{"id":374,"date":"2008-09-10T10:22:05","date_gmt":"2008-09-10T14:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theness.com\/neurologicablog\/?p=374"},"modified":"2008-09-10T10:22:05","modified_gmt":"2008-09-10T14:22:05","slug":"supporting-new-science-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theness.com\/neurologicablog\/supporting-new-science-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting New Science Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this press release<\/a> today and thought it would make a good addition to my recent discussion of how to improve science education. The study looks a the recent trend of school districts hiring science teachers who are trained in science but not teaching – uncertified science teachers. This practice is increasing due to the shortage of science teachers.<\/p>\n

They found that the outcome of science education and the retention of new science teachers can be improved by two factors: supporting them with mentors (retired science teachers who observe them in the classroom) and with lesson plans.<\/p>\n

This study and the accompanying article support the notion that good science teachers are a prerequisite to improved outcomes in science education. But it also suggests that providing access to science lesson plans (which could certainly be incorporated into a science-wiki) helped the teachers perform better and improved retention.<\/p>\n

However, it looks like the study did not separate the two variables – mentoring and providing lesson plans, so we do not know the relative contribution of each.<\/p>\n

It also raises the question of whether or not it is easier to teach teachers science or to teach scientists how to teach.\u00a0 I think we should both – but I would be interested to see a comparison of outcomes.<\/p>\n

In any case, this looks like a very practical solution to the problem of lack of enough good science teachers – recruiting those with science degrees and then supporting their teaching ability.\u00a0 Hopefully these kinds of programs will spread. I also like the fact that these school districts were not afraid to experiment, and of course using objective outcome measures to assess how the programs worked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw this press release today and thought it would make a good addition to my recent discussion of how to improve science education. The study looks a the recent trend of school districts hiring science teachers who are trained in science but not teaching – uncertified science teachers. This practice is increasing due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t