When you embrace exploration and discovery in your science classroom, you'll find learning just takes more time. There's no way around it. Students need time to figure things out. While…
Modeling is a HUGE part of the NGSS classroom. (Check out this post on NGSS modeling for more info!) I have students modeling… probably daily! Those models aren’t always big…
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out last week’s post - Why You Need To Stop Front-Loading Vocabulary. First of all, we need to understand exactly what we…
Just like our teaching strategies are changing as we shift to the discovery-centered, NGSS-style of instruction, we also need to change how we teach vocabulary. This can be a…
It has nearly been 2.5 years since I have been in the classroom. I started my maternity leave with my second child in June of 2017 and soon after started…
The Next Generation Science Standards are all about discovery-centered instruction. (I may have made up that term, but it’s how I think about the NGSS). In discovery-centered instruction, students engage…
Simulations are a great way to engage your students in science content that they cannot otherwise access — whether it’s on a scale too large or too long, or simply…
When I first started teaching, cells were one of the topics in my curriculum. My old standards read something like, “Students will know the parts of the cell, including cell…
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Once you choose your anchor, you have to USE it. Anchor phenomena are meant to drive instruction, connecting all the disparate…
Last week, we took a broad overview of NGSS-aligned instruction using the 5E Model. This week, we are going to take a deep dive into the first two stages of…