High School Students Working as Scientists Work
Developed for:
High school teachers of physics, chemistry, biology, and/or Earth science.
Format:
A seven-week asynchronous online course.
Each session will be available online for one week; the week will begin on a Friday and end on a Thursday. Within that period, participants can budget their own time for performing three components:
- Reflection on the topic of the week through related reading and teaching.
- Posting of those reflections on the Web site.
- Participation in the exchange of participants' comments on each other's reflections.
Participating fully in the course requires 30 hours in 7 sessions over 8 weeks.
Goal:
To strategically encourage students to take a more scientifically disciplined, inquiry approach to the reading, laboratory, discussion, and lecture experiences they have in class.
Content:
Participants will:
- Adapt current high school lesson plans.
- Examine the myths and realities of doing inquiry in the high school classroom.
- Develop a richer conception of inquiry.
- Experiment on existing lessons with a context-rich learning-cycle structure.
- Explore with research-based resources the idea that scientific thinking should be a goal in the science classroom.
Features:
The course is asynchronous, allowing teachers to participate at individually selected times and places.
- The course focuses on building a national community of learners around specific topics through teacher-to-teacher interaction.
- The content and online discussion are based in the classroom practice of all participants.
- Emphasis is placed on ideas and teaching strategies that are directly applicable in the classroom.
- Participants and CSE staff share information about and access to a range of resources.
- The number of hours meets most state requirements for professional credits.
- The course assumes standards-based teaching and learning and rigorous accountability requirements.
- Certificates of completion will be mailed to participants. To earn a certificate, a participant must complete all of the course requirements.
To learn more about this opportunity, contact us at highschool@edc.org.
