As educators, we are aware that our current students will be redefining knowledge and possibilities in the future, in ways we cannot even imagine! It is our job to create and foster a learning environment where student failures and intellectual risk taking are anticipated and welcomed as vehicles to growth and innovation.
We all know the importance of language acquisition, but did you know that how you teach students new science vocabulary has an impact on their engagement, depth of understanding, and retention? A critical part of learning science is becoming fluent with the language of science. To do that, students must have experiences that help them make meaning of new terms themselves—not just memorize definitions.
Imagine you are a middle school student challenged with the phenomenon, “What causes rainbows?” in your science classroom.
Your preferred learning style might be to watch a video depicting the dispersion of colors within a prism. Your friend would rather read an explanation; another classmate prefers to draw a diagram, while another would like to learn through experimentation with the frequency of light and refraction.
Everyone at STEMscopes has been hard at work over the summer to improve the online application, so take a look below to learn more about what has been updated. Many of these improvements came from your feedback, and we thank you for sharing your thoughts on how to make our curriculum better!
The NGSS have undergone numerous evolutions since their inception. Among the most powerful (and most recent) are the addition of evidence statements. The three dimensions—disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting connections—already provide context for how students can demonstrate knowledge and how the performance expectation can be applied. The new evidence statements take this process a step further.
