Posts by wkehl
Teaching STEM with LEGO
But the basic bricks have never lost their power to engage imaginations and teach. Teachers' blogs and Pinterest abound with ideas for teaching with LEGO, and from basic shape recognition to reading.
Science Mentorship Program Matches High School Students with Scientists
A university in Canada has been matching bright local high school students with its research scientists in a win-win scenario that has the man who started the program asking, if it worked here, why not elsewhere?
Engineering for Families
Developed by the Foundation for Family Science & Engineering with support from the National Science Foundation, Family Engineering provides resources for elementary age children and their families to learn engineering through inquiry, as well as creativity, teamwork, and collaborative problem solving.
NSTA 2013 Resource Roundup
The best thing about the National Science Teachers Association annual conference - other than listening to great speakers and meeting peers - is all the free resources that are handed out by the bagful. While I can't share the rock samples, educational picture books, and bird observation kits I picked up, I can share some of the online resources I found in almost every session and every bo
The Think Tank
In June, I ran a short series of articles on alternatives to the traditional science museum, from pop up museums to learning labs on wheels. I recently caught up with one of those projects: The Think Tank had recently wrapped up a successful crowd sourcing campaign on Indiegogo and was looking ahead to actually building their truck-turned-learning lab.
Educational Excellence Starts at Home
The culture of educational excellence starts in the home," says co-author Dr. Ina Mullis. "It follows with a school that has a focus on educational success by all the parties concerned – the teachers, the administration, the parents, the students themselves. It continues into the classroom with a teacher that is holding student engagement.
Citizen Science
Last month, while enjoying a hike on Mount Rainier, I participated in a citizen science project to help document wildflowers. You may have heard of "citizen science" - a scientist or a research group asks for help from the public to, say, identify wildflowers or monitor water quality in a local stream. Does it actually work?
Teaching the Nature of Science
A 2010 study of three elementary students found that, “Although each had robust knowledge of instructional strategies for teaching NOS, teachers lacked the requisite knowledge of assessment that would provide a feedback loop to support continued development of their knowledge of learners and lead to improvement in their teaching of NOS” (Hanuscin and Lee 2010).
Recent Research on Learning
A recent study suggests that e-readers can make reading easier for people with dyslexia. By configuring e-readers to display on a few words per line, some dyslexic readers were able to read more easily, quickly, and with greater comprehension.
Science, brains, & learning languages
We've known for several decades that there is a critical period for learning language: children are more likely to reach native (or native-like) fluency in language(s) that they learn before age 5. (The exact age and importance of this window is not written in stone.) The good news is that the benefits of learning a language do not disappear after age 5. A recent deluge of studies point to interesting and encouraging links between learning languages and the brain.