Author: Kent

Handouts are available for download at the end of this post.

 

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

 

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 8.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that I’m a huge coffee geek. I’ve got a scale with a timer, a hand grinder, special beans and various types of coffee brewers at home to make the perfect cup. This one I bring to work. Now, let’s get to work.

 

An age old question in science education is how to get and keep students interested in it. It’s actually something that is included in our curriculum too. However, with platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, it’s made it a bit more difficult because student’s attention are pulled away so easily by flashy things.

 

So, how might we do it?

 

To make science interesting, it’s important that we geek out on something, bring what we geek out on into class, and show students how to geek out. Geeking out really just means having a sustained – and perhaps passionate – interest in something. If you think about it, we’re actually a society that values geeks. The Olympics, for example, is just a showcase of individuals who geeked out on a singular athletic pursuit. When we’re sick, we don’t want a generalist doctor working with us – we want to seek the doctor who is the top geek in that field. And, when we read restaurant reviews on yelp or another platform, we trust the food geek who has reviewed thousands of restaurants as opposed to one that has written only a handful.

 

When we geek out and bring it into our classrooms, we make our lessons more engaging, more applied. And, we show students how to make scientific connections to everyday events and, also, how to take a scientific approach to everyday problems.

 

Like I said at the beginning of this episode, I am a coffee geek. How do I bring this into the classroom? Well, one thing I do is have students perform a pour over as part of their lab safety lesson. I show them a picture of what a coffee pour over set up may look like in the coffee. Then I ask students how to reproduce the same process here. And, they get something like this. In this lab, students learn equipment names and safety rules – like how to heat and pour water safely and filter a solution using a funnel and filter paper. It’s a simple lab, but so much is learned from brewing coffee.

 

I also use this vacuum siphon system – which is a super geeky way of brewing coffee – to demonstrate thermal expansion and contraction and how it can be applied to brewing a perfect cup of coffee. I relate how I alter water temperature, grind size, or amount of bean to get a great cup of coffee to the chemistry unit regarding factors affecting reaction rate. And, as for how decaffeinated coffee beans are produced – did you know it’s just a simple application of saturated solutions and filtration? When you geek out on stuff, there’s a lot of cool science that can be uncovered. And because you’re excited about it, your kids will be excited (or, at least, be impressed by your geekdom).

 

If parents who are doctors have kids who become doctors and parents who are teachers have kids who become teachers, then parents who geek out on stuff will have kids who geek out.

 

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about standards based assessment and how this can be used for even the most mundane or content driven parts of a science class – like lab safety, for example. You don’t want to miss it.

 

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

 

Resources

Handout(s): 01 – Coffee Lab

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Handouts are available at the bottom of the page.

 

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 7.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that for my first teaching contract, I taught physics 11, planning 10, esl socials studies, esl English, and science 8. That was my “dog’s breakfast” of a schedule. Now, let’s get to work.

 

Have you ever assigned a project that used some sort of technology – for example, powerpoint, prezi, lego mindstorms, or maybe even 3d printing – sent students to work on it, and then get back something that’s complete garbage? Perhaps, students spent a bunch of time putting together the bells and whistles of their project – making it look cool – but didn’t spend enough time actually fulfilling the core learning objectives. My wife and I call that “polishing a turd.” Like when a student puts in a whole bunch of electronic dance music, animation and graphics into their powerpoint which was basically a cut-and-paste job of Wikipedia. This is the one mistake a lot of students and teachers make: we’re so enamored by the tech that the project ends up being about the tech – when, in fact, the tech is only supposed to be the means through which students demonstrate their learning.

 

How do we make sure projects that use tech don’t end up being all about the tech?

 

What I do is I get students to focus on the process as opposed to their final product. I literally give more marks in a project for students to document their process and their thinking than for the final product. This is how it needs to be for students to value the process over the product – by assigning a proportionate amount of marks to it. This is no different from writing drafts for an essay. But, imagine in an essay, instead of your mark being determined by the final essay, your mark represents what you’ve learned on your way to producing the final version of your essay.

