Community Forums - K-12 Educators

Hi- like most of you I am trying to get through this quarter with online teaching.  Our administration wants us to do a final project as the final assessment instead of traditional tests and exams.  So my idea is incorporating the career paths of my anatomy students (who are seniors) into a final project but not sure beyond that.  Does anyone has a suggestion- a body system, a disease?  Thank you

When teaching physics, though it is certainly an applicable and relatable subject, it is not as relatable as biology can be. I would like to incorporate more examples of how phsiycs ties in with biology to make the lessons more relatable and interesting for my high school students. Does anyone know of any biological examples that tie in with physics concepts that can be shared with me?

I have used synovial joints and arthritus as an example for friciton and the coefficient of friction. The students seemed to enjoy that one. 

Thanks!

I am new to LifeSciTRC and would like to know if anyone has used it before?  If so, how have you implemented it into your instruction and what resource have you used that would be valuable to middle school science?  

What is your favorite way to do notebooks in class? 

- scripted: you tell them what to write and where it goes (turn in for points)

- unscripted: they are using it to show their thought process and learning

How do you do notebooks? 

I'm working through a comparative anatomy dissection unit right now and would love some vetted dissecton guides - are there any on LifeScTrc?

I have 3-4 weeks to teach about the human impact on the environment in my biology class (we follow the NGSS).  I'm wondering if anyone has any great projects/videos/ideas that would enhance that unit?

Just wondering to what level of detail do 7th grade teachers cover classification. Want to make sure I am being detailed enough.

Hello.

I am looking for resources I could use to educate myself about standards based grading. Any book or article suggestions and LifeSciTRC resources I could look into would be appreciated. Thank you.

We are introducing new science standards next school year. Are the resources in LifeSciTRC organized by state standards anywhere? 

I used to travel with students abroad for field courses (Tanzania, Costa Rica) but find that students nowadays have a hard time coming up with the money for the course. Does anyone know of ways to receive grant or scholarship money to help students pay for their travel?

What are the best resources you have found for middle school science?

I'm new to LifeSci and browsing through all the resources. Do you have any go-to partners or favorite collections/authors you reference frequently? 

Any tips on presenting information to third and fourth graders for building solar cars? 

Beside using this website for research, are there any other ways to use it in the classroom? 

I want to start a classroom garden with my 5th graders.  Any tips and/or resources that worked for you?

Greetings! 

Our state is in the middle of a standards transistion. I am in the process of planning a (very basic) chemistry unit for my 7th graders, since they will not recieve this content again until they take Chemistry in High School (chemistry standards are moving from 8th grade to 7th grade next year). I will have 3 weeks for this unit and I am expecting to have many interruptions to my classes over the next couple of weeks. I am looking for fun, informative, and low cost activities that can teach the following topics:

-Matter - Atoms and their Structure
-Changes in Matter Physical vs. Chemical
-Conservation of Mass with Chemical Reactions and equations.

Each class will have a maximum of 45 minutes and many days will be cut short due to end-of-year activities, celebrations, and field trips. Any help or tips I can get would be AWESOME! Thank you in advanced!

Does anyone use any youtube videos as part of labs?

I am new to LifeSciTRC and am curious what your favorite way to share these resources with your students are if you where to use them in a class. Do you print or use an online learning community? Other ideas?

Does anyone use STEM Scopes as a resources?

I'm looking to bolster coverage of the immune system in 11-12 Human Anatomy.  Any recommendations for activities, interactives?  We cannot use PHET.  I do use HHMI quite a lot for other content outside of Anatomy.

Looking for ideas to test beach sand for micro-plastics?

I am looking for different ways to handle late work.

Anyone know of reasonable (cheap) resources for implementing NGSS standards? I am also always looking for ideas to reuse/repurpose into lab equipment instead of fillig the landfills.

I do not belong to Vancouver. Neither my college has anything to do with the Vancouver. Still, we have to follow the Vancouver style of citation because according to our teachers and instructors, this is the best citation styles among all which I do not agree with. How can something be the best in any field if it has a limitation? Everybody knows that Vancouver citation style or the Vancouver citation generator is only applicable on the fields of medicine and science. You cannot implement it in commerce or computer-related fields. Then how it can be the best?

Even if it is not the best, why something like this is only applicable on few fields. The citation styles are meant to be adjustable for all the fields. Whether it is medical, science, politics, humanities, commerce and information technology. A citation style should be applicable on all the fields and faculties. But I also believe that there would be any reason behind it. I think that whoever made this citation style must have known the consequences of applying it on the different fields. But I don’t know about it at all. That is why I am writing this post and would like to ask it from your people.

