This practical and user-friendly professional development guide is written for educators who teach middle school students at schools and for those who teach from the home.This book assists you in developing, implementing and evaluating your science teaching and your students' science learning. The included activities allow for individual reflection and/ or shared group reflections while guiding you to conceptualize science teaching as a personal activity requiring a large capacity for reflective thought, deliberate action and experimentation.Before you can begin to teach science effectively, you need to understand yourself and your teaching philosophy. Then you need to begin to develop an understanding of your students; you cannot teach unless you know your audience. In this book, you will conduct in-depth reflections on who you are and who your students are. What are their views of science and scientists? What prior knowledge do they bring to the learning environment? What experiences did they have in their early years? What are the demographics of the school and the community and what kind of support can you reasonably expect from them? What are the implications of the diversity in your children for how you develop and teach science lessons?Great science teaching and learning is a result of meaningful preparation and collaboration amongst teachers, students, parents, schools and the community. As an educator, you have the power to make an outstanding contribution to the scientific pipeline by nurturing the critical thinking skills of blossoming scientists so they have the opportunity and foundation to become our nation's future scientists.
About the Author: Pamela Fraser-Abder, PhD is Professor of Science Education and Program Director at New York University. She is recognized both nationally and internationally for her expertise in issues of gender and culture and their impact on the teaching and the learning of science; the development, implementation and evaluation of science curricula; and the professional development of science teachers. In addition, Professor Fraser-Abder serves as a consultant to major national and international organizations as they respond to the call for increased scientific literacy. Her most recent project allowed her to design and implement a successful innovative residency-model degree program for science teacher education at New York University. It is Dr. Fraser-Abder's hope that scientific literacy will become the universal truth among the world's youth and she advocates for that reality every day.