Possible Questions for a Professional Educator Interview

"If a primary teaching colleague, in a faculty meeting, stated that they had enough to do to teach reading. That young children weren't ready to understand real science. Therefore, it would be far better to teach young students how to read so when they are older they will be able to read really good and they will be really ready to understand science as they will be able to comprehend what they read. How would you respond?"

Answer

 

Question: We don't have a big budget for science. How could you teach hhands-on lessons with minimal materials?

Answer: The amount of money is certainly a factor that can have an impact on the kinds and sometimes the quality of science experiences that students have. Most schools budget money for science or other class supplies, although there is a large discrepancy between some districts and even among schools in the same district.
However, there are many activities that use household items that students/ parents are happy to provide. Items that can be recycled or items that some parents have in abundance. For example butter dishes, baby food jars, ... can be recycled by parents. Fast food places will donate straws, containers... Flower shops flowers for a flower unit... Grocery stores can provide produce, fruit, vegetables, for students to explore, Construction business can provide scraps of wood, pieces of
metal... electricians pieces of wire... With a little creative thinking and appropriate begging it doesn't take long to procure many supplies that will supply a classroom fairly well.

Question: How can I be sure that I explain things correctly and don't give students misinformation?

Answer: Explaining things to students accurately is certainly a concern. I would first start by thinking about what accurate means. Accurate as compared to what? Accurate for a 5 year old, a doctor, physicist.... Certainly there are ideas or explanations that are closer to accurate than others and some that are far from accurate. However, the degree of accuracy in a science class depends largely on the age and developmental level of the students. The world is full of adults that have many misconceptions/ alternative views and understand very little about inquiry and are skilled at scientific reasoning. A constructivist approach suggests students provide explanations. However, for teachers to facilitate students' construction of knowledge they must suggest specific observations or pose questions. Obviously, the more knowledge the teacher has of the ideas that are currently accepted by scientists is helpful, but knowledge of student's various abilities and in how they are capable of understanding is at least equally important if not more so.
So your are on target with the need for teaches to understand the concepts. One of the best resources to start with is an encyclopedia. Usually the information that is there, is accurate, fairly comprehensive, outlined in a manageable way, and fairly understandable. The internet can also be a good source. However, it can be frustrating sometimes locating what you want and to know what is accurate and isn't. However, a good site can be valuable. The most important thing I believe that students can learn is that none of us know everything and that we can be excited about learning something new and how to go about finding answers and determining the accuracy of the answers we find. That can be the most important thing that you can teach students.

 

Question: How do I know good science teaching when I see it?

Answer: At the beginning of the lesson (exploration) see what the students are focusing on. Did the teachers start in a way that allowed the students to start from what they already knew and encourage them to test the limits of their understanding? What questions/ activities helped this to happen? What information was available to students to push their understanding beyond its present limits. And how successful was the teachers in diagnosing what the students knew?
2. In the main part of the lesson (invention) how did the teachers facilitate the learning of the students? What observational information from the experiment did students use to help therm learn? How did the teachers help make the necessary information available so that all students were able to access sufficient observational data to make scientific
inferences and conceptualize concepts/ generalizations. How did the teachers bridge the raw collection of data (organize it in a chart, help students create a model, diagram, analogy...) to assist students' conceptualization of concepts or generalizations? How did the teachers assess the students to see what the lesson added to their understanding?
3. Also through out the lesson. How did the teachers help students use, or review, or introduce inquiry or process ideas/ skills during the lesson.
4. How did the teachers finish the lesson? How did they assess for generalization? How successful were the students able to generalize the concept, generalization... Then I would go with something open ended like you mentioned. What would you keep the same or change if you were doing this lesson.

 

Question: I was asked to do a unit on energy and was looking on the internet for some really good experiments to do with second graders but I am not having good luck. Can you help? I was wondering if there were some good sites that you can think of that I could possible use. I am supposed to teach second graders about light, sound and heat energy. If you could help me out I would greatly appreciate it.

Answer: Part of the problem might be that energy, light, sound, and heat at the second grade level isn't included in the state or national standards. Energy is a fairly abstract concept for those in second grade. If you have to include it in your teaching my suggestion would be to select energy sources that are easily observable by second graders. For example -
force can be defined as a push and a pull and students can find interactions that have pushes or pulls and discuss that what ever provided the push or pull was an energy source. I would look for a variety of activities that students could do that involved pushes and pulls and energy of motion. FOSS has a module that includes spinners that could be used...
After they recognize that motion is a force and a force is source of energy, then I might move to sound. Find activities where they can discover that sound is the vibration of objects. When they observe that I would connect that to the idea of motion, push, pull, force, and energy.
Light and heat will be even more abstract, but after the connection idea students would probably be able to connect things that they associate with energy, electric outlets, batteries, and the need to plug objects into them that provide heat and light and therefore make their connection to energy. I also have some light activities on my internet site, but I put them together to use with fourth grade. However, I have used the mirror puzzless and different colors of cellophane or theater gel to shine flash lights at or through with second graders. About half were able to to solve the puzzles with little help after some focused explanations of what they were to investigate and the others might have understood with a few more activities.

Question: Where can I find sources to help unpack the a Standard.

Answer: Project 2061 and the science standards are really good sources

• Science for all Americans book
• Benchmarks book
• The Atlas is a good source for sequencing of concepts... They don't have them all online, but a few are
• Blueprints for Reform
• Designs for Science Literacy

 

Question: How would you use text books in your science classes?

Answer: I believe most science text books are not very helpful for teachers to use as a guide. To create a text with teacher support is an impossible task. If one is written with detailed information to support a teacher that is inexperienced, then a teacher that has much experience in that area finds the abundance of information to get in the way of being able to get a quick understanding of what information is included and how that information is arranged. To use a science text with students the information must be presented in a way that students can read and benefit from it. Most times the science text is best used to support students' after they have had opportunities to manipulate materials and observe the change in properties or lack of change associated with their exploration. These explorations should be compared with their understandings and previous experiences. After their ideas and explanations are shared in a class discussion and students have concepetualized the concepts, then they will have a purpose and understanding for reading a text book. Learning to read science is as important as other science skills and requires students to read. It is important that students are motivated to read about a topic and have a purpose for that reading. The act of reading science must not be thought of as doing science. To maintain student's positive attitudes about science there must be a high frequency of succussful reading that is not a struggle with textual information.

To see how the development of science text books is progressin. Textbook reviews can be found on line requested by the federal government or learned societies. Project 2061 has some of the most recent and promising. Most have been recently developed and may not fit in the textbook category. Reviews.