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https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/25-sure-fire-strategies-handling-difficult-students/

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https://blog.edmentum.com/taming-chaos-eight-high-school-classroom-management-strategies-work

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After teaching high school English for 10 years, I've uttered some phrases I never could have imagined would be necessary. For example, "Riley, get your sandwich out of your pants!" Yes, I had to tell a 14-year-old boy to get his sandwich out of his pants. While his reply was surprisingly logical (he didn't want to carry it to the cafeteria and didn't have a bag for it), I still sat back in my chair after the class dismissed for lunch pondering how and why those words ever had to come out of my mouth.

This is the reality of teaching-students do some strange things, and every day in the classroom is full of surprises. When I was in college, I faintly remember going through a brief unit about classroom management and how important it was. The professor (who probably had not been in a K-12 setting in the past 20 years), even gave us some pointers on how to effectively handle our classes. These tips included learning all the students' names immediately, setting clear expectations for classroom behavior on day one, and laying out clear consequences for misbehavior. And, while there's nothing wrong with of these strategies, none of them prepared me to sternly ask Riley to get his sandwich out of his pants.

When the topic of classroom management comes up with my teacher friends, we often laugh because it's usually thought of as something that only applies to younger students. So, what about high school students? How do you handle a classroom full of students who are dealing with real challenges of growing up-along with plenty of legitimate and difficult adult problems-when hormones are raging, everything is over-dramatized, and classroom curriculum is becoming demanding? Here are eight strategies that I had success with in my classroom.
Incorporate some comedy
I'm a self-proclaimed goofball, and for some reason, my students always really warmed up to that. I have often been told that I should be a stand-up comedian, and sometimes, that is what teaching felt like to me! The good news is that multiple studies have shown that students who are having fun learn more effectively. According to Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from a Neurologist and Classroom Teacher by Judy Willis: "The human brain and body respond positively to laughter with the release of endorphin, epinephrine (adrenaline), and dopamine, and with the increased breathing volume (more oxygen). When a lesson starts with humor, there is more alerting, and the subsequent information is attached to the positive emotional event as an event or flashbulb memory. "

I'm pretty quick-witted, and I always enjoyed sharing funny stories that I could tie into the day's lesson, or poking some fun at myself or my students. But, being sensitive is key to making this style work. You have to know your students, understand how they will react, and grasp which boundaries you can and can't push. For example, I remember one day early in my teaching career when a student said, "What?! You're only 27? My brother is older than you." To which I replied, "Yeah? Is he still living in your parent's basement too?" The student nodded and said, "Yeah, that's legit. You definitely have your life together more than he does." At first glance, this might sound like a harsh response, but I had established a connection with that student already, and I knew I was able to say something like this without hurting his feelings. In fact, when his parents came in for conferences, they actually brought that comment up and laughed really hard about it.
Be a real person
When you're teaching high school, you don't have quite the same otherworldly status in the eyes of your students that elementary teachers often do. So, I always made sure to remain personable for my classes. I would tell them stories about the things happening in my life (as appropriate, of course) and make connections between my own experiences and what we were working on in class. This helped my older students view me as a human who they could connect with-not just as an instructor standing at the front of the class telling them what to do.

It's also important to remember that high school students are going through some tough real-world issues outside of the classroom. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in meetings about my students experiencing various abuses (whether drug, physical, relationship, verbal, or other forms) or talked to students struggling with mental health disorders, self-image issues, or just the home life stuff that all people go through. I was lucky enough to teach a class where we actually talked about those issues and how to navigate through them. Being able to tell a story or two about events that I experienced in my life gave students the chance to see me through a different lens, which could help give them a new approach to their own challenges.
Learn names right away
Yes, this one is a no-brainer (my college professor was right). However, I always liked to take it a step further by giving my students nicknames based on what I experienced with them or what they had opened up to me about. For example, I had a 16-year-old student tell me that she wanted to be a DJ one day. She said, "I know it's not going to make me money, but it's just something I love to do." So, her name was DJ Della-Dell for the rest of her time in my class. It may be silly, but my students told me that when I gave them nicknames, they knew I was listening to them and they felt special because I took the time to personalize the class experience for them.
It's all about R-E-S-P-E-C-T "I don't expect respect; I demand it."
This is one of the first statements I would say to every new class of students. Then, I would follow it up with, "And you should expect no less from me to you. If you ever feel like I'm disrespecting you, let me know immediately in the moment, as that is what I will do with you." Although I never had a student tell me I was being disrespectful, knowing that they had the opportunity to call me out just like I could call them out leveled the playing field in my classroom and encouraged good behavior in the process.

