There are a variety of science teaching methods you can draw upon when helping students understand their world.
Whilst there are several approaches to try, the most important thing to keep in mind is that our role as science educators is to help students understand how the scientific method actually works and why science impacts upon their own lives.
Things to keep in mind when considering a science teaching method
- Group dynamics.
Who works well with who? Who can handle cooperative group situations and who needs time to work by themselves? - Student ability.
This is not simply about science understanding, this also about their ability to undertake the work with the materials at hand. - Timeframe.
Is the teaching method likely to be successful given how long it takes to get students on task and the anticipated outcomes? - Context.
How does the scientific concept relate to their lives? - Content.
Which teaching method will help the students best understand the lesson material?
Methods for teaching science
All science teaching methods come down to either teacher-centred or student-centred instruction. Both types of instruction have their place, however in practice have very different dynamics in the classroom.
Lecture (teacher-centred)
In this approach, it is the teacher that is the focus. Students either passively take notes or ask questions through the teacher’s presentation. Handy for large groups of students or for when you need to get through a large body of information. The key to this lesson style is to keep it lively by inserting graphics, video snippets, animations, science demonstrations, audio grabs or guest appearances via video conference. To help increase the engagement during a lecture, try incorporating student polling using Poll Everywhere, Plickers, Quizizz or Kahoot. The advantage of getting active student feedback is that this formative assessment can help shape your lecture and future lessons to fit the student’s needs.
Hands-on activities (student-centred)
Break out the experiment materials! Whether the students work in small groups or by themselves, the lesson has a clear question that students need to find an answer to with the teacher acting as a facilitator. There are a few variations here;
- Students follow an experimental procedure with a clear set of instructions and scaffold for their scientific report.
- Students explore the materials themselves to design and test their own fair experiment, keeping variable testing in mind. This version is better for students who already have a clear understanding of the scientific method and are now ready for independent thinking
- Station-based rotations. Here the students rotate around the classroom to explore a variety of hands-on materials that all cover an aspect of your lesson topic. The trick here is to ensure that there is enough time for the students to complete each activity and that there are no bottlenecks in terms of access to resources or one particular activity taking too long to complete. A fun way to link all the stations together to pull together a scenario such as a forensics investigation; some students will enjoy the role-play!
You can find over 150 free science experiments here
Project Based learning (student-centred)
This teaching method draws on the hands-on nature of the activities above and extends this to involve students in a deep dive into a given topic. Time is the key here, as students will be engaged over an extended period of time in researching their topic, designing their experiment or model, writing a scientific report or creating a poster and presenting their findings in a short talk. When planning this in your scope and sequence, consider access to resources both within and beyond your school and how the students might be able to involve the community in their research or as an audience for the final presentation at a school science fair. Often part of inquiry-based instruction, the outputs of Project Based Learning (PBL) can include several of the following as a major work;
- Field journal
- Student Podcast
- Working model
- Science poster
- Research paper
- Video diaries
- Augmented reality or Virtual reality
- App creation
The outcome doesn’t necessarily have to be informal too; try emulating the entrepreneurial show Shark Tank and have students compete for a prize in a pitchfest!
Peer-led team learning (student-centred)
Peer-led team learning (PLTL) is about empowering the students to teach other students. Often employed in undergraduate studies, this approach also works in schools where it is most effective when connecting older students with younger students. Alternatively, PLTL can also be used when pairing students with a high subject aptitude with students needing help. Guidance is important here as you need to ensure that what is being covered is correct and safely performed. With supervision, this approach can be effective for students to learn leadership skills and can create a positive atmosphere around scholarship.
Flipped learning (student-centred)
Flipped learning has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. The idea is that the instructional content is given to the students outside of normal school time, with the intention that students can then come to school with deeper questions for teacher clarification. you can present this content via a series of videos, articles and books to read, podcasts to listen to, investigating a problem and so on. There is much debate on how to best implement this in the classroom; in essence, you need to consider how your students will respond to flipped learning and how you can motivate them to trial it. A handy app to use with this is Flipgrid, whereby you can record a very short video question to your class and the students then respond to you with their answers via video as well.
Differentiation (student-centred)
Differentiation is all about ensuring that students of all levels can be involved in your lesson. You may want to create worksheets with different tasks or levels of difficulty, perhaps have a variety of activities for students to choose from or create a variety of job roles for students when running PBL. Of course, with differentiation comes a time requirement to prepare the lesson, however it can help with students being more on task as they can choose tasks that they can achieve. You can differentiate tasks as both extension activities as well as design activities for students who need more support.
It’s up to you!
Without a doubt, the list of teaching methods above is just a brief overview of what you can try in your classroom. In reality, there are many ways to teach science and you might find that you’ll blend methods together and change on the fly depending on how your students are responding. No matter what, it’s not just about the technology but more about the pedagogy. Have a chat with your fellow teachers or reach out to others via Twitter on the myriad of professional learning networks for advice. As always if you’ve got any thoughts on the above or advice, pop it in the comments below or get in touch!
Further enrichment ideas
Create a science festival at your school to showcase these different teaching methods. You can also enrich this day with a science show, workshop or STEM activity!
Happy teaching,
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