 

For example, I used to use one of these – a 3d printer – in my science class to build models and parts for a bridge project. But the problem with 3d printing is that everyone just wants to print something cool. And that’s what it will become if we don’t put some constraints on it. Kids will just want to print off cool stuff they saw on the internet or they’ll want to slap something together quickly to get it printed off. What I did for this project is that I made it mandatory for students to hand in detailed sketches of what they were going to print off. Then we had to sit down and discuss their design – and this is where I question what they’ve designed and what they’ve produced so far. Then, I get students to redo their designs to incorporate any feedback. This may happen 2 or 3 times. Then, after we’ve gone through their work a few times, I allow them to 3d print. By this time, I’ve been able to see all they’ve learned through our discussions. And, the final printed piece may be just a nice capstone to the project. If this were a project out of 40 marks, I may give 10 marks each to the 3 rounds of discussion and then give 10 marks for the final printed object. This way, students can see that the project really isn’t about the tech.

 

And, if you think about it, this could be applied to powerpoint presentations as well. Instead of having students just make up some slides and present, make it mandatory for groups to sit down and discuss the contents of their presentation before they present. This way, students won’t just be polishing a turd.

 

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about why we need to turn our students into geeks in our classroom. You don’t want to miss it.

 

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

 

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – Project Guide

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Handouts are available for download at the end of the episode.

 

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 6.

 

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that writing a song that makes it into the billboard top 10 is on my bucket list. I’m just not sure if it’s going to be in pop, rock, country, or hip hop yet. Or maybe grunge- that can make a comeback. Now, let’s get to work.

 

A few episodes ago, I talked about the most important skill I teach in my class: CER. It’s a structure students use to communicate their scientific conclusions and arguments. For more, please go to episode 2 of science teacher summer school. Although I teach it every year, I am constantly revamping how I teach it because I still find my students struggling to do it. We go over definitions and examples. But, still, it’s not enough. Some are still stuck.

 

So, I wondered why students were struggling and what could be done to get then unstuck?

 

I found inspiration in some of my daughter’s workbooks – you know, the ones you can buy at Costco that say MathSmart or Complete Curriculum. One thing those workbooks are really good at is providing good templates for tackling a problem. I especially liked the prompts and fill-in-the-blank exercises these workbooks had – these really help lead a student to a solution. So, this past year, I developed detailed prompts for each lab we did. The point was to show students one way to structure their statements. And, the prompts were definitely more detailed at the beginning of the year, when students were just learning about CER, and got more open ended during the middle and end of the year.

 

Consider an experiment where we’re studying how temperature affects how quickly food coloring diffuses in water. We’ve all done an experiment like this before: get a beaker of hot water, drop a drop of food coloring in it, and time how long it takes for the dye to spread. Then, do the same with a beaker of warm water, and then cold water. When it came to students writing a CER statement at the end of the lab, I provided these prompts:

 

For Claim, I wrote out “When water temperature increases/decreases, the rate of diffusion increases/decreases.” Students would rewrite the statement and choose the words that describe the relationship they observed.

For more advanced students, I would provide a more general prompt like “What is the relationship between water temperature and the rate of diffusion?”

 

For Evidence, I gave students the following statement to copy and complete: “According to my observations, in hot water, it took X seconds for the dye to diffuse; in warm water, it took Y seconds; and, in cold water, it took Z seconds.”

 

For Reasoning, I gave students the following prompt: “One explanation for this result is…”

 

Armed with those prompts, a student could write something like this:

When water temperature increases, the rate of diffusion increases.
According to my observations, in hot water, it took 8 seconds for the dye to diffuse; in warm water, it took 90s; and, in cold water, it was not able to diffuse completely.
One explanation for this result is due to kinetic molecular theory. Since warmer particles move faster than colder ones, when dye is added to hot water, the water particles will move faster and spread the dye faster.