My students also tended to have a lot of anxiety around parent-teacher conferences. My answer to these concerns was to remind them that I would never say something behind their back that I wouldn't say to their face. I would also encourage them to come along to conferences with their parents. They liked the idea of me being straightforward with them in this manner.
Keep an open-door policy
I am a firm believer in an open-door policy. I always let all my students know from day one of class that my door was open to them whenever I was in the building, and I posted what this policy meant at the front of my classroom. Just keep in mind that this suggestion can be a double-edge sword. I had students in my classroom all the time, both before and after school. For me, it was worth it to sacrifice that time I could have had to myself in order to make sure that my students were OK and had a safe place to go if they needed it.
Be a good listener
Occasionally, a student timidly walked into my room and asked, "Can I talk to you?" I always replied with, "Absolutely! But, know that I am a state-mandated reporter, so if you say anything that is about hurting yourself or others, I will have to report it." I usually got a nod and a slow saunter to a chair, and the student just began spilling the story.

At the high school age, students' emotions often come out sideways. Sometimes, I would just sit there and let them talk. . .and talk. . .and talk. I was always quick to tell these students that I am NOT a counselor and probably didn't have the answers to their problems or even the right advice. But, I was always willing to truly listen as they simply vented. I wouldn't have my computer open, and I wouldn't be taking notes. I just focused on giving them positive nonverbal cues and listening to their words. The reason I focused on listening so closely is because I knew that what students had to tell me may be items that I was mandated to report or that could affect the entire school community. Like all teachers, I cared deeply about my kiddos; listening to what they wanted to tell me was the best way to show it and ensure that they were OK.
Be mindful of the broader school environment
Really horrid things happen in high schools sometimes. There are days when the best thing to do is throw out the lesson you had planned for the day, take a chair, and just be with you students. If they need to talk or if they just need some downtime, let them sit in silence. During my years of teaching, several tragic events happened in the school I worked in. When they did, my students knew my classroom was a safe space where I'd give them an opportunity to process with people affected by the same event. I would often have counselors come into my room to provide additional support as well. Sometimes, the reality is that the lesson you had planned for the day isn't as important as what has just happened to your community.
Build relationships
Nothing is more valuable for effective classroom management than building genuine relationships with your students. Now, it's just not realistic to create a relationship with each student, but not every student needs or wants a relationship from you. The important thing is to recognize the ones that do and cultivate those connections. And, in a classroom based on personal respect and listening, the relationship comes naturally. Students are less likely to misbehave in your class if that relationship and sense of mutual respect has been established.

High school classrooms will always be a chaotic place. But, it is possible to keep the chaos in check. So, when Riley puts his sandwich down his pants again, take a step back, shake your head and laugh, and then calmly tell him to take his sandwich out of his pants. Take a moment to listen to why he did that in the first place, chalk it up to another high school teacher experience., and remember that you'll always have better stories than your non-teacher friends.

Looking for more ideas for effective classroom management at the high school level? Check out this blog post on Making Student Relationships a Priority!

This post was originally published October 2017 and has been updated.

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Taming the Chaos: Eight High School Classroom Management Strategies That Work

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Classroom management is often thought of as a elementary-level concern. But, what about high school classrooms? Here are eight strategies to manage the drama, curriculum demands, and real-world struggles high school students face.

