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Morgan,
I thank you for be honest about it - it is a problem plaguing education (elementary teacher phobia of STEM more broadly). It has gotten so bad that I know some superintendents here in Minnesota who refuse to hire an elementary teacher without a math specialist certificate, otherwise the assumption is the candidate can't math. It is also hard in 2021 when people read Strengthsfinder mombo-jumbo and believe that you don't need to address your weaknesses anymore.
In no particular order:
1. There are no shortcuts, it will take hard work, and it might be painful.
2. Address your own misconceptions. Misconceptions of the teacher are a PRIMARY source of misconceptions of students. Misconceptions of students become negative knowledge that first must be untaught by future teachers before real learning can be begin. Its like student load debt for kid's brains. Find out what you think you know but you actually don't (which falls faster a steel bb or a steel cannonball, does an thermos keep things warm or stop heat flow, which has a higher acceleration, a car speeding up from 55mph to 60mph in 5 seconds or a man speeding up from 5mph to 10mph in 5 seconds, do organisims evolve or does a species, when a log burns, does some mass get used up, etc.). Pay attention to word choice (do "lighter" things float or things with "lower density", are the bonds in a solid "tighter" (which could imply more tightly packed, in which case all solids would sink) or "more rigid", etc.)
3. Professional development - attend NSTA conferences (and/or your state's version). Go to sessions where you will learn something, not just the ones with the cool give aways by textbook companies. Do you have access to the NSTA learning center? (Even if you don't consider buying a 6 month or 1 year student membership). Download a bunch of reading - the downloads, as I understand it when I use it as a textbook in my class) are your's forever. Depending on the specifics of your license, they also have some diagnostic tests (to figure out where you might be weaker in life, physical, earth science) and then tutorials (Sci-packs) to help you with your weaknesses. I attached my collection on misconception lit from the learning center.
4. Find someone to talk and learn from (as Vygotsky would say, a more knowledgeable other) where you can be honest. You might be assigned a mentor at your school (if so, great) but that person (if they are el ed) might be STEM phobic too. If you are worried about tenure, etc. you also might hesitate to be honest about ignorance/struggles with that person in your building. Or throw your questions on this board and get anonymous help :-)
5. Play to the resources in your area. Use them. Get the kids experiencing science around them. When I taught (middle/high school) in rural Virginia and Minnesota, kids brought in the digestive track of a chicken (so we could see a crop and gizzard), a whole skeleton of a sheep that had died that they wired together, a deer head with antlers removed so we could see the brain (not advised now with chronic wasting), but you get the point.
6. Assign open ended projects. I love assigning papers/projects with minimal topic restrictions, because it give me homework to learn about new things. Obviously 10 page papers aren't happening at your level, but let students drive some of the investigations.
7. Try new things. Have an open mind. Keep what works.
8. Don't let science become an applied reading class with endless worksheets. Get your kids doing scinece, perferably "minds on" inquiry.
9. Throw out your textbook? Look at your standards. The standards and the textbook will not match. NSTA doesn't have the guts(?) to work with a textbook company to create a good textbook actually aligned with the standards. This means every textbook company claims alignment to your state's standards - but this is often a lie. For example, simple machines were a 5th grade standard in our state, but when FOCUS came peddleing their curriculum to a district I was consulting with, they showed alignment on that standard. When I investigated it, I found they had a picture of the rear sprocket of a bicycle (which is, I guess a wheel and axel, so techincally a picture of a simple machine) but did not even mention the idea of a simple machines in the caption, they had no reading about it in the book, no assessment, etc. Look at your standards, look critically at your text and other materials, and be prepared to (A) skip chapters and (B) have to bring in external resources.
10. Play to your strengths. (This isn't a bad id
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