Secrets to Success for Science Teachers

Ellen Kottler, Victoria Brookhart Costa, Ellen Kottler, Victoria B. Costa

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781412966269
  9781412966252
• eBook ISBN:
  9781452273020
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Science & Technology

"This book isn?t just for new teachers! Even after years as a science teacher, this book gave me suggestions to use right away in my classroom."
—Regina Brinker, Science Teacher
Christensen Middle School, Livermore, CA

Create a science classroom that fosters a creative learning community and leads to success!

From successfully setting up a classroom to achieving meaningful instruction, science teachers face a variety of challenges unique to their practice every day. This easy-to-read guide provides new and seasoned teachers with practical ideas, strategies, and insights to help address essential topics in effective science teaching, including emphasizing inquiry, building literacy, implementing technology, using a wide variety of science resources, and maintaining student safety.

Aligned with current science standards, this guide helps teachers streamline their efforts, organize their work, and set the stage for outstanding instruction and enthusiastic student participation. Other features include:

• Practical examples, snapshots of moments in the history of science, and Web references
• A compilation of professional development activities
• Checklists to rate curricula and textbooks
• Guidance on networking with colleagues and establishing relationships with families

By leveraging this book?s rich resources, science teachers will discover how to turn their classrooms into thriving environments for learning.

C H A P T E R O N E

Design Your Classroom to Create Communities of Learners

Science is a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.

—Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898–1988), 1944 Nobel
Laureate in Physics for his resonance method of
recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei.

How exciting! You have been given your teaching assignment and handed the key to a classroom. Now it is time to use your knowledge, skills, and experience to create a community of learners. Your first task is to set the stage for effective teaching and learning every day in your own science classroom. Your stage, as Isidor Isaac Rabi notes, is the universe itself.

EXPLORE YOUR SCHOOL AND CLASSROOM

Take a tour and see your school in action. As you walk around the building, take note of the layout and activities. Consider these questions: Are classrooms grouped by department or grade level? Do students enter from the outside or from an inside hallway? What types of projects do you see students engaged in, especially in the science classes? How and where do teachers obtain books and supplies? Where is your room located in relation to the other school facilities?

Here are some items you will want to see and discuss in order to be prepared for the first day of school:

District and School Offices and Areas

• Location of the district offices, staff development center, and instructional media center
• Location of the school main office, health office, restrooms, and lunchroom
• Location of the school library, media center, and technology labs
• Location of faculty parking and whether a permit is required
• Directions to the faculty lounge and restrooms

School and District Policies

• Copy of the school district teacher handbook and curriculum guide(s) for each course you are assigned
• Copy of the student handbook
• Copies of the school calendar and schedule
• Web addresses for all district and school programs and resources, including any user IDs and passwords

Science Teaching Assignment and Department

• List of your tentatively assigned grade levels and courses
• Copies of the course textbooks, laboratory manuals, supplements, and syllabi
• List of your assigned students noted with special needs (including learning, social, family, and health) and information on whether you will have any instructional aides to support these students
• Location of your classroom (or rooms if you will be a traveling teacher)
• Location of laboratory classrooms (if different from your home classroom); portable laboratory equipment; supply cabinets and chemical stockroom; schedules/sign-up process for use of space and resources (if appropriate); safety resources; water, electricity, and gas access and emergency shutoffs
• Types of student desks or tables and chairs assigned to your classroom
• Availability of bulletin boards and display spaces in your classroom and hallway
• Availability of technology resources and storage areas within and near your classroom
• Location of your team/department office or planning room and storage areas

As you become acquainted with each of these items, you will generate more questions and begin to plan for your students. This “preview of coming attractions” will help you get centered and enhance your peace of mind about your career as a science teacher. We will discuss these items in much more detail throughout the upcoming chapters.