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https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00038/full

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Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG), Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada

University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece

Engaging students in science and helping them develop an understanding of its ideas has been a consistent challenge for both science teachers and science educators alike. Such a challenge is even greater in the context of the "Science for All" curriculum initiative. However, Bruner's notion of "narrative thinking" and Egan's "romantic understanding" offer an alternative approach to teaching and learning science, in a way that engagement and understanding become a possibility. This chapter focuses on students' "narrative mode of thought," as a bridge to understanding science-which has traditionally been based more upon the use of logico-mathematical thinking in the upper grades-and on a distinctive form of understanding the world, characteristic of students of the age range from 8 to 15 years. This latter form of understanding, that the educational theorist Kieran Egan calls "romantic understanding," has features that can be readily associated with the natural world and its phenomena. Therefore its development could be fostered in the context of school science learning, and in a way that the narrative mode would also be taken into consideration.

Introduction

Science as a school subject to be taught and learned, has always presented a challenge to both teachers and students. On the one hand, understanding science (as content, inquiry and process skills) is a challenging task for students, as it involves a construction process, which is complex and iterative-not a linear one-and which also takes time and effort. An important implication of this construction process, as constructivist-oriented research in the 1980s and 1990s showed, is the possibility for students to construct not only a conceptual framework that lacks the coherence of true scientific knowledge, but to equally construct alternative ideas that are different from the canonical scientific ones. Other implications that were discovered is that the construction process is influenced by several interrelated factors, such as students' prior conceptions and views on the nature of science (their epistemologies- Kalman, 2008/2017; Matthews, 2015), their interest and motivation, the classroom culture, the opportunities they have for social interaction, dialogue, and argumentation, the generation of representations (for the use of modeling and analogies), and also their opportunities for cognitive dissonance and conceptual change, as well as for applying new knowledge to new contexts ( Resnick, 1983; Hadzigeorgiou, 1997, 1999, 2015; Stefanich and Hadzigeorgiou, 2001; Tytler et al., 2013).

On the other hand, teaching science is a challenging task for teachers, because, in addition to providing students with opportunities for constructing scientific understanding, they have to primarily engage and motivate students with science, its content and techniques (e.g., concepts, equations, laws, and laboratory skills). For it is obvious that without some degree of engagement, understanding cannot truly take place. Even though some degree of understanding may very well motivate students to learn, the initial engagement with science seems to be a prerequisite for understanding and long-term learning. And needless to say, motivation on the part of students to learn does not guarantee an understanding of science, especially science content ( Hadzigeorgiou, 2005a, 2015).

Thus, at least as far as school science education is concerned, one can very well talk about a two-fold challenge: how can students be engaged with science content-but in a way that true understanding of science could also become a possibility? This paper will discuss the possibility of engagement with science content learning by focusing on the potential of two ideas, namely, "narrative thinking" and "romantic understanding." But first a look at the problem of engagement itself, which is central to the teaching/learning process, and, as such, central to the process of understanding science.

The Problem of Students' Engagement With Science Content Knowledge

The problem of how to engage students in science, as mentioned, has always been challenging and pressing. Even though engagement does not necessarily entail, or result in, understanding, especially when it comes to the case of learning science, engaging students in science is a prerequisite for understanding. However, what may not be obvious is that the process of engagement itself is a complex one. Even though engagement may very well be encouraged by students' interest, there are other key factors which are also involved, such as personal identity, maturity, purpose for learning science, and students' awareness of the significance of the object or topic of study. Such factors can influence to a large extent, or may even determine, students' engagement with science ( Hadzigeorgiou, 2005a; Hadzigeorgiou and Stivaktakis, 2008). Furthermore, the variety of ways in which the term "engagement" has been interpreted in the literature poses an additional problem in regards to what the findings of the various studies on student engagement really mean. As Godec et al. (2018) point out, engagement has been construed as enjoyment and interest, but also as motivation toward science, as well as future orientations toward science. Moreover, it has been taken to mean the degree (frequency) of students' participation in science related activities, as well as intensity of such participation.

