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5: Scientific Teaching in Action

  • Page ID
    43442
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    Workshop Overview

    The Scientific Teaching workshop has many flavors depending on the expertise of the trainer(s) running the workshop. The general goal is to provide a deeper dive into the use of a variety of active learning approaches like immediate polling questions, the formation and management of learning groups, and other examples of deliberate practice.  For your MoSI, this workshop will focus on the use of deliberate practice to improve graph reading and interpretation skills.  This workshop also demonstrates how to integrate the teaching of subject content with the development of student skills.

    Learning Outcomes

    Participants will be able to:

    • Use deliberate practice to foster the acquisition of graph reading and interpretation skills

    Key Terms

    • Deliberate practice
    • Evidence-based teaching
    • Backward design
    • Alignment between formative and summative assessment

    Active Learning/Formative Assessment Strategies

    • Small group discussion/breakout rooms

    Pre-Workshop

    Background

    Deliberate practice posits that to develop expertise or mastery over a subject or skill, for example, it is necessary to spend sufficient time engaged in intentional effort that specifically relates to achievement of that mastery.  The perfectly complements Backward Design in that it calls for practice that aligns with intended outcomes. For example, if you intend for students to leave your class with proficiency in reading and interpreting graphs, then students have to spend sufficient time practicing that skill.  While sitting in class watching the teacher explain how to read graphs is effort, the effort is not aligned with the desired outcome of having students be able to read and interpret graphs for themselves. This type of misalignment between desired learning outcomes and class activities is common in passive lecture classes. 


    Post-Workshop

    Resources


    References


    Session Slides


    5: Scientific Teaching in Action is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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