Archive: Teacher Tip Tuesday: Start of School: Effective Discourse Strategies for Creating Inclusive Science/STEM Classrooms, September 20, 2022

This web seminar by members of NSTA’s Professional Learning Committee is designed to help teachers deepen their understanding of the effective and practical strategies to facilitate academic discourse that promotes inclusive science and STEM classrooms. Participants will engage in a variety of instructional strategies to ensure that all students have access to scientific discourse, and opportunities to collaborate with peers, through intentional planning. Participants will engage in a variety of formative assessment classroom techniques (FACTS) from Page Keeley’s Uncovering Student Ideas texts, including commit and toss, pro/con pairs, structured think-pair-share, and more.

In addition, we will be discussing the shift away from traditional talk patterns- like I-R-E (Initiate, Response, Evaluation) and towards Productive Talk to promote an inclusive science and STEM classroom where discourse supports student sensemaking.

Finally, we will provide resources and discussion around the “lead4ward Instructional Strategies Playlist”, which provides teachers with detailed descriptions of specific, instructional strategies. Links to additional discourse resources will also be provided. The instructional strategies used in this presentation will promote student engagement, differentiation, and scientific understanding to help form a more inclusive learning environment where all students can participate in scientific discourse.

All individuals receive a certificate of participation and 100 NSTA activity points for attending the live seminar and completing the end-of-program survey. A certificate of participation is not awarded for watching the recorded version of the program.

We invite you to register for upcoming web seminars at NSTA.

View the Archive Video

To view the presentation slides from the web seminar and related resources, visit the resource collection. Continue discussing this topic in the community forums.

Below are comments from individuals who attended the seminar:

  • "I enjoyed the different strategies to help our students think more critically and be engage inside the science classroom to share their ideas."
  • "Phenomenal! Excellent pace with real examples and ideas for activities that will help engage students and encourage problem solving"
  • "The people who presented it did wonderful, the participants asked very valuable questions, and there was so much that was interesting within the webinar."

A certificate of attendance was deposited into participants' account page for completing the evaluation form at the end of the program.

For more information contact: [email protected]

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