MEET YOUR DEPARTMENT AND TEAM

You are going to spend most of your school time outside of your classroom with your department or team members. Although you may have been hired to teach specific science courses, you also were hired to fit into a particular group of people. Most teams want you to be an individual who successfully balances working on your own with working with others. You may be sharing students with other teachers; you may be team teaching with other teachers. You may work together to develop lesson plans and standards-based benchmark assessments to monitor student progress. Each teacher will contribute to both your immediate effectiveness and long-term success in some way. And each teacher will have more or different experiences than you bring to share with you. Our first secret for success is for you to learn from each person’s strengths and expertise as you refine your skills and independence.

Many schools are organized into grade levels or academic departments with a group leader known as a department chair. Department chairs usually have been teaching at their schools a long time. They will likely be the ones to help you get your course textbooks, supplementary materials, and classroom supplies. Sometimes department chairs determine course assignments and periods taught. They can usually link you to professional organizations and professional development opportunities. You may also be assigned a mentor who will be able to answer your questions and share information about school policies and procedures.

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I meet once a week for planning with other science teachers. We share ideas, labs, and lesson plans.

—Seventh-grade life science teacher

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INVESTIGATE YOUR SCHOOL’S AND COMMUNITY’S HISTORY AND CUSTOMS

School buildings are frequently named for individuals who may be famous nationally or well known locally. Sometimes the namesake is still living, visits the school, and makes donations. It is exciting when you and your students meet the person for whom your school is named, and learn what contributions this person made to the community to receive this recognition. Or there may be a business or industry that partners with your school, providing mentoring, materials, and professional development for teachers.

Investigate your school’s background. Frequently there are trophy cases, wall plaques, and group photographs displayed throughout the building. One secret is to look at the annual year-books to explore school traditions and learn the names of teachers. These may be housed in the library. If you ask about your school in the faculty lounge or department planning room, it is likely that someone will be happy to share stories of the school’s history. It is both fun and informative to find out more about your school.

Your school also functions around a set of customs and traditions (Cattani, 2002). By watching and listening carefully, you will realize and be able to promote and replicate the accepted ways of doing things at your new school. You will learn who is responsible for various aspects of the school’s operations, how teachers and administrators expect you and your students to behave, and so forth. These are excellent topics to discuss with your department chair, team members, and/or a mentor. Current students, alumni, families, and the community look forward to annual and special events.

And don’t forget to consider the local culture of the area. See Box 1.1 for examples of science in the local culture of the area. Explore the unique features of your community and region.

BOX 1.1

Examples of Connections Between Local Culture and Science

• Oldest Tree in Anaheim—Science teachers in Anaheim, California, might use the “oldest tree in Anaheim” as a starting point for discussing botany. This Moreton Bay fig is over 150 years old and is situated on the property of the Anaheim Mother Colony house of the original settlement in the area. The tree is one of the largest of the particular species found in the Southern California region.
• Santa Ana River Bottom—In Riverside, California, science teachers often take students on field trips to the Santa Ana River Bottom. As is true for much of California, the geology of the Santa Ana River watershed is defined and created by seismic activity. Lessons may focus on the geological features, water demand, or plants and animals of the region.
• San Diego Kumeyaay—Ethnobotany is the study of the plant lore and agricultural customs of a group of people. The Kumeyaay were among the earliest inhabitants of the San Diego area, and they took advantage of the food and plants in many different habitats in order to survive.

ACCESS TEXTBOOKS AND EQUIPMENT

Once you’ve obtained copies of your course textbooks and sample syllabi, you may begin reading them to prepare for the coming school year. Also ask for the teacher’s manuals for your text, laboratory manual, and supplementary print and electronic teaching materials that either accompany the books or have been purchased for your courses. Some of these items may be available at the district, so explore thoroughly. The teacher’s version of your laboratory manual is very important; it will include all the instructions for setting up the laboratory activities and mixing necessary solutions.

