robin you will be there soon! Alyssa I hope you are feeling better!) WHERE WE’RE COMING FROM, WHERE WE’RE GOING Many of us are that same combination of nervous and excited to start student teaching. What will it be like to jump into a new school culture? Students have already done “school” for the last 5 or so months, how will we fit into already established classroom norms while crafting our own experience for our students and ourselves? Than ..read more

This evening the masters and doctoral students presented to science teachers at The World of Inquiry School, School 58. Masters students focused on their best lesson and presented the components of their unit bundle that make a highly effective science unit. The doctoral students presented their work from the science lessons on social justice, identity, respect, and indigenous knowledge. Sherin and I presented on our studies in social justice in science education. Sherin focused on increasing access to science in informal spaces, specifically after-school programs. One of the key-tak ..read more

This week, Yang, Saliha, and Elizabeth rounded out our doctoral student lessons. Yang and Saliha’s lesson focused on identity and respect in science teaching, while Elizabeth discussed science teaching for students from Indigenous populations. Have you heard Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk “The Dangers of a Single Story”? She’s one of my favorite authors and on me and my best friend’s list of people we need to stalk. Well, if you’ve heard Beyonce’s ***Flawless, you’ve definitely heard her brilliance. You know what I’m talking about, that speech towards the end that starts with “We teach o ..read more

There’s a stranger in town … Howdy Gang!  As I slide into the guest chair this week I wanted to wish you all a very happy post-Thanksgiving.  Maybe your turkey soup is simmering as you read this … Be sure to see my blog for further post-Thanksgiving instructions and remember, I’ll be following up with you! You can do it if they can!1 As you learned from Lisa’s blog last week, the master’s students have completed their Ambitious Science Teaching mini-unit in their classrooms. Congrats to all!  In December, the rest of us will get to see the fruit of their labors during ..read more

As part of the certification process to become teachers in New York State, my cohort and I will be completing the EdTPA. Robin and Sam both talked a bit about the EdTPA in recent posts (here and here, respectively). If you missed that, basically the EdTPA involves recording yourself teaching and analyzing your performance. I really dislike being filmed and judged, so I have been trying not to think about it. It’s coming though. We have been talking about the EdTPA in class over the past couple of weeks, so the denial thing hasn’t really been working.  At the same time, Madeleine and I hav ..read more

By the end of this week in the middle of November, each person in our Get Real! Science cohort will be teaching a mini-unit in our student teaching classrooms. Depending on our experiences with our cooperating teachers this semester, this may be the first time we will be leading instruction in these classrooms. We have learned a lot of theory since we started in May, and we have had varied experiences in informal education settings. We have talked with each other and our cooperating teachers about what we plan to teach, and we have developed detailed lesson plans for review by our supervisors ..read more