Science methods courses ought to be just as interesting and exciting as the best high school geology or physics class. How to teach science education courses to achieve this goal is the subject of this weblog entry.

We’ve often talked about “how to teach science?” with assumption being that we are teaching K-12 students in either an elementary, middle or high school science course. In these discussions we’ve alluded to the importance of helping students construct knowledge, and to formulate courses that are inquiry-oriented.

Let’s turn our attention to teaching courses for students who want to teach science, or are professional teachers taking graduate courses in science education. How should these courses be designed?

I recently developed a new website that deals with the question: How to teach science education (methods or pedagogy) courses? The underlying framework for the answer to this question is pedagogy developed in my text, The Art of Teaching Science, which is that teacher preparation should be focused on professional artistry. In this view, the learning to teach process involves encounters with peers, professional teachers, and science educators. The tools to support these encounters involve inquiry and experimentation, reflection through writing and discussion, as well as experiences with students, science curriculum, and pedagogy. Here, becoming a science teacher, or extending one’s professional abilities is a creative process, and in so doing, students are encouraged to “invent” and “construct” ideas about science teaching through this interaction. (ps. sorry for being long-winded on this)

You can click here to visit the new website How to Teach Science Education? The site is meant to help facilitate the use of the text if you are teaching a university level science methods or pedagogy course, an advanced level graduate science education course, and summer institute in approaches to science education, or a staff development course.

One of the links in the new site is Teaching Strategies, which will take you to an online teacher’s guide for The Art of Teaching Science that I developed that includes Syllabus Helpers and Agenda Strategies, chapter-by-chapter. Syllabus Helpers is a chart-like feature that will be helpful in planning a course. Agenda Strategies that specific suggestions for experiential-based activities that you might want to use in your course.

Another link at the website is called Inquiry Activities. I developed 42 Inquiry Activities that spread about and integrated into the text, The Art of Teaching Science. There are clearly more Inquiry Activities than you would use in a course, but they give you the option of choosing those that you think will relate to your style of teaching, and the ones that will help students in your program construct their knowledge of teaching science. I’ve made 5 of the Inquiries available in complete form in the website.

Teaching science education “real good” is a goal all of us aspire to. I hope this site will help you achieve that goal.