Science Educational Chat

    On Monday May 7^th I attempted to participate in #asechat, The Association for Science Education. I found this chat through cybraryman and I was excited to participate in this chat about science teaching since the topics of past chats were specific to the content I am teaching. But Monday’s topic was ‘How to teach electrolysis’ which is a chemistry concept that uses electricity to drive reactions, which I could really contribute too since the sentence above is really all I know about the topic. I wasn’t planning to use this chat for my reflective blog until I found the archives of past chats. This is a fantastic section where you can read through past chats in either summary form or transcripts of the chat. I started going through past chats and wanted to focus on the chat from last July where the topic was ‘What are the traits of an exemplary science teacher?’ So I wanted to focus on that topic for my blog, and I think it applies to all teachers.

     The chat focused on traits of good teachers and then specific traits of science teachers. I think that everyone would agree that some important traits for all teachers would be passion and enthusiasm. Students can pick up on this and it helps to inspire and engage. Interpersonal skills is also very important; teachers must be able to develop a good report with students as well as good communications skills for teaching and working their colleagues. Some other important skills that were discusses was classroom control and confidence. 

    Specifically for science teachers subject knowledge is very important. And not just in the subject they are teaching but they need a broad knowledge of all content areas so they can relate material or answer questions. Understanding common misconceptions about science will help teachers prevent potential problems in student learning.  The use of demos and practical activities was also discussed and the ability to break down content to an appropriate level for students.  

    I wanted to blog about this because I think these topics will help inspire all teachers, and make them think about what is important to them. Also this is a great site for science teachers to look for help in teaching specific content.

Here is the link to the site where you can find these archives:

http://www.ase.org.uk/news/ase-chat/

Inspirational quotes from this chat:

“loves the sbjct takes risks, shows they don't know all the answrs(but help chn to find out more), is passionate &enthusiastic. Whew” @anhalf

“@DrF4chem Yes! Motivate, enthuse, excite, raise aspirations and results will follow” @ViciaScience