Although a conceptual clarification of the notion of engagement is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important nevertheless to accentuate here that "engagement" should not be conflated with the motivation to learn. Even though the two terms could be used interchangeably-and in fact they often are-there is a subtle and nonetheless important difference between them. For there has always been a question about whether students' motivation for learning resides mainly in students' object of study per se, that is, the content and/or the processes of science, or if in fact other factors are involved ( Hadzigeorgiou and Stivaktakis, 2008; Hadzigeorgiou, 2012; Hadzigeorgiou and Schulz, 2014, 2017). Indeed, it is quite evident that students can be motivated to participate in learning activities but for reasons that may vary and where their motives primarily reside in things other than the immediate topic of study (e.g., involving such factors as teaching style and teacher personality, humor, peer social interactions in group activities, flashy demonstrations, etc.). Furthermore, the notion of engagement should not be conflated specifically with the notion of student "interest" either. Apart from the conceptual problems inherent in the notion of interest itself, there is empirical evidence that what students think is interesting (e.g., a topic, an issue, an idea) does not necessarily motivate them to study it, let alone to study it further-that is, to try to learn more about it and move beyond the class situation ( Hadzigeorgiou and Schulz, 2017).

Thus, there is a distinction to be made between peripheral things involved in pedagogy (albeit linked to content knowledge), that are supposedly interesting and motivating, and the actual or intimate engagement with the students' personal scientific object of study, namely content and processes. And such a distinction is a crucially important one: the reason being that this engagement with the actual science content has the potential to discourage what the American philosopher of education Dewey (1934, 1966) had previously called the "spectator theory of knowledge." What he meant was the dualistic learning framework that created an emotional-cognitive gap between the subject (the student) and the object (content) that could very well be fostered by, and inherent to, common instructional sequences and curricula. And this despite the reform initiated "constructivist" and "guided inquiry" intentions of both teachers and curriculum designers (see Dahlin, 2001; Hadzigeorgiou, 2005c, 2016). For example, a dualistic learning framework can be unknowingly encouraged by science teachers when (as one of their main instructional strategies) they try to figure out how to "sugar-coat" difficult science ideas and topics (like the mole concept in chemistry, or dynamics equations in physics) using flashy demonstrations, hence by focusing on peripheral things and not, as Pugh (2004) pointed out, on the science content itself.

The crucial importance of true engagement with science content can be seen in its potential to encourage the application of classroom learning in "free-choice" contexts, also the expansion of perception (that is, the ability to see objects, events, and issues through the lens of the science content), as well as an appreciation of the value of this content for its role in enriching everyday experience (see Pugh, 2011; Pugh et al., 2017). Certainly, such a learning experience with such characteristics may be considered ideal, and, to a certain extent it is. However, it deserves to be recognized that it is indeed a pedagogical possibility (see Hadzigeorgiou, 2016; section The Problem of Students' Engagement with Science Content Knowledge). In this paper though, as was previously said, the focus will be on two ideas, namely, the narrative mode of thinking and the romantic mode of understanding, with the focus on their potential to encourage engagement with science content. Moreover, if it is indeed true that personal engagement with a school subject, like science, has the potential to take the science knowledge (i.e., what students learn at school) beyond the walls of the classroom, and equally if it has the ability to transform one's outlook on the world-which some philosophers of education, physicists and cognitive scientists identify with significant learning ( Feynman, 1968; Hirst, 1972; Hadzigeorgiou, 2016)-then the problem of how to engage and motivate students with actual science content should become a central concern for school science education.

