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Noelle Kreider

Misconceptions About Science - 6 views

  • Science is an exciting and dynamic process for discovering how the world works and building that knowledge into powerful and coherent frameworks.
  • the Scientific Method represents how scientists usually write up the results of their studies (and how a few investigations are actually done), but it is a grossly oversimplified representation of how scientists generally build knowledge. The process of science is exciting, complex, and unpredictable.
  • In fact, many scientists recognize that creative thinking is one of the most important skills they have — whether that creativity is used to come up with an alternative hypothesis, to devise a new way of testing an idea, or to look at old data in a new light.
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  • What's important about scientific reasoning is not what all the different modes of reasoning are called, but the fact that the process relies on careful, logical consideration of how evidence supports or does not support an idea, of how different scientific ideas are related to one another, and of what sorts of things we can expect to observe if a particular idea is true.
  • In fact, there are many ways to test almost any scientific idea; experimentation is only one approach.
  • the rigor of a scientific study has much more to do with the investigator's approach than with the discipline.
  • A 2005 survey of scientists at top research universities found that more than 48% had a religious affiliation and that more than 75% believed that religions convey important truths.
  • While it's true that all scientific ideas are subject to change if warranted by the evidence, many scientific ideas (e.g., evolutionary theory, foundational ideas in chemistry) are supported by many lines of evidence, are extremely reliable, and are unlikely to change.
  • Hypotheses are explanations that are limited in scope, applying to fairly narrow range of phenomena. The term law is sometimes used to refer to an idea about how observable phenomena are related — but the term is also used in other ways within science. Theories are deep explanations that apply to a broad range of phenomena and that may integrate many hypotheses and laws.
  • Because science deals only with natural phenomena and explanations, it cannot support or contradict the existence of supernatural entities — like God.
  • at the cutting edge of scientific research — areas of knowledge that are difficult to represent in introductory textbooks — scientific ideas may change rapidly as scientists test out many different possible explanations trying to figure out which are the most accurate.
  • Scientific research also involves creative problem-solving, communicating with others, logical reasoning, and many other skills that might or might not be a part of every science class. Second, science encompasses a remarkably broad set of activities.
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    misconceptions about the scientific process and more
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    Review these common misconceptions about science, then use the grade level link in the right sidebar to find out how to address them.
Noelle Kreider

Educational Leadership:Teaching to the Minds of Boys - 1 views

  • When it comes to fulfilling the kinds of assignments that we call “literacy,” boys are often out of their chairs rather than in them.
  • all over the world boys are struggling in school, with lower grades, more discipline problems, more learning disabilities, and more behavior disorders than girls (Gurian & Stevens, 2005).
  • By introducing more boy-friendly teaching strategies in the classroom, the school was able to close the gender gap in just one year. At the same time, girls' reading and writing performance improved.
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  • Douglass realized that its classrooms were generally a better fit for the verbal-emotive, sit-still, take-notes, listen-carefully, multitasking girl. Teachers tended to view the natural assets that boys bring to learning—impulsivity, single-task focus, spatial-kinesthetic learning, and physical aggression—as problems. By altering strategies to accommodate these more typically male assets, Douglass helped its students succeed
  • Increasing Experiential and Kinesthetic Learning Opportunities
  • Supporting Literacy Through Spatial-Visual Representations
  • Letting Boys Choose Topics That Appeal to Them
  • Helping Boys with Homework
  • Offering Single-Gender Learning Environments
  • for many boys these disruptions simply reflect male brains trying to stay awake in a classroom that is not well suited for their kind of learning.
    • Noelle Kreider
       
      Letting them wiggle, tap, etc. is helping them learn!
  • Seeking Out Male Role Models
  • Making Reading and Writing Purposeful
  • Researchers have identified more than 100 structural differences between the male and female brain. These differences are both genetic and socialized
  • Verbal/spatial differences. Boys' brains generally have more cortical areas dedicated to spatial-mechanical functioning than girls' brains
  • P cells and M cells. The male visual system (optical and neural) relies more heavily on type M ganglion cells, which detect movement. Girls generally have more type P ganglion cells, which are sensitive to color variety and other fine sensory activity
  • Frontal lobe development. A girl's prefrontal cortex is generally more active than a boy's, and her frontal lobe generally develops at an earlier age (Rich, 2000). These are the decision-making areas of the brain (as well as the reading/writing/word production areas).
  • Neural rest states. Boys' brains go into what neurologists call a rest state many times each day.
  • o bring about these improvements, teachers need to ask themselves some key questions: As teachers, do we fully understand the challenges that boys face in education today? Do we realize that there is a scientific basis for innovating on behalf of both girls and boys as disaggregated groups? Does my school incorporate boy-friendly and girl-friendly learning innovations in full knowledge of how essential they are in accommodating the structural and chemical gender differences built into the human brain? Do the educators in my school realize that many behaviors typical of either boys or girls are neurologically based?
  • Cross talk between hemispheres. Structural differences in girls' brains generate more cross talk between hemispheres, leading to better multitasking.
  • Boys also take more time than girls to transition between tasks (Havers, 1995). They tend to become more irritable (and to underperform in learning and classroom behavior) when teachers move them continually between tasks.
  • Natural aggression. For a number of neural and chemical reasons, boys are more naturally aggressive and competitive than girls are
  • With less oxytocin in the male neural and physiological system, boys tend toward greater impulsivity, more aggression, and less reliance on bonding malleability (Taylor, 2002). They have less desire than girls to comply to please others, including teachers.
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    fascinating article about the differences between male and female brains and the impact this has on effective instructional design. discusses a school in colorado that changed instruction to be more boy-friendly and experienced tremendous improvement in test scores.
Noelle Kreider

Edheads - Weather Activities - 2 views

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    students learn the symbols on a weather report and learn to predict weather based on high and low pressure, fronts, wind speed and direction, precipitation. check the teacher's guide for a pre/post test and other resources.
Harry Coats

The USA Quiz - 0 views

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    Test your knowledge of the 50 States
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