Teaching Resources
Activity 1. Analogies: Powerful Teaching-Learning Tools
Instructional Design Models:
Teaching With Analogies Model:
Activity 2. Möbius Strip: Connecting Teaching and Learning
Wikipedia:
Wolfram MathWorld:
Activity 3. Burning a Candle at Both Ends: Classrooms as Complex Systems
HowStuffWorks:
Activity 4. Perceptual Paradoxes: Multisensory Science and Measurement
CAST: Differentiated instruction:
- See also other articles and critiques of brain-based education fads by the same author,
HowStuffWorks:
Wikipedia:
Activity 5. Optical Illusions: Seeing and Cognitive Construction
Wikipedia:
Activity 6. Utensil Music: Teaching Sound Science
See also for other articles and videos: "Brain-Based" learning: More fiction than fact (Fall 2006); Do visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK) learners need VAK instruction? (Summer 2005)
Wikipedia:
Activity 7. Identification Detectives: Sounds and Smells of Science
Activity 8. Two-Balloon Balancing Act: Constructivist Teaching
Exploratorium:
Wikipedia:
Activity 9. Batteries and Bulbs: Teaching Is More Than Telling
Wikipedia:
Activity 10. Talking Tapes: Beyond Hearing to Understanding
(see Sound and Waves demonstration listings, including Talkie Tapes)
HowStuffWorks:
Wikipedia:
Activity 11. Super-Absorbent Polymers: Minds-On Learning and Brain "Growth"
How Stuff Works:
Wikipedia:
Activity 12. Mental Puzzles, Memory, and Mnemonics: Seeking Patterns
- Allocating student study time: Massed versus distributed practice (Summer 2002)
- Inflexible knowledge: The first step to expertise (or why transfer is hard) (Winter 2002)
- What Will Improve a Student's Memory?: (Winter 2008/09)
Can you identify the correct penny from a group of 11 other "imposters"?
HowStuffWorks:
Wikipedia:
- (memory researcher)
Activity 13. Sound Toy Tubes: The Importance of Varying Stimuli
(pop music with sound toy tubes; 5:52)
HowStuffWorks:
Wikipedia:
Activity 14. Convection: Conceptual Change Teaching
Conceptual Change Teaching (overviews of theory and research from various sources):
Exploratorium Museum Snackbook:
HowStuffWorks:
Wikipedia:
Activity 15. Brain-Powered Light Bulb: Knowledge Transmission?
Artificial Photosynthesis:
(neuroscience resources for grades 5-12)
Wikipedia:
Activity 16. Air Mass Matters: Creating a Need to Know
YouTube:
HyperPhysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University:
- see Heat and fluid: Atmospheric pressure demonstrations: Crush the can, crush the soda can; Magdeburg hemispheres; Water column-water barometer; Suction cups rubber sheets; Stick and newspaper and the vacuum cannon
Wikipedia:
Activity 17. 3D Magnetic Fields: Making Meaningful Connections
Exploratorium Snackbook:
HowStuffWorks:
Instructables:
(concept mapping tools)
(select experiment: Brain songs)
(a Harvard University, Project Zero research program)
Wikipedia:
Activity 18. Electrical Generators: Connecting With Students
Constructivism:
Exploratorium Snackbook: Motor effect and stripped-down motor (designs):
PhET Interactive Simulations
: Urban legends: Edison and the electric chair
Electricity and magnetism (seven demos on motors and generators)
Wikipedia:
Activity 19. Static Electricity: Charging Up Two-by-Four Teaching
Electrostatics (see Polarization page): Molecular workbench software homepage
Exploratorium Snackbook: Demonstrations involving triboelectricity
HowStuffWorks:
PhET Interactive Simulations:
(video clips of demonstrations): Electricity/Magnetism (4 demos and triboelectric series)
: Electricity & Magnetism
: Electrostatics
: Static charged 2 x 4s
Wikipedia:
Activity 20. Needle Through the Balloon: Skewering Misconceptions
for other articles and videos:
-
- Critical thinking: Why is it so hard to teach? (Summer 2007)
- Why don't students like school? Because the mind is not designed for thinking (Spring 2009)
Using (soap) bubbles to explore (cell) membranes:
Wikipedia: Membranes (biological and artificial)
Activity 21. Happy and Sad Bouncing Balls: Student Diversity Matters
CAST: Differentiated instruction
(synopsis of Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, Sternberg's theories, and Goleman's theory of emotional intelligence)
: Happy (young princess)-Sad (old woman) 180-degree animation
(video clips): Mechanics coefficient of restitution
Activity 22. Electrical Circuits: Promoting Learning Communities
(Roger Johnson and David Johnson)
PhET Interactive Simulations:
: Simple circuits, electromagnets and Morse code
(Robert Slavin and cooperative learning)
: Nine pages of lessons (e.g., simple circuits and conductivity tester)
: Electricity & Magnetism
