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"..over the next decade, schools will need 200,000 or more new teachers in science and math, according to estimates by such groups as the Business-Higher Education Forum in Washington. Already, many districts face shortages: In at least 10 states, fewer than 6 out of 10 middle-school science teachers were certified when the Council of Chief School Officers compiled a report last year."
—Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, The Christian Science Monitor
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Teacher Certification
Teaching Approaches
Science teacher certification courses are hands-on, minds-on, student-centered, and problem-solving based. For example, Problem-Solving and Inquiry-Based Approaches to Science Teaching engages students in a variety of classroom and field based problems—involving simple machines, self-sustaining biospheres, and microscopic life—as a means to immerse students first-hand in the challenges and rewards of teaching through problem solving.
Curriculum Design models democratic, coherent, constructivist-based, active assessment, and other approaches to teaching while challenging students to employ these ideas in the development of a curriculum they may use while student teaching. Each student's curriculum is presented in a convening environment by which their classmates are used as consultants to help improve the curriculum's design based on the developer's own concerns and criticisms.
"The best teachers I can think of, in terms of running a class, designing lessons, teaching their material effectively, etc. would be Ms. Locke, Ms. Stamas, and Ms. Gilbert, all Antioch grads. These three are so good because they know how to make science accessible and engaging. They teach through hands-on learning in a way that lets us interact with the material. We only used textbooks to help introduce or reinforce material and we did lots of labs that involved sorting through the school trash, dropping bowling balls off balconies, and testing emissions of grease cars. Even though a lot of the learning was hands-on, they still guided and taught the class instead of just letting us do everything on our own. Science is one of my least favorite subjects, but these three made it more comprehensible and interesting for me. I'm really glad that my little brother will get to have all three in the coming years." - Student at Four Rivers Public Charter School
The Compass School in Westminster, Vermont serves as our lab school; this is where Science Teaching Methods is taught and where our students create and test original lessons with middle and high school students.
© 2010 Antioch University New England, 40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431-3516 800.553.8920