BOX 1.2

Science Materials and Equipment

• Technology Resources—including SMART Board; overhead and/or ELMO or other electric imaging projector; document camera; television; DVD, CD, and/or videotape player(s); computers—desktops, laptops; or AlphaSmarts^®; printers, scanners, copiers; Internet connections for one or more computers; LCD projector and large screen for projection; cameras, probes, recorders, and other devices to record observations; and audience response systems for interactive slide presentations
• Permanent Equipment—including student laboratory stations and storage facilities
• Visual Aids—including specimens, models, prepared slides, charts, and posters
• Portable Laboratory Equipment—including animal cages; balances, meters, testers, and scales; Bunsen burners and laboratory torches; brushes and sponges; buzzers and bells; ball and ring apparatus; carts and dollies; centrifuges; clamps, ties, rings, hooks, and support stands; electroscopes and calorimeters; dissection equipment; filters; glass ware; incubators; hot plates and lamps; microscopes, cameras, and telescopes; motors and generators; magnets; optical filters; stools; timers; tongs, tweezers, and scissors; and wave machines
• Safety Equipment—including aprons, disinfectants, eye protection, eye washes, fire protection blankets, first aid, fume hoods, gloves, safety charts and posters, sanitation products, and waste containers
• Materials and Supplies—including pH and chromatography papers and materials, specimens, indicators and test solutions, chemicals, lens-cleaning products, lubricants and adhesives, microplate supplies, batteries, bulbs, biological, balance papers, paper towels, and water and soil test kits

Take inventory of the various kinds of available teaching equipment and resources. Inquire whether there is a catalog of your school and/or district video and software collections. The types of equipment you can easily access certainly will impact the ways that you plan and implement your teaching strategies and learning experiences. You will need information on how science supplies are obtained and funded, how to make purchase order requests, whether personal expenses will be reimbursed, and even whether there is a limit on the number of photocopies allowed each semester. Begin a wish list of items you would like to obtain when there is money available in the school budget or a grant-writing opportunity arises. Check to see whether your district has equipment standards for science classrooms. See Box 1.2 for suggested science materials and equipment.

If you conduct an Internet search on “grants for science teachers,” you will find an extensive list. Get ideas at Vernier’s Grant Writing Guide at www.vernier.com/grants and the Texas Instruments Funding Sources Grantwriting Site at http://education.ti.com/
educationportal/sites/US/
sectionHome/grantandfunding.html. You might also consider:

• Toyota TAPESTRY Grants for Science Teachers: www.nsta.org/pd/tapestry. Grants up to $10,000 for projects that promote exciting and innovative activities to motivate students in science.
• Toshiba America Foundation: www.toshiba.com/tafpub
  /jsp/home/default.jsp. Grants for projects in math and science designed by classroom teachers to improve instruction for students in Grades K–12.

PLAN FOR EXPLORATION AND EXPERIMENTATION

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My room is arranged in small pods/groups. I believe it is essential so that students have the opportunity to work together in cooperative groups.

—Seventh-grade science teacher

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The classroom environment sets the tone for your students (Kottler, Kottler, & Kottler, 2004). You want your room to be both attractive and functional. It should be a place where students feel welcome, safe, and comfortable. Post your name and room number near the door. If possible, place a science-related picture on or beside the door that indicates the subjects taught in your room.

To begin, imagine what your students as well as other visitors will see as they first enter, and display science materials and objects in this space. You may use specimens, equipment, models, timelines, posters, books, and so forth. To stimulate new ideas, periodically change your...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• History of Science Topics
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Introduction
• 1. Design Your Classroom to Create Communities of Learners
• 2. Understand Standards to Develop Your Curriculum
• 3. Emphasize Inquiry Science to Deepen Understanding
• 4. Know Your Students to Support Science Achievement
• 5. Design Assessments to Align With Objectives
• 6. Connect the Learning to Reach Students’ Lives
• 7. Develop Literacy to Build Science Skills
• 8. Plan With Students in Mind to Prepare Your Teaching
• 9. Include Resources to Make Science Real
• 10. Integrate Technology to Enrich Learning
• 11. Seek Powerful Activities to Engage Learners
• 12. Collaborate With Colleagues to Expand Opportunities
• 13. Reflect on Your Practice to Fortify Your Future
• Resources
• Readings and References
• Index