In an unprecedented effort to promote leadership skills and endeavors amongst classroom teachers, the Oklahoma State Department of Education has developed their OKSci and OKMath Leadership programs. These programs take a small group of STEM education teachers on a personal journey to discover the leadership skills and problem solving techniques they already possess, but may […]

One of my favorite go-to activities is a tradition I brought in from my research lab past.  Once a week over lunch, my colleagues and I introduced professional journal articles to the group on topics relevant to our work. Now that I’m teaching science, instead of practicing it, I find that I still enjoy hearing […]

In talking to science teachers from around the state, they share that many of their students struggle with constructing explanations and, in particular, with supporting the explanations with evidence.The Claims Evidence and Reasoning (CER) framework can serve as an instructional strategy to support students in constructing explanations for scientific explanations utilizing evidence. CER is a […]

Many teachers strive to provide their students with diversified classroom experiences, and many of those experiences can be categorized with Webb’s (1997) Depth of Knowledge (DOK) model employed to analyze cognitive expectations of standards, curricular activities, and assessments.The DOK level describes the kind of thinking involved in a task, not the likelihood the task will […]

 As I sat through the session on Science Literacy at the PARCC meeting I appreciated the close reading strategy that was showcased by the presenters. I also applauded the CER model they promoted for analyzing the claims and evidence presented in the test. However, the example lesson structure showcased in the presentation alarmed me as […]