Encouraging Girls in Math and Science

Although there is a general perception that men do better than women in math and science, researchers have found that the differences between women’s and men’s math- and science-related abilities and choices are much more subtle and complex than a simple “men are better than women in math and science." The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has found that to encourage girls in math and science we need to:

• understand their beliefs about their abilities in these areas
• find a way to spark and maintain greater interest in these topics
• build skills that are related to other interest areas

Students’ choices to pursue careers in math and science reflect multiple influences that accumulate over time. In general, researchers have found that girls and women have less confidence in their math abilities than males do and that from early adolescence, girls show less interest in math or science careers. Women are less involved in career paths and post-secondary education in some areas of math and science than men. This pattern starts at school.The IES has identified practices that elementary, middle, and high school teachers can implement during instruction that they believe would increase the likelihood that girls and women will not prematurely decide that careers in math and science are not for them.

National Center for Education Research and the Institute of Education Sciences have published a Practice Guide, published on WestEd's website, that explores what can teachers do to encourage girls to choose career paths in math- and science-related fields. The report presents five research-based instructional and feedback strategies for teachers at all grade levels:

• Teach that abilities are expandable
• Provide prescriptive, informational feedback
• Show students female role models
• Spark curiosity
• Teach spatial skills

Pepper has released a new workshop focused on Strategies to Engage Girls in Math and Science as part of it’s new Pepper Online Workshop (POW!) content. By taking this workshop you will explore strategies for keeping girls engaged in courses of study related to Math and Science. Participants will be guided through the process of developing a plan for actively motivating and maintaining girl’s interest in Math and Science. You can check all of our new POW content by visiting the Courses and Workshops section on your dashboard.

Introducing Pepper Online Workshops (POW!)

POW! Are you ready to add some Pepper into your personalized, online learning plans?

PCG Education is introducing a new series of content collections - Pepper Online Workshops (POW!) – focusing on the hottest topics that educators are dealing with across the country. Our new workshop series is based on WestEd’s powerful collection of resources from their Doing What Works project featuring amazing videos, interactive planning tools, and other research-based materials.

In the spirit of keeping with Pepper’s core values, these online workshops – although much shorter – will remain true to our vision – to provide K-12 educators with high-quality, interactive, engaging, research-based and applicable to your school environment.  

Currently, users can find workshops focused on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for Math, Science, and Language Arts. You can learn more about UDL by checking out a previous blog post, Making Learning Accessible for All: Universal Design for Learning.

Look for our new workshops this week focused on using Literature Circles in the classroom.

PCG Education will be releasing new POW content collections every week. To find these new workshops, visit your Pepper dashboard and click on the updated "Courses and Workshops" link.

Then, find the tile labeled "keep learning" to access our new Pepper Online Workshops.

Please visit us at PepperPD.com/courses to review the new online workshop series and sign-up today.

The “E” in STEM: Engineering and Design for K-2

STEM, the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, has become an important topic in education circles. Many believe that educating our students in these areas will be crucial to both their future and the future of our country. When many think of STEM classes and activities they tend to think primarily of middle and high school courses. However, STEM education is vital to elementary learning as well. According to an article on WeAreTeachers, STEM: It’s Elementary, studies on STEM education have shown “that kids who experience STEM early through hands-on learning are the ones who will be best equipped to develop a strong understanding of STEM concepts as they get older.” This article provides four ways for teachers to get started with STEM in the elementary classroom:

• #1: Change Your Lens - Look at lessons and activities you’re already teaching and see how they can incorporate STEM principles.
• #2: Enlist a Village of STEM Educators - Work together. Collaboration with fellow teachers can ease the transition.
• #3: Integrate STEM Across the Curriculum - One of the goals of STEM education is that it is not taught separately, but is weaved throughout the all subjects.
• #4:  Give Kids More than Just Access to Technology - Students need to understand that technology is more than just a place to gather information, but can be an important tool for creating and designing.

Pepper has recently released a new course, Engineering Design - K-2, that will help early elementary teachers as they incorporate new standards in Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science (ETS) as a disciplinary core idea. This course focuses on the topic of Engineering Design as students ask questions, make observations, and gather information. Participants will work to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool. Course activities are divided into five features:

1. Big Question
2. Exploring the Evidence
3. Constructing Explanations
4. Comparing Explanations to Scientific Knowledge
5. Communicating and Justifying Explanations

Find out more about this course by viewing the Course Detail.

Your Pepper learning community can help you effectively implement STEM concepts and ETS standards. Check out our new Engineering Design - K-2 course as well as all our other Pepper Courses and our Resource Library as you learn with the collaborative support from other inspiring educators like you.  

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New Science Courses: Investigating New Science Standards

Pepper has just released 4 new Science Courses: Investigating New Science Standards. There are 4 courses with the same title, but customized for different levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Each course focuses on investigating the background, structure, and conceptual shifts of the new Next Generation Science Standards. The goal of this course is to help teachers understand these shifts and have an opportunity to examine some of the background research that was used to frame the standards. 

Teachers will experience information through a variety of media formats targeted to the following objectives:  

• Describe the need and vision for new science standards.  
• Understand and use the three dimensional structure of the Performance Expectations of the Next Generation Science Standards (Science and Engineering Practices, the Disciplinary Core Ideas, and the Crosscutting Concepts).  
• Present an argument for the need of instructional supports for students as they develop a 3-dimensional understanding of science.  
• Articulate the major conceptual shifts of the Next Generation Science Standards.  
• Generate a general description of the types of resources that will help teachers in their work.

Throughout the course, opportunities are provided for teachers to connect their learning across sessions and to explicitly consider the implications of that learning for classroom practice. Teachers will also be able to revisit their work and reflections by viewing their individual Course Portfolios. 

To learn more about Next Generation Science Standards, view our recent blog post on this topic. 

Be sure to check out all our Pepper course offerings.

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Pepper Resource Library Highlight - STEM Builder

What’s the value in the Pepper Resource Library? Having great resources in a convenient, easy to get to place. In a recent conversation about the Resource Library, I used the analogy that I could check out a Harry Potter book from any library, but the one up the street was the most convenient so that’s where I go. Pepper’s Resource Library is just like that. There are great resources all over the Internet, but teachers don’t have time to scour the Web for great resources. The value in Pepper’s Resource Library is that great resources are collected and categorized for educators in an easy to get to location.

We’ve been focusing on Science lately and a great resource available to teachers is STEM Builder. STEM Builder provides thousands digital resources in science, math, technology, and engineering in the form of of online animations, experiments, and videos. STEM Builder is focused on strengthening student vocabulary, conceptual understanding, and problem solving skills. Users can search for information in any of the STEM categories (science, math, technology, and engineering) or search by keyword, grade level, or standard. Teachers can also narrow down their searching by using the links across the top of the page which include: Guided Practice, Videos, Activities, Experiments, Games, Graphing Tools, Modeling, Demos, Virtual Reality, and Science Experiments. 

The site’s vocabulary tools are exceptionally strong with a dynamic visual component that aids users by having mouseovers or clicks to include additional images, labeling, and in some cases, animation. Many words have Spanish translation and some also contain audio. Teachers can use STEM Builder to preview online experiments, create self-paced math lessons, and find instructional videos for content teaching. Practice exercises and games are also available for teachers to use with students for re-teaching, follow-up, and challenge activities.

Be sure to visit and explore STEM Builder in Pepper’s Resource Library. Also, be on the lookout for new Science courses geared around the Next Generation Science Standards. You can see all of our Pepper course offerings on our website.

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STEM: Why it Matters

STEM is an education curriculum based on teaching students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  What makes STEM unique, however, is that rather than teach the four disciplines as separate subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning program with ties to real-world applications. According to the STEM Coalition, by 2020 there will be a demand for STEM professionals with over 1 million jobs in STEM-related fields.

STEM education is different from traditional math and science teaching in that is uses a blending learning approach. This approach shows students how science, math, engineering, and technology are central to everyday life and integrated into all that we do. According to an article from Live Science, “What is STEM education?”, the goal is to gain student interest in these fields so that they will want to pursue them as careers. STEM education begins in the elementary school with introductory courses and subject awareness. In middle school courses become more rigorous and students begin to explore career opportunities. By high school, students are focused on application and are exposed to career pathways and exploring post-secondary options.

According to the US Department of Education, “all young people should be prepared to think deeply and to think well so that they have the chance to become the innovators, educators, researchers, and leaders who can solve the most pressing challenges facing our nation and our world, both today and tomorrow.”

(US Dept. of ED)

Go to the Pepper Resource Library and visit STEM Builder for STEM curriculum resources. Be sure to check out all our Pepper course offerings.

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Calling All Science Teachers--Common Core Lesson Plan Round-Up!

When you're thinking through the best ways of engaging your students, communicating and reinforcing concepts, helping them achieve mastery of new ideas and ways of thinking, and just plain getting excited about learning, it can help to have a little inspiration. Seeing what other teachers have done to develop creative, CCSS-aligned lesson plans, or looking through resource libraries to find interesting lesson plans can give your own planning an energy boost.