: Conductors and Insulators (how a light bulb works) and Series and Parallel Circuits Hands-on Explorations
Activity 23. Eddy Currents: Learning Takes Time
Exploratorium Snackbook:
HyperPhysics:
Molecular Expressions:
Nondestructive Testing Resource Center's (NDT): Lenz's law applications
: Developing scientific thinking
PhET Interactive Simulations:
(video clips): Electricity and magnetism
: Electricity & Magnetism
: Experiments with electromagnets
Wikipedia:
Activity 24: Cognitive Inertia: Seeking Conceptual Change
- Ask a Cognitive Scientist column:
- Access other articles:
- Practice makes perfect—But only if you practice beyond the point of perfection (Spring 2004)
- Why students think they understand—When they don't (Winter 2003-04)
Research matters to the science teacher
: 10 Inertia experiments and demonstrations
Sprott's (online book; see Chapter 1, "Motion"):
University of Iowa Physics and Astronomy Lecture Demonstrations (video clips)
- (seven demonstrations on inertia of rest)
: Mechanics: Newton's First Law
(large sample of Newton's first law)
: Newton's laws videos: Tablecloth pull and toilet paper
Wikipedia:
Activity 25. Optics and Mirrors: Challenging Learners' Illusions
American Educator
- Ask a Cognitive Scientist column:
- How praise can motivate or stifle (Winter 2005–06)
- Should learning be its own reward? (Winter 2007-08)
- Caution: Praise can be dangerous (Spring 1999)
: Optics
Wikipedia:
Activity 26. Polarizing Filters: Examining Our Conceptual Filters
: select Optics: Polarize
Exploratorium Science Snackbook:
: Sunglasses
(video clips): Optics
: Optics: Polarization
Wikipedia:
Activity 27. Invisible Gases Matter: Knowledge Pours Poorly
- Ask a Cognitive Scientist column:
- Access other articles:
- Students remember what they think about (Summer 2003)
- Why don't students like school? Because the mind is not designed for thinking (Spring 2009)
Constructivism and Learning Theories: Supplemental readings for teachers
Activity 28. The Stroop Effect: The Persistent Power of Prior Knowledge
: Shockwave Demonstration version (as well as a static version)
: About 8,400 entries related to "misconceptions": Bibliography of STCSE (Students' and Teachers' Conceptions and Science Education)
Beyond appearance: Students' misconceptions about basic chemical ideas: (book; 84 pages)
Misconception oriented standards-based assessment resource
Children's misconceptions about science
: (book and multimedia clips)
Wikipedia:
Activity 29. Rattlebacks: Prior Beliefs and Models for Eggciting Science
(Search for Toys in Space II video resource guide)
(video clips): Mechanics: (Rotational stability: 1Q60.36—Spinning eggs)
Mechanics: Work & Energy: Rattleback
Research on Misconceptions in Science:
- update (about 8,400 entries). Bibliography–STCSE (Students' and teachers' conceptions and science education)
- . Beyond appearance: Students' misconceptions about basic chemical ideas (book; 84 pages)
: Misconceptions conference proceedings
: Amateur science: Science myths in K–6 textbooks and popular culture
Wikipedia:
Activity 30. Tornado in a Bottle: The Vortex of Teaching and Learning
Constructivism and Learning Theories: Supplemental readings for teachers
: Vortex (tornado-in-a-bottle demonstration)
: Vortices
Wikipedia:
Activity 31. Floating and Sinking: Raising FUNdaMENTAL Questions
(see also for other articles and videos)
(Summer 2007)
(Ask a Cognitive Scientist/Summer 2008)
(free downloadable simulations): Diffusion
: Buoyant force in liquids
QuickTime movies of five density demonstrations
: Mentos Diet Coke Geyser
(video clips): Heat and fluids
: Fluid Mechanics
Wikipedia:
- (invented carbonated water)
Activity 32. Cartesian Diver: A Transparent But Deceptive "Black Box"
(allows user to control external pressure and diver location)
Condiment Diver
explanations, concept maps and applications: Video/Demo Index: Fluids: Cartesian Diver
: Submarines
Purdue University, Division of Chemical Education:
(video clips): Heat and fluids (five demonstrations on density and buoyancy)
: Fluid Mechanics: Statics: Cartesian Diver
: Physics of matter videos: Cartesian diver
Wikipedia:
Activity 33. Crystal Heat: Catalyzing Cognitive Construction
(Go to Sugar cube tricks: The burning sugar cube)
Genie in a Bottle Experiment:
- (decomposition of hydrogen peroxide)
: States of matter: Molecular view with temperature, pressure, and volume controls and phase changes for three phases of Ne, Ar, O2 and H2O
: Sodium acetate liquid and solid (supersaturation and crystallization demonstration)
: Thermodynamics: Change of State
Wikipedia: