Project Zero Perspectives: Making, Thinking, Understanding

How do you know that your students don't leave your evolution unit still thinking that a lizard camouflages with a branch because it plans and wants to blend with its environment? This course will showcase various methods of making thinking and learning visible in the science classroom. Popular and widely used curricula for labs and activities are often educational but can be very prescriptive. Students don't play as much of a role as they could in noticing patterns and phenomena, documenting their rudimentary thoughts and explanations, developing their own questions and constructing their own knowledge. In this course, participants will experience and discuss various strategies for helping students track and reflect upon the evolution of their thinking and learning about science concepts. In all of the examples, there is a requisite element of pushing students to consider practical, ethical and global implications