Here's a round-up of some websites that provide science teachers with CCSS-aligned ideas for the classroom. Look for other subjects/disciplines in future posts!

Check out these FREE SCIENCE LESSONS from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). You can filter your search by grade and content to find what you want more easily!

Who doesn't love cookies? This series of blog posts by science writer Bethany Brookshire is called COOKIE SCIENCE! She takes educators and students step-by-step through applied science, all in the name of finding cookies that taste better. If you're looking for student-friendly science news, don't miss the website, hosted by Society for Science & the Public.

MIT BLOSSOMS is a wonderful website with a focus on videos for classroom use. You can do a very focused search, including by content standard, and locate science video lessons--each of which is a complete resource, with teacher's guide and supporting materials. CLICK HERE to search by education standards!


Got students who are into sports? Then GO HERE to the Connect A Million Minds website to find science-friendly learning activities and games for kids. These would make great additions to lesson-plans.

Engineering and applied science lessons are free and searchable on TeachEngineering.org! You can browse across multiple categories or search by content standard. There are hands-on activities, lessons, and supporting materials!

For a big-picture look at how real science educators are making CCSS work in their classrooms, check out this Edutopia.org blog post, "Common Core in Action: How Two Science Teachers Are Implementing Common Core." Get tips, ideas, and best practices!

Finally, take a look at the Utah Education Network. They have easy-to-browse, free lesson plans that are aligned to Utah's Core (based on CCSS). CLICK HERE for K-6 science lessons. CLICK HERE for 7-12 science lessons!

Who Knew Science Could be Tasty?! Food Chemistry and Cooking!

Whether you're looking for fun educational activities for your own kids as the summer winds down, or whether you're interested in finding ways to integrate exciting, hands-on learning into your science lessons in the coming school year, CHECK OUT THESE ACTIVITIES from PBS Learning Media, collected here on the KQED Website.

Building and using solar cookers to cook s'mores and explore sustainable energy... Learning to read labels and understand how to make healthy choices... Exploring cheesemaking to get a better grasp of biological processes... Digging into the anthropology of food practices and holiday food rituals... Even learning about the chemical compounds in onions that make us cry!

There's plenty of fun--and learning--to be found here, so take a look and get excited about the science of food!

Free Lesson Plans From Smithsonian Education!

Whether you've been to Washington, D.C. or not, no doubt you know about the amazing museums and research centers of the Smithsonian Institution. But did you know that they have a website just for educators, with links to online resources, lesson plans and curriculum guides, and access to some of the museum's exhibits and collections?

Take a look HERE to find their educator homepage, where you can browse to see what they have on offer! And be sure not to miss THIS LIST of lesson plans--they're easy to search by keyword, by standard, by subject and by grade, so finding resources that you can use right away is incredibly user-friendly and easy! The search fields are to the left.

Finally, be sure to check out their Resource Library and their list of Online Events, where you can see how to incorporate museum collections and artifacts into your classroom lessons, and access supporting podcasts and webcasts for free!

Over 300,000 Teacher-Created, Teacher-Vetted Resources--FREE!

Sharemylesson.com is a website that brings educators together to share their winning classroom and professional development resources with each other.

Intended to inspire and facilitate collaboration among teachers, this site includes an enormous number of Common Core-aligned lesson plans and resources, all of which you can access for free.

Searching can be a little bit of a challenge, but there are a few short, easy-to-follow tutorial videos on the homepage that will help you learn to navigate the site. And it's worth it! The site includes a Common Core hub, with news, information, updates, and forums to help you as prepare for the move to CCSS.

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Digital Learning Activities and Educational Games -- Free!

As every teacher knows, not all educational games are created equal! Some have genuine value and can serve as wonderful reinforcements for student learning, or can expand student learning beyond the classroom. Yet how do you find educational games and digital learning activities that have been vetted and curated without spending hours of your own time testing them, or paying for memberships?

Check out this fantastic website: Powermylearning.org! It's a free digital learning platform with resources for teachers, students, and parents alike, and was developed by the well-respected national education nonprofit CFY. If you're looking for games, videos, interactives, and other digital resources to incorporate into your Common Core lesson plans for the classroom, then this is the website for you.

Each resource in Math and ELA is aligned directly to a Common Core standard. Plus, there are countless resources for science, social studies, the arts, technology and more. You'll need to create an account to access all the material on the site, but once you do, you'll be able to tap into hundreds of carefully-vetted, free digital resources.