Narrative Thinking as a Bridge to Understanding Science

No doubt science can be an exciting subject, yet a difficult one to teach, simply because science, as both a body of knowledge and a way of reasoning or thinking, is different from everyday knowledge and thinking (leaving aside the linkage to science as a mode of experimental inquiry). Even though the viewpoint that scientific thinking is a refinement of everyday thinking contains an element of truth, this refinement process nonetheless, in the case of students, as research evidence suggests, takes time and requires specific strategies ( Stefanich and Hadzigeorgiou, 2001; Hadzigeorgiou and Fotinos, 2007; Schulz, 2009). Central to this process of understanding has been the use of what can be called logico-mathematical reasoning, that is, "logico-scientific" thinking ( Bruner, 1986, p. 12), which is responsible for the formation of hypotheses, the development of arguments, creative modeling, the solutions of problems, the descriptions and construction of systems and their inter-relationships ( Piaget, 1970; Bruner, 1986; Giere, 1991). Secondary and tertiary science education is known to make use of inductive-empirical and hypothetico-deductive variations of scientific reasoning ( Cawthron and Rowell, 1978; Duschl, 1994), though it tends to become overly simplified and known to degenerate into talk of a "step-wise scientific method" supposedly used by all scientists, which is a myth ( Bauer, 1992).

However, not all thinking is like this, when humans seek to understand and interpret the world around them. It was this observation which led, in the mid-1980s, the psychologist Jerome Bruner to propose another kind of thinking that is not predominately logical, mathematical, abstract, and seeks to construct and model ideal systems. Bruner's observations (1985; 1986), as a forerunner of the "cognitive revolution," were based on common experience and empirical evidence.

There are two irreducible modes of cognitive functioning-or more simply, two mode of thought-each meriting the status of a "natural kind". Each provides a way of ordering experience, of constructing reality and the two (though amenable to complementary use) are irreducible to one another (p. 97).

According to Bruner (1985), the status "natural kind" refers to the fact that each mode of thinking comes spontaneously into being, and always under minimal contextual constraint. These two modes Bruner called paradigmatic (or logico-mathematical) and narrative. The former is concerned with the formation of hypotheses, the development of arguments, solutions to problems, finding proofs, and with rational thinking in general. According to Bruner (1986, p. 12), it fulfills "the ideal of a formal, mathematical system of description and explanation" by employing "categorization or conceptualization and the operations by which categories are established, instantiated, idealized, and related to one another to form a system." The latter, on the other hand, is concerned with what Bruner calls "verisimilitude," that is, life-likeness, and the creation of meaning. It seeks explications that are context sensitive and particular (not context-free and universal). It is entirely divergent-in sharp contrast to paradigmatic mode, which is convergent-and employs literary devices, such as stories, metaphors, similes, even hyperboles, in order to create meaning. In looking at those two modes of thinking, it is quite evident that while the paradigmatic mode is about "logico-mathematical thinking" per se, the narrative mode is about people (i.e., human emotions, ambitions, intentions, successes and failures, human actions, and experiences). In other words, while the paradigmatic mode presupposes distancing oneself from emotions and the human element in general, the narrative mode presupposes personal involvement with the object of thought. However, according to Bruner (1985, 1986), the two modes are complementary.

But what does the narrative mode of thinking have to do with science, that is, a field of study characterized by logical analysis, and which (field) has been developed as a result of logical arguments and scientific explanations (e.g., in the form of hypotheses, mathematical models and theories)? To answer this question one has to consider the fact that many scientific (and mathematical for that matter) hypotheses did indeed start their lives as stories and metaphors ( Hadzigeorgiou, 2016). This view is in line with the one held by the philosopher of science Popper (1972), who argued that today's science is built upon the science of yesterday and that the older scientific theories were built upon "prescientific myths" (p. 346). Thus, the narrative mode of thinking can be considered equally important to science.

