The science teacher

http://thescienceteacher.co.uk

This website, strapline ‘science teaching resources for teachers who like to think’, includes resources for all three sciences for the 11–16 age group. However, it’s the sections on pedagogy and teacher education that make it refreshingly unique.

The pedagogy section is thorough and includes many interesting ideas. In particular The ‘Great’ Science Lesson explores lesson structure and suggested techniques to help improve learning, particularly with the use of questioning. Big Ideas of Science Education not only makes you think about your teaching, but has a bank of useful teaching resources for each idea.

A section on literacy, although brief, makes some very effective points and contains more strategies to use in the classroom. Many areas of the site encouraged me to evaluate my approach to practical work and my own teaching – as all good pedagogy resources should!

For anyone thinking of going into teaching, I highly recommend the teacher education section. This is filled with resources to really make you think about how and why you would teach science.

The chemistry resources are a bit mixed: some are outstanding, but others felt a little basic. However, it’s organised into a well thought out structure, which makes it quite useful. Those who may get most from this section are probably newly qualified chemistry teachers or non-specialists looking for a wider view of a chemistry course.

As a whole, the site is well written, so you can work through material in order or dip in and out. What I really like is that every page contains a generous number of resources to use in the classroom, videos, ideas and plenty of further reading material.

This is certainly a site to visit for its focus on pedagogy. The useful ideas around how to teach particular science topics are a bonus, but I’ll be back again for the thoughts surrounding teaching.

Also consider the effective pedagogy free CPD course from Learn Chemistry