Online Education is a recent trend that allows you to attend a school for those who could not; no matter the age, where you live or your particular interests, there are online colleges that help anyone get the degree.

The online university is particularly beneficial for teachers and all professionals who need to return to school to obtain a master's degree or a doctorate. Nowadays, more than 70% of universities offer online education programs; In times of education is the key to getting into the world, online education becomes more and more important.

The greatest advantage of online education is accessibility. For the first time, the student has the opportunity to enroll in a university that meets his expectations and offers him a degree that corresponds to what he wants to do.

Very often, in traditional institutes, the student chooses a discipline that is not exactly what he would like to do but only approaches him as much as possible. With online universities, at the time of enrollment, the potential student does not have to deal with the localization of the institute (more or less close to home) and this allows him to concentrate on choosing the faculty and the future course of his / her own career.

Apart from providing good assignment writing and assignment editing service, I would like to recommend every student to take writing assistance from writing-victors if you found any problem.

Creative and interactive learning environments are not just the revolutionized models to follow in the classrooms toady, but also serve future prospects in the education sector too. Today educators have the potential to turn the classroom environment that facilitates the use of digital learning and engagement.

Although there are several ways through which the teachers create a powerful digital learning culture in the classroom, but as for this I am going to talk about one technique that I find quite result-oriented and effective.

Bring an Interactive Whiteboard

Interactive whiteboard is a modernized, interactive digital tool that helps the classroom in this regard. The tool is bound to take over the traditional board and serve as the standard medium in modernized classrooms. Typically, an interactive whiteboard comes with a projector that both teachers and students can use to demonstrate their presentations and explanations. Not only in the classroom, but whiteboard can also be used in home or in large seminar, workshops, in order to catch more than hundreds of students at time.

Even accomplished and state-of-the-art best dissertation assistance and other academic service providers use the technology to convey the project status to the clients across the world. Besides that, the whiteboard also serves as one of the most convenient and exciting ways for brainstorming sessions both in and out of the classroom.

Does anyone have any great NGSS aligned activities?

What is your favorite lab to do in a Biology class? What is the best resource you have come across on this site?

Like some of my fellows, I saw many potentially useful resources.  Are the ratings the quickest way to search for lessons that might best untangle challenging concepts for my students?

Are any resources for writing NGSS-based assessments available?

Are videos available as resources?

If you use POGILS in class, has it been successful?  Do you use them as an introduction, in the middle or as a review of a topic?

What are your policies regarding allowing students to do test corrections and/or retest?

What happens when more than one person posted the same science topic/article ? Who gets the credit and who gets asked to delete their posting?

Virtual  laboratory activities cannot replace the benefits of actually performing an experiment         but they do serve a purpose. Some (i.e. Utah University Virtual Library) are quite helpful in giving students an idea as to the logistics associated with a real, multi-step experiment. 

Jason Econome

As I begin to search through all the information found here, I can't help but begin to feel a bit overwhelmed. Would anyone be willing to share a lesson they have created using this site? I would like to see how you incorporating the vast amount of resources found here. 

Has anyone used the case studies in a Forensics class?

I have found that although students start out at the beginning of the semester willing to be enagged in class discussions and activities, this interest often fizzes out in the face of other assignments/tests/projects etc.  During the middle of the semester, I often find students staring daggers at me because they would rather have the time to do some project due the next period.  I have tried to alleviate this boredom by offering small yet interesting hands-on activities which last 10-15 min, but engage the students since they are up and moving out of their seats.  This does not always work, however, does anyone have any other suggestions to keep students engaged?  

How have you used the case studies with 7th grade students? 

Is it pretty easy to upload material and edit it once you've submitted it?

I see one the greatest pros of using digital resources is having the ability to access the latest discoveries in science.  Printed reference matarials are already dated when they are published for the first time.  I think it's also interesting for students to see the evolution of what we know from earlier works compared to the most recent discoveries!  However, this leads me into the con.  There are few people that can take recent science discoveries and put them in a language that is understandable for high school students.  You often hear in science education circles that we need to improve the science literacy of people, but you can't do that if the information is too technical.  I have often found some great sites but the language prevents it from being any use for my students.

A great pro could be the use of computers to perform simulations as an effective way to allow students to carry out certain laboratories without having to purchase and consume many materials for all of the students in the class.  They can also work on the simulations at their own pace.  The use of guidelines and textbook teaching strategies can be an extensive con and can remove the human characteristic out of teaching and learning.  They also remove the chance for curiosity of the subject matter and therefore could hinder unique experimental ideas.

Greetings, All!