One can, of course, very well argue that the narrative mode of thinking (as the source of the creation of a myth or a story) can result in the construction of unreal or even impossible worlds. However, as Bruner (1985) points out, "the narrative mode is not as unconstrainedly imaginative as it might seem to the romantic" (p. 100). In science, therefore, the constructions that result from the use of the narrative mode cannot just refer to any kind of world (or reality), or even to all kinds of impossible worlds. The reason is that the paradigmatic (or logico-mathematical) mode of thinking, as a mode of thinking that is inextricably tied to the real world of things, does test concepts and ideas (i.e., the constructions of the narrative mode) through the use of evidence, experimentation, argumentation, and so on. Nonetheless, Bruner's hypothesis about the existence of the two modes of thinking, although a bold one, does shed light on the development of scientific language and knowledge, which cannot be explained solely in terms of paradigmatic (logico-mathematical) thinking. Sutton (1996) in fact has illustrated how the language of a scientific concept changes from its initial formulation to how it later becomes rephrased, codified, and depersonalized through the different stages of publication-from original discovery to research paper, handbook and finally textbook-and uncovers the often neglected aspect of the development of scientific concepts themselves. In other words, the historicity of scientific language and theories. The original creative, speculative and often very personal narrative occurs when discoveries are made-"where wonder and curiosity abound"-and where the language can be figurative and even metaphorical (e.g., discovery of electron, DNA and quarks) during the early stages of research or "frontier science." However, by the time the much later stage of "textbook science" has been reached, the concepts and discoveries have been codified, often abstracted out of the historical matrix, while the language has shifted from narrative or lived-story to depersonalized transmission and exposition. Too many textbooks create the false impression that science does not start as an exciting, arduous exploratory process but rather arrives as a "finished product" whose ideas, facts and equations are to be memorized and manipulated ( Stinner, 1995; Kalman, 2008/2017; Schulz, 2014b).

The interplay between the two modes of thinking, that has been central to the historical and philosophical development of science, has been also empirically documented in the context of school science education ( Kurth et al., 2002). It is indeed this interplay between the two modes of thinking, that is, the narrative and the paradigmatic, which helps children to make sense of the natural world. But whether the two modes of thinking are really as mutually exclusive as Bruner (1985, 1986, 1990) hypothesized, is debatable, and not our concern here. And yet the very nature of "final form science" as codified in language of increasing technicality in textbooks at the upper grades, reinforces the problem of engagement, as they further distance the student from the object of study.

It should be noted at this point that the importance, in fact the centrality, of the narrative mode of thinking is captured in the notion of "mind as a narrative concern" ( Sutton-Smith, 1988). Such a notion can help explain not only the "irrational character" of some kinds of scientific thinking ( Kuhn, 1970; Feyerabend, 1993; Di Trocchio, 1997), but also the creation of scientific ideas that necessitated mental leaps, even "jumps of the imagination," also famous thought experiments, which could not have become possible only through strictly logical causal-type thinking ( Hadzigeorgiou, 2016). In addition, such a notion can help explain certain facts, which are important to consider when approaching the general problem of student engagement with science. One such fact, has been pointed out by White ( 1981, p. 1): despite the fact that people are not capable of understanding "the specific thought patterns of another culture" they have "less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that culture may appear." Another fact-and this is crucially important when it comes to the problem of engaging students in science-is that the narrative mode of thinking is used by people in everyday life. Indeed people of all ages use their narrative mode not only to make sense of their experiences, but also to communicate and to plan their future actions ( Bruner, 1990). And this is why Bruner (1991), called the narrative mode, the "default mode" of thinking. If this is true, then the argument that people are, or become more, competent at thinking in the narrative mode, in comparison with thinking with the logical mode ( Hadzigeorgiou, 2016), can provide food for thought when it comes to planning for curriculum and instructional sequences, which consider the students' own inclination toward a narrative mode of thinking.

In his The Storytelling Animal. How Stories Make Us Human, Jonathan Gottschall provides a compelling argument that we are storytelling animals because of evolutionary reasons ( Gottschall, 2012). His argument is based on research in psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology. Even if one remains skeptical about what specific scientific studies Gottschall has drawn upon in order to advance his argument (e.g., does reading fiction cause people to modify or change their attitudes and behavior?), there is still plenty of evidence from a variety of experiments that seems to support Bruner's (1985; 1986) hypothesis about the narrative mode of thinking. In addition, Gottschall's work also supports Egan's (1997, 2005) work on the development of the "educated mind". It is of note that Egan transcended some dilemmas regarding the development