In two weeks I'll be flying to Dallas to take my daughter back to college. I'll be there for 6 days mostly to help her buy things for her new apartment and help move in. From there I go to San Diego for a whirlwind ACS meeting. Why is this BITeS news? Well, I'll have lots of times on planes which means I need something to read, and I think I just figured out what that will be. A series of essays from the Royal Society detailing "Seven simple rules for science teaching." (Hopefully this link works for everyone, and it looks like the site might be moving in the future, but I will try to remember to update it). As a teaser, here are the seven rules...
- Preconceptions - build on the ideas that pupils bring to lessons.
- Self-regulation - help pupils direct their own learning
- Modelling - use models to support understanding
- Memory - support pupils to retain and retrieve knowledge
- Practical work - use practice work purposefully and as part of a learning sequence
- Language of science - develop scientific volcabulary and support puplis to read and write about science
- Feedback - use structured feedback to move on pupils' thinking
Some of these sound pretty familiar, especially using chemical models which I think is important for teaching inorganic chemistry.
Great resource--thank you!