• Big Ideas
• The Details
  • points for
    practice
  • what
    teachers say
• Supporting Techniques
  • putting it together
  • causal vocabulary
  • modeling in science
• FAQs

the classroom → the details → points for practice

Making it Work in Your Classroom: Points from Practice

• Gear your classroom culture towards developing understanding, instead of "right answers." It takes longer, but the pay-off is greater in that students can apply their learning more broadly.
• Use the language of causality as often as possible to help students see where different patterns apply.
• Encourage students to talk to each other when discussing ideas rather than directing all their comments to you. It gets everyone more involved and supports the development of a community of learners.
• Provide opportunities where the process of learning mimics the scientific inquiry process of "finding out," but be sure to balance this with exposure to the models that scientists have evolved during centuries of scientific inquiry.
• Often students don't explicitly know what assumptions they are making. Offer opportunities for them to reflect on their thinking and to unpack it.
• Students won't really change their minds until their objections have been dealt with and the evidence is convincing to them. Create opportunities for them to raise their confusions, objections, and alternative ideas.

• Students' most challenging questions can drive a discussion towards more sophisticated models. Invite and embrace these questions!
• Science involves systematically revising and discarding models as we work towards ones with greater explanatory power. Understanding evolves in a similar way. Expect students to move towards scientifically accepted models, but realize that they won't all get there before the end of the unit.
• Encourage testing and revising one's model over "getting it right." Students who adopt the "right" model without deeply reasoning it through usually revert back to their old ideas later.
• Encourage your students to take risks in their thinking and to test their ideas in a social context. Encourage them to consider relevant evidence instead of shooting ideas down.
• Encourage students NOT to just accept ideas because someone else says they should. They should change their ideas when the evidence is convincing to them.
• Include a connection-making step in your lessons — encouraging students to make connections to other science topics and beyond, particularly real world topics. This helps learning to "stick" and to transfer to new areas.