Hello! I am currently a senior majoring in elementary education, who anxiously awaits student teaching. As a lot of schools have gone towards remote learning, how does the science curriculum look like online? Is there any websites that have helped through online learning and for students to work on at home? Also, is it permitted to send home toolkits for students to engage in 'hands on' activities for the science class? I would love to know about any additional ideas to make learning fun for students. Is there any tips and tricks you would give to a student teacher, especially during these times, and when it comes to lesson planning? Thank you in advance!
Hi Maria, science has definitely been a challenge with e-learning. As you may know, a lot of schools focus so much on math/ELA that they don't do as much science. I will be student teaching in a 3rd-grade classroom and I am currently in that classroom doing my clinical hours. Science currently involves doing some type of reading, which I know it's not very fun. I feel that is even harder now with e-learning, and my CT mentioned that if she could she would be sending out materials to each child. I do want to say, that I work with preschoolers, and what has worked for us has been sending materials every 2 weeks home. It's an awesome way to do science. We let parents know ahead of time the materials they will need, most of the time they are included in the bin they picked up, and we do hands-on experiments with us during our meeting. We have done magnet study and the one they loved was the sink or float. They even got to test out if an egg would sink or float. I would suggest you speak to the principal at the school you are at and with you CT. I am sure if you bring out the idea of sending out materials to students. Often teachers think that it will be expensive, but a lot of times students already have these materials at home!
Hi Maria,
I found this journal article to help answer your first question. It includes a few digital resources for remote learning for both students and teachers. I think you will find this helpful because it specifically focuses on resources for the elementary grades. They share ways to modify course applications and online classroom learning due to the ongoing pandemic. Hope this comes in handy! Here's the link to the article: https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-april-june-2020/online-digital-science
I was able to find this article on the NSTA website (https://s3.amazonaws.com/nstacontent/SC_Jan20_p14-17TechTalk.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIMRSQAV7P6X4QIKQ&Expires=1602877264&Signature=GZy2Gh8ZcZKMFYNlDND3hQqGw4c%3d) that talks about different ways students can use Google in their science curriculum from home. The students would just need to have access to a computer and internet. The article gives an example of how students can use Google Maps if it fits into the curriculm. I also found this website on some simple experiments students can do at home! (https://practicalbydefault.com/homeschool-science-tools/)
I am in a classroom where the teacher just posts websites and activities for the students to go explore science on their own type of thing, but she makes it part of a grade to make sure the students are actually doing it. She will also post youtube videos for the students to watch and during one of their google meets she asks who watched it and then asks a couple questions about the video. She also has these mystery puzzles that she posts from mysteryscience.com and the students love to figure out the mystery. I think sending home toolkit boxes of 'hands on material' would be wonderful if it is permitted by the district. The district I am working with allows teachers to put together materials for parents to pick up and they did a STEM activity giveaway until supplies were out. Another website my teacher posts is code.org/learn and the students seem to enjoy those activities and students are challenging themselves. Hopefully this was helpful for you! Good luck!!
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