Missing Track For...

Science Methods. Tonight's class is a five hour long lab where two current science teachers instruct/coach/answer/counsel/demonstrate for us future science teachers. In Science Methods I'll learn

1. The nature and purposes of science and science teaching.
2. Science curricula, present and future.
3. Teaching skills and strategies.
4. How to promote, evaluate, and assess student active learning.
5. Classroom management, discipline, seating, safety, etc.
6. Teaching English learners, multi-cultural classroom instruction, sensitivity issues, motivational techniques, etc.
7. Your role as a professional science teacher.
   

to meet all California Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs). (More acronyms!) With it comes a lot of reading and writing and lesson planning and it's with other science teachers!

Tonight we went over a salt water-fresh water ice demo (which will melt the ice faster, salty water or fresh water? Do you know?), an intro to science teaching (how students perceive a word differently without the use of a model or specific instruction or definition, especially new science vocabulary), setting up class rules and procedures without using the words Don't and No (a little hard to do but you spin the rules with a positive outlook), and learning how to implement the Ticket to Leave the class (journal entry about what was learned) by doing it at the end of every class session.

This was a lot of new information to take in for the first class, and I have to admit it was fun, and it's going to be a lot of hard work (the syllabus is 17 pages long!) and I'm so ready for it.