Learn by Example

This article is a plea for teaching the ‘big ideas’ in science and avoiding disconnected and isolated facts. This article shows how some teachers can lose site of the big ideas and select a... See More

This article is a plea for teaching the ‘big ideas’ in science and avoiding disconnected and isolated facts. This article shows how some teachers can lose site of the big ideas and select activities that move away from the big idea. Instead this author shows how, through planning, teachers they better plan activities with the focus toward the big idea instead. All of this is done through the efforts of a fictional teacher’s examples of right and wrong. This is a good article for a new teacher.

Establishing Strong Connections

This was a very beneficial article. The goal of learning is for students to develop a deep understanding of the content and to make connections. If they are taught only isolated facts, the... See More

This was a very beneficial article. The goal of learning is for students to develop a deep understanding of the content and to make connections. If they are taught only isolated facts, then they are not able to establish strong connections and do not retain what they have learned. This article stresses the importance of teaching big ideas and concepts, so that students can build on their learning and apply it to other content areas or units of study, which will benefit them in their everyday lives and in their future learning.