Digital resources abound that I find to be very useful for providing alternative ways to improve student understanding.  However, we provide laptops for my students and I am not able to always stand by each student and monitor how much they stay on task.  The temptation to play games or visit their social media accounts is very strong and I find that a large number of students lose focus as they are still thinking about these even when working on the correct site.  While digital resources provide a fast and convenient way to access resources, I'm not convinced that student-centered access to these is improving student learning.  I am going to review the literature (a plus for digital recourses!) and see if anyone has attempted to gather data on this.

• Do you find that digital resources make your students more or less engaged in the classroom? Why do you think this is?
• Since this generation is into social media, the use of digital resources as a tool in the classroom has been very succesful and has most of my students engaged in the lesson. As long as the protocol for doing an online task is in place, the expectations are always met.
• Do you find that digital resources improve student achievement in the classroom or are they more of a distraction? Why do you think this is?
• Ever since our school allowed the use of phone as a tool to search for information online, I had a higher turn out of student work completion at the end of the day
• What challenges have you experienced with using digital resources with your students?
• Some challenges I had experienced with the use of electronic digital resources are monitoring students to stay on task and not get distracted with their social media accounts also installed in their phones. Another challenge is that some students do not have phones that are internet ready. I have to provide laptops for them to use which takes a while to open and access since a lot of websites are often blocked by our school intenet server

This is the first year that our campus has decided to place a stronger emphasis in the use of technology in the classroom. The result is quite a mixture. Majority of the students were exposed to a richer learning environment, although a handful was “distracted” and overwhelmed by what the online sites could provide. As with traditional instruction, academic dishonesty is still a persistent issue.

BSCS, the Botanical Society of America, and the American Society of Plant Biologists are looking for high school life science teachers who are interested in participating in a unique professional development opportunity involving collaborations with research scientists, teachers, and students.

• Are you interested in collaborating with scientist mentors to help students learn how to conduct research on plants?
• Are you interested in taking part in face-to-face and online professional development to help enhance your teaching practices?
• Would you like to participate in a research project to find out how collaborations among teachers, research scientists, and students can lead to enhanced student learning?
• Are you interested in having your students work more with plants?

Digging Deeper is a professional development (PD) research project that builds on the success of PlantingScience, an online science mentoring community for high school biology students.

The Digging Deeper project will develop, implement, and test a professional development (PD) model whereby teachers and scientists work closely together over extended periods to guide students in authentic science investigations and then to reflect on instructional and mentoring strategies that are effective for enhancing student learning.

To learn more about the program and how to apply, visit Digging Deeper Information. Applications are due January 29, 2016.

Does anyone assign students to listen to podcasts? I have found some really great ones that I would love to incorporate, but not sure how to go about it. I want more than just them taking notes. Any thoughts?

What sequence do your students take their science classes in? We are restructuring our whole department's curriculum and can't decide the order. Right now, they all take biology as freshmen. From there out, they can take whatever order they want (which makes teaching these classes hard when they are all at different levels and backgrounds). We offer chem 1, chem 2, physics,  geology, and anatomy & physiology.

Our hope is to make all the  sophomore take either geology or chem/physics next year. We can't decide on the chem/physics because of the NGSS. 

How do you tie science concepts together for your students? Share below:

What new thing are you trying in your classroom this year? Share what you're doing below so other community members can benefit.

How do you like to use Case Studies in your classroom? If you don't use Case Studies, what has kept you from doing so?

What is one thing that excites you and one things that scares you about flipped classrooms? 

As the school year is wrapping up, I'm thinking about changes to make next year. One of the biggest changes I saw in my freshman this year is incomplete work. My policy has been they can turn in one assignment (each quarter) late for full credit. Anything late after that is worth 60% (70% is our lowest D). So this year, kids are turning things in VERY incomplete.. I'm assuming because they think it's better than turning it in late. 

   So I was thinking of not accepting any incomplete work next year. It has to be finished and would be counted late. At least this way I know they're getting the information out of the assignment. Does anyone else ues this system? How does it work out for you? 

How have the Next Generation Science Standards impacted your teaching? 

I recently failed on a major scale trying to teach the basic concept of homeostasis (and its components) by incorporating a game in the classroom that involved movement and had various roles for everyone - what I'm wondering is the following...how do you keep teaching difficult concepts and make them relevant... and what are your biggest failures as a teacher?

I hope to be able to share expertise and resources across the Atlantic fromthe USA to the UK

Hey there, everybody! My question is primarily for Bio/Anatomy/Marine teachers. 

Obviously, a lot of our subjects are content-driven, which means that, at least for a decent amount of the year, we have to provide direct instruction. How do you personally deliver that direct instruction? Do you use your whiteboards primarily, or PowerPoint, or Prezi, or another way of "getting the info" to the students? I'm curious as to what others are doing in the classrooms, and particularly how you modify your direct instruction to also include greater amounts of student engagement. 

