Within the 14th episode of The Schoolyard Podcast, host Nancy Chung sits down with Dr. Erica Colón, founding father of Champions for Science and @NittyGrittyScience, to debate the advantages of incorporating real-life occasions into educating. Dr. Colón and Nancy share sensible ideas and methods for leveraging these occasions to interact college students and foster important pondering.
The Energy of Actual-Life Occasions
By connecting classroom studying to present occasions, lecturers can create a dynamic and interesting studying atmosphere. College students profit from a deeper understanding of the topics and develop a curiosity that extends past the classroom.
One instance Dr. Colón shares is the upcoming photo voltaic eclipse. She encourages lecturers to benefit from this uncommon occasion to interact college students in hands-on studying. By offering college students with photo voltaic glasses and exploring assets corresponding to these discovered via NASA, lecturers can create a memorable expertise that sparks curiosity and fosters a love for science.
Overcoming Challenges
Dr. Colón acknowledges that some lecturers could also be cautious of hands-on studying as a consequence of issues about planning however encourages lecturers to start out small. By incorporating easy experiments and actions, lecturers can create significant studying experiences with out overwhelming themselves or their college students.
She additionally emphasizes the significance of attempting new experiments and actions, even when they don’t go as deliberate. By modeling resilience and problem-solving, lecturers can educate college students helpful life abilities and create a secure house for exploration and studying.
Citizen Science and Know-how
Dr. Colón recommends utilizing citizen science apps that permit college students to gather real-world information to be used by scientists. By collaborating in these tasks, college students not solely have interaction in genuine scientific analysis but in addition develop a way of possession and contribution to the scientific neighborhood.
Moreover, Dr. Colón encourages using expertise to supply college students with immersive and interactive studying alternatives, whereas additionally emphasizing the significance of balancing expertise with hands-on experiences to make sure a well-rounded training.
Unforgettable Classes
Dr. Colón shares a private anecdote a couple of subject journey to Costa Rica that reworked her perspective. Whereas the plan was an thrilling journey to see volcanoes and rainforests, it was the straightforward expertise of seeing squirrels for the primary time that left a long-lasting impression on her college students. This highlights the facility of real-life occasions, even the seemingly mundane ones, in creating unforgettable studying moments.
These real-life occasions are game-changers for each lecturers and college students. They create partaking and related studying experiences that foster important pondering and curiosity. Dr. Erica Colón’s insights and sensible ideas present helpful steering for educators trying to make studying come alive of their lecture rooms.
About Dr. Erica Colón
Dr. Erica Colón is a Nationwide Board Licensed Trainer with over twelve years of educating expertise in sixth via twelfth grade secondary science, together with Bodily Science, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, and Marine Science. In 2008, Erica earned her Grasp’s in Academic Administration however shortly realized her ardour was working with science lecturers. Erica returned to earn her Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction in 2011. By certainly one of life’s sudden turns, she based Nitty Gritty Science, LLC, and has reached tens of 1000’s of science lecturers throughout the globe!
In 2020, a worldwide pandemic modified the course of historical past, shortly altering our day by day lives in all facets, and within the scope of training, it modified how lecturers taught and college students realized. All over the place, educators confronted pandemic-driven distant studying that they needed to navigate on their very own virtually in a single day. On the lookout for methods to assist science lecturers, Dr. Colón gathered science educators, communicators, and subject scientists to study from each other, share concepts, and assist one another persevere via the struggles of added workloads. In doing so, she introduced collectively a staff of champions! Champions For Science continues as an educator’s convention collection the place extraordinary leaders, creators, and innovators in science training come collectively to give attention to an important matter—our college students—the long run CHAMPIONS FOR SCIENCE!
