Just a quick post, to share a small “a-ha” moment that I hope means I’ve successfully solidified my understanding of the Next Generation Science Standard’s “3D” learning. As a Science minor, and former middle school science teacher, I’ve always believed in the power of providing students with discrepant events (p.s. we’re supposed to call them phenomena now); the idea that you present some sort of demonstration or model of a real world occurrence that challenges students’ pre-conceived notions.
The idea of providing an engaging piece of phenomena isn’t a new theory (think about how “anticipatory set” was drilled into you during pre-service days), but the ways in which we can present them to students has drastically changed from my pre-service (and even science teaching) days. Consider the following, the sun emits UV radiation in a form of “invisible light.” Human beings can’t see it, but we do have technology that allows us to observe what it might be like if we could see it.
Tags: engaging • multimedia • NGSS • phenomena • Science