 

That’s a pretty complete conclusion – one that captures the data and theory together with an experimental observation.

 

If you’re looking for resources for students to get started with CER, prompts, worksheets, and sample data to analyze, I have an ebook coming out soon that will have a bunch of useful stuff for you. Go to my website, realsciencechallenge.com, and sign up for our newsletter to get updates.

 

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please write your questions in the comments section. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about educational technology and the one mistake we all make when it comes to using it. You don’t want to miss it.

 

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

 

 

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – CER Prompt Samples

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

 

 

Handouts are available for download at the end of the transcript.

 

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 5.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is I took swim lessons as an adult. Up until that point, I was doing what my mom taught me – which basically meant I was doing it all wrong. The first time I learned how to kick properly, it was like woah! I can go so much faster Now, let’s get to work.

 

Today, our question comes from a viewer:

“How does one gradually prepare students to do an engineering project on their own? For instance, in writing you might start with asking students to pick a topic and then a thesis and then sources, then an outline, you might then teach transitions and the basic 5 paragraph essay and expand from there. I guess I’m asking what would be the equivalent process for one’s first engineering project?”

 

Thanks for your question, Fawn. My students do a few engineering projects each year – from calorimeters, to solar ovens, to balloon powered cars, and to something I call physical messaging.

 

I always follow these 5 steps: Define, Research and Build, Test, Repeat, and Report. First I will define problem for students and the constraints they must adhere to. For example, in the balloon car design project, the problem I define is that students must build a balloon car that travels the furthest straight-line distance. Thus, if the car moves in a curve, we still just measure the straight-line distance from beginning to end. Besides defining the problem, I define the constraints too, like final design must run on land (in other words, it must be a car and not a plane or blimp) and there can be nothing else powering the car besides balloons. And, I also ask students to make cars made of recycling or reusable materials – so no plastic wrap or styrofoam allowed. I find the definition stage to be the most important part of the project: well defined problems and constraints help students create better projects and help me mark it too.

 

Next, students research & build a prototype. They’ll need to look at materials and plans that already exist out there. For the balloon car, I typically put on a youtube video that already shows how to build a balloon car out of simple materials and, quoila, the students have their first prototype.

 

Then, students test their prototype. They need to record their results and tell me. But, this is not the end – it’s only the beginning.

 

After, and this is important, they must repeat the build process and create a new prototype. This is where the real learning starts. Think of the first prototype as a rough draft of an essay. The second draft is still not polished, and it may take me 3 or 4 versions before I’m done. Well, the idea goes into making more than 1 prototype. Students look at the results of their first prototype and then try to modify it to get a better result. Perhaps, they can change the materials used. Or, perhaps they have to change the size of their prototype. In some projects, I ask students to build and test 3 different prototypes – and, I give a small mark for each one to show. This is so that students know that I value the process of iterative prototyping and not just the final product.

 

Lastly, and this is at the end of the project, I have students report on what they learned. What was their final result? What worked well? What would they have done differently? What prevented them from doing even better? Sometimes, I get students to write CER statements for each prototype just so that they can practice how to communicate their findings effectively.

 

If you’re interested in some of the projects I’ve done in the past, check out the resource section on realsciencechallenge.com

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about some strategies to get your students to write effective conclusions using CER. You don’t want to miss it.

 

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everyday.

 

 

Resources

Handout(s): 11 – Sample Challenge – Semaphore | 29 – Solar Oven Inquiry Project | 31 – Mud Battery Inquiry Project

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

 

 

Handouts are available at the end of this post.

 

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 4.

 

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that I can solve the Rubik’s cube in roughly 2 minutes. It took me about 3 months to practice the algorithms needed to do it, but i think getting my time below one minute is really going to be a challenge. Now, let’s get to work.

