#raisescienceachievement

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Student Thinking in Science Curriculum Design

A short video essay provides examples of how nVizn Ideas' science curriculum design incorporates the use of student thinking to ensure learning of the correct ideas.

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Beyond the Mixtape Approach: Using Technology to Truly Transform Science Education

So what does a mixtape have to do with education? Not much except it provides an easy-to-understand analogy for changing the way we think about how technology can deliver on the promise of transforming science education. Let your mind drift back to the mixtape days of the 1970s & 80s.

It is common to hear people proclaim the need to improve education. Yet articulating what that looks like is difficult. The various silver bullets often suggested (charter schools, higher teacher pay, dismantling teacher unions, etc.) are not really silver bullets. If they were, it would be evident in the research & it is not. 

What needs to change is the curriculum – what students mentally engage with in their classrooms every day of the school year. Are students memorizing vocabulary words, coloring pictures & enduring endless rounds of drill & practice? Or are they grappling with high-level ideas, asking questions, solving problems, experiencing and gathering evidence about the universe?