Science teaching colleagues, program administrators and professional development staff,
If you have experience teaching science, please read the announcement below. If you work with teachers who have interest and experience in teaching science, please share the announcement, and also encourage teachers to join the LINCS Science Community of Practice.
We are looking for adult education teachers with experience in teaching science to work in a private LINCS online science group to 1) create a list of free, online science instructional videos for adult and out-of-school youth learners, and 2) review and discuss some of the videos. The goal is to create reviews of videos that have engaging science content and good science instruction. The video list would be used to help adult learners, including those with little science content knowledge, and it might also include science professional development videos for teachers. We would select videos from the list, and review them using a simple online form. In the online group we also might discuss how to use science instruction videos with students.
The project’s purpose is to enhance face-to-face science teaching with good videos to use in class, for classes that have access to a computer and multimedia projector. Many of the videos can be downloaded and saved to a portable drive, so that teachers can use them even if they don’t have Internet access in their classroom. Students can also watch the videos on their own, outside class, from wherever they might access the web.
This is a volunteer effort. It will not require a great deal of time for each person to review two-five videos (some of which are quite short.) Each video will be reviewed by at least two teachers. The group’s goal might be to review a total of 10-20 videos. If we get at least six people who want to do this, we’ll begin in March, 2014.
If you want to join the project, or if you have questions, please email David at djrosen123@gmail.com. We hope from time to time to post reports here on its progress.
David J. Rosen, djrosen123@gmail.com
Susan Cowles, skcowles@comcast.net
Comments
This project is open to instructors who teach in a variety of educational settings. Participants do not have to be "science teachers" in the sense of teaching in a stand-alone "science course". Please consider joining this group if you are interested in ways in which to integrate science into teaching and learning. Valuable resources can be science videos, especially because most educational programs do not have access to laboratories in which to conduct experiments. Videos can take us into the laboratory and learn/participate in experimental science.
Susan Cowles