What science videos do you show in class? We all show some in class. And, with YouTube, there’s a lot out there: professionally made videos by media companies like National Geographic or Wired Magazine; videos by so-called science communicators like Smarter Every Day, Veritasium and PhysicsGirl; and, videos by teachers like Bozeman science, amoeba sisters and khan academy.

 

This past year, I became more aware and selective of the videos I was showing in class because instructional time within the classroom became more precious due to pandemic restrictions. No longer did I want to show videos that just repeated what I had mentioned in class or was just entertaining or funny. I wondered if my videos and their complementary activities were a good use of time and really furthered student learning.

So, I asked, what activities and videos would help my students be better science thinkers and doers?

 

The solution: first, provide ways that allow students to process and connect with the video, and two, show the right type of video. Let’s start with a couple of strategies that allow students to connect with the videos – I provide a couple of open ended ways. The first way comes from my days being a teacher on call and subbing for a Vancouver teacher – shout out to Christopher Rozitis – for showing me this:

 

I have students draw a T-chart on a sheet of paper and they write “What I know” on one side and “What I learned” on the other. I ask students to take notes while they’re watching the video – they can take notes on anything that is mentioned in the video on either side of the chart. I’ll ask students to write 10 points or 12 points or 15 – depending on how long the video is. And, these are cumulative points – it can be 5 and 5 or 7 and 3. After the video, I’ll collect the notes and mark them.

 

A second strategy I give my students to connect with and process a science is a set of 3 questions:

1. What I just saw makes me think about this other thing I learned in another class because…
2. What I just saw makes me think about the time….because…
3. What I just saw makes me think about the future because…

 

After a video, I’ll provide 5-10 minutes for students to write responses to these questions. Then, we go around the classroom and share and discuss. The discussion is what’s important.

 

Both these strategies I use with almost all my videos. They’re easy and personable. And, they work in getting kids to connect.

 

Now, let’s take a moment to talk about the type of science video to show. I like to show more issue-driven science videos and fewer videos that are content- or phenomenon- driven.

 

Content-driven videos are explainer videos like the ones produced by khan academy. They contain a lot of information, but I don’t like to show them too often in class because I go over many of the concepts in class already. However, if there’s something a video shows that I can’t show in class, then, of course, I’ll show a content-video.

 

Phenomenon-driven videos are cool demos and builds that people show on Youtube like the ones done by Mark Rober and Veritasium. These are cool to watch, and a lot of kids are hooked to these videos. They’re great at getting students interested in science and engineering, but I don’t show them too often because they often don’t connect with the content. Plus, my perspective on videos have changed. When I first started, I wanted to show how science was cool with explosions and stuff. Now, I want to show science serving a larger purpose and solving larger problems.

 

Issue-driven videos highlight how science is used to solve a global issue. For example, Business Insider has a mini-series called World Wide Waste, where they highlight interesting solutions to our waste problems – like using microbes to extract precious metals from our computer chips and using coffins made of mushrooms to make our burials more environmentally friendly. These videos take content and apply it to a social issue. That’s the science I like to highlight.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please write your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about how I run engineering/inquiry projects so that students actually learn by doing. You don’t want to miss it.

 

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

 

Resources

Handout(s): REAL SC – Activities for Videos

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

 

 

 

Handouts are available at the end of this post.

 

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 3.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that doing stand up comedy is on my bucket list. I’d like to get good enough to get to do a set on a late night tv show and then retire. Now, let’s get to work.

 

We all ask students the same question at the beginning of the year – that is, “what is science?” – but what is your answer? Some teachers, myself included when I started teaching, would say something along the line of science is a method of exploring and making sense of the world. We’ve all heard or said that before. But, science is not just experimental design and scientific method. If we stop here, then students get the impression that science is experiments and labs. I also want students to know that science is everywhere in our everyday lives. It’s in the smartphones we use to access the internet. It’s in the ice cream and chocolate we eat. It’s in the clothes we wear.