I personally use a lot of PowerPoint, but this ain't your college professors' PowerPoint! I've worked hard to squeeze every ounce of functionality out of PowerPoint my embedding videos that play within the slideshow (rather than going out to Youtube or a website), using animations to make "question boxes" appear, then disappear within the same slide, etc. What tricks do you use in your given delivery method to enhance student engagement? I'd love some new ideas! 

I teach a prepartaory class for 11th and 12th graders to be eligible for the Wa State certification exam.  Many of my students are enrolling in prenursing classes.  I use a nursing history  project that leads to cultural and religious diverisity studies that culminates in a vignette created by students to share with the entire class the similarities and differences of attitides and practices surronding end of life ceremonies.  It takes about 4 weeks to cover it all and comes after an introduction to bioethics.  We have used posters and brochures and even a dress up option and did a food element one year.  It's ambitious but after 4 years I feel like I am getting stale in presentation and this years results were not satisfactory for me or students.  Got any great pep me up suggestions?

This year was my first year teaching at a 1:1 school, where all of the students have iPads. I am constantly looking for cool apps that I can use in my classes to help students with concepts in Anatomy. I don't have the time or resources to check all of the ones out there to use. I am hoping that I can get some ideas from others on here. I would prefer free apps since I want my students to be able to download and use them too. 

Do you have a great activity that you do with your class to teach them about women scientists? Share it with your fellow teachers! Post it below or submit it to the Archive.

Have you participated in PhUn Week? How did you set up your event? What worked and what didn't? Particularly, what age group did you target, how large was your focus group, and what types of teaching or learning activities did you include in the event? Were you able to work closely with a physiologist to plan new lessons, or did you re-use resources from other teachers? If you have advice about the successes of your program, please share!

November's blog post focuses on teacher evaluation. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on teacher evaluations. What have your good and bad experiences been? Do you think evaluations should focus on practice, content, or both? Do you think there are evaluations that can also help improve student achievement?

Teachers, I need your opinion! I am curious to know who has and has not used virtual labs in their class, why, and how the Archive can help you with laboratory experiences for your students

• If you have used virtual lab, what has your experience been? What do your students think of virtual versus hands-on?
• If you haven't used  a virtual lab, what has kept you from doing so? 
• Should we include more virtual labs in the Archive? Is there something else we should include in the Archive that we're missing?

Thank you for the input!

I would like to know what everyone does to save time during the school year, especially during the beginnings and ends of semester when things can go crazy! One thing that keeps me sane is making lists. Lists allow me dump everything that I need to do out of my head onto paper so I can focus on one task at a time (plus I don't forget to do something!) Do lists work for you? Is there something else you do to save time?

What do you think is the most critical thing for science students to take away from a class? For me it is the idea that science allows us to test ideas about how natural things work (are causally related) and learn which ideas are stronger so we can adopt that understanding (until something better shows it up).

I believe I bit off more than I can choose when I said I would do a full day physics class for 7 and 8 yeard olds! I have set it up so that the last 3 hours are LEGO building but the rest is my attempt at teaching these youngsters, all boys and one girl, some fairly abstract ideas. Before this, I would have never said that middle schoolers were easier but after this, I am changing my mind! I have a lot of kinesthetic activities but would love any ideas you have 

Judy Barrere

The Curious Young Writers blog provides a platform for publishing student writing that describes a nontraditional animal model and its role in advancing understanding of a specific disease, disorder, or medical condition. Each juried entry is authored by a pre-collegiate student who researches and writes about uncommon animals that are helping researchers find better answers to some age-old health questions. Know a Curious Young Writer who might want to participate? It's at http://curiousyoungwriters.wordpress.com/

We'd like to add links to really good blogs on science for high school students to our What A Year! discovery reporting site. Any suggestions? Thank you.

If you are looking for some good lessons that you can do to integrate biotechnology into the high school classroom check out getbiotechsmart.com. Not only does this site include lessons plans, it also has presentations and videos to use as well. All resources on this site are free. They also offer grants each year for both middle school and high school science teachers. You could win a grant of up to $5000 for materials to use in your classroom!

Summer has arrived! What are you doing for professional development over the summer? Are you reading any good books, following an expert on Facebook, or attending any conferences? I am taking part in my first MOOC. I can't wait to see what it's like from a students' perspective!

In the June Archive newsletter a request was made for teachers to share their favorite apps. What are some of your favorites and what makes them great?

Summer has arrived! What are you doing for professional development over the summer? Are you reading any good books, following an expert on Facebook, or attending any conferences? I am taking part in my first MOOC. I can't wait to see what it's like from a students' perspective!