 

So, how do I answer, “What is Science?” so I can reinforce this notion that science is everywhere in our everyday lives?

 

The solution: I connect science to universal human themes found in our everyday, our history and our stories. For example, conflict is a theme that is talked about a lot in and out of school. We even learn about it in our high school English classes – shout out to Mr. Macleod, my English 8 teacher, the 3 types of conflict are man vs man, man vs the environment, and man vs himself. So, in my science class, we also say science is conflict. For example, I ask students to name a movie they’ve seen where two groups are trying to accomplish or acquire the same thing. And, as a result, both groups try to sabotage each other during their conflict. We’ve all heard of a story like that from the movies. Of course, this story of conflict also exists in science – most notably, between Westinghouse and Edison in the AC vs DC war. I read that Edison’s company, who supported DC, tried to show that their rival’s AC was more dangerous to the public by having AC used to power the first electric chair. The point is that we make science more relevant and applicable when we tie it to universal themes. Suddenly, science is not just in the lab – but in the world around us.

 

Two other themes I connect is that science is change and science is patterns. With regards to patterns, I introduce the theme by playing roulette online with the student. I explain the rules and then ask some students to pick numbers to bet on. We play a few rounds. And, over time, students realize that we typically lose money because the odds of winning are slim. However, what if somebody were to win consistently more than they lost? In fact, this has happened before – so, how did people do it? Quite simply, people were able to recognize patterns in the roulette’s results and take advantage of these patterns. But, why do these patterns even exist? Isn’t a roulette’s wheel supposed to be random? Well, that’s where we start talking about things like friction and wear and tear and other scientific concepts that would explain this phenomenon.

 

As for science is change, I connect it with how scientific theories are always changing. For example, there was a time where people thought gastric ulcers – which are small holes in the lining of your stomach, were caused by lifestyle factors like stress. If you had a gastric ulcer, treatment at the time would be to make lifestyle changes so you wouldn’t be so stressed. Now, we know that they’re caused by a bacterial infection and can be treated with antibiotics.

 

In a future episode, I’ll share a few more of the universal themes I connect science with.

 

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave any questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about how to correctly show science videos in class. What? There’s a correct way to show videos? Yes, I think there is. You don’t want to miss it.

 

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere every day.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – Universal Themes

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

 

 

 

Handouts are available at the end of this post.

 

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 2.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that I once took harmonica lessons. This was back when I was young, single and had time and was trying to find ways to fill that time and meet people. It was fun, and I remember how to bend notes on a harmonica, which is pretty cool. Now, let’s get to work.

 

What’s the science skill you want your students to have learned after leaving your science class? For me, it’s knowing how to formulate and communicate a good scientific conclusion or argument. It sounds simple – but requires a whole bunch of other skills like analyzing data and connecting textbook knowledge to real contexts. Also, it’s not something that’s really taught in science textbooks – many textbook labs, for example, just have a list of discussion questions that teachers automatically assign to students at the end of each lab.

So, a few years back, I thought, there’s got to be a better way for students to reflect, write, and discuss their conclusions in their labs.

 

The solution: I’ve been using a structure known as CER, which stands for Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning, which has been awesome.

A claim is a conclusion or argument I have come up with. Evidence is the data that supports that conclusion. And, reasoning is the scientific explanation for that conclusion.

 

Let’s consider this textbook lab activity, where students explore what happens to the current when the lamp is switched out for lamps of increasing voltages. In other words, we want to observe the effect that higher voltage lamps have on a circuit’s current.

What I do in my classroom is have students write out CER statements. A CER statement for this lab could sound like this:

 

When lamps of increasing voltages are connected to a circuit, then the current will decrease. According to our results, when 6V, 12V, 24V, and 36V bulbs were connected one-at-a-time to a circuit, we measured a current of 2A, 1A, 0.5A, and 0.33A respectively. One explanation for this result is that bulbs with larger voltages have larger resistances, and larger resistances prevent the flow of charge through a circuit, which results in a lower current.

 

Consider the benefits of getting students to write CER statements.

• Students have to analyze and make connections between what they know and what they are observing.
• There’s less plagiarism because it’s not so much about getting an answer as it is about communicating what they found out and how they know it to be true.

 

Now, perhaps you’re wondering how you can get started. One thing I do with my students at the beginning of the year is a CER activity that has the students learn a little bit about me and practice writing CER statements too. In this activity, I show students things I have brought from home – like… – and then I have students write a CER statement about me. I give them these prompts to help them.

• Claim: What is something you can conclude about Mr. Lui’s personality?
• Evidence: What evidence supports your conclusion?
• Reasoning: What is an explanation as to why Mr. Lui has this personality trait?

 

For more help getting started with CER, I’m also coming out with an e-book that will provide a collection of notes, worksheets, prompts, and lab activities students can do to practice analyzing data, making connections, and coming up with conclusions.

 

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about how to answer that question we all ask students at the beginning of the year: what is science? You don’t want to miss it.

 

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

 

Resources

Handout(s): 04 – CER Infographics, REAL SC – CER Skill Builder

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

 

 

 

 

Handouts are available at the end of the transcript.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 1.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is I used to ballroom dance competitively and I was pretty good – I wasn’t pro, but I did win a few local competitions. Now, let’s get to work.

What’s your favourite time of the school year? I have two: the end of the school year – for obvious reasons, it’s vacation – and the beginning. The beginning is when kids are excited to get to know their classmates and their lab partner. And, it’s also when they’re still sitting nicely and working quietly at their desks. It’s kind of like the new car smell of the school year.

During the last term, I asked, how might I keep that “beginning-of-the-course” feeling throughout the term so that students regularly feel excitement about being in a new seat and working with a different classmate.

The solution? I did something a former science department head, a quick shout out to Mr. Jamie Stewart, used to do with his class. I randomized the student seating plan every week. It sounds simple, but the results have been awesome.

Every Monday morning, after the students were settled in their seats, I project their seating plan on the screen, hit reset and randomize. And, new seating plan.

After a few rounds of randomizing seats, the kids kind of expected it. And, I think they liked that they’d be somewhere different.

If you don’t have an attendance program that randomizes seating plans, you could do the same thing on Google Sheets. After you create a seating plan, highlight the cells you want to randomize – in this case, all the seats. Then, right click and choose randomize range. There you go: new seating plan. If you’re looking for a seating plan template for Google Sheets, you can find this one on my webpage.

Now, I know some teachers don’t like to change seating plans frequently because they want students to get comfortable and get to know their lab partner. And, from a teacher’s perspective, it also helps me learn names faster. But, consider some of the benefits. Students don’t have to feel like they’re stuck with their lab partner – especially if they don’t get along. Students have equal opportunity to work with other students. It’s good practice for future life, where we can’t just work with those we get along with all the time. And, frequent and regular seating plan changes actually caused me to find more ways to build community and learn names. For example, every Monday morning, after I scrambled the seating plans, I had students share with their new lab partner something they learned over the weekend. I called it, what did you do over the weekend and what did you learn from doing that thing you did? Students shared something with each other and the class. And, over the course of a term, we learned that most students didn’t get enough sleep, cookie monster has a name, and a student in my class was making a killing selling sneakers on Instagram. It was a fun way for students to get to know each other and for me to reinforce that learning takes place outside the classroom too.

Lastly, changing seating plans also forced me to plan at least one lab experiment per week. This was so that students would work at least once with someone new. This also helped me re-evaluate my teaching practice as a whole – but, more on that in future episodes

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about the skill my students use the most in science class: CER. You don’t want to miss it.

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

 

Resources

Handout(s): Google Sheets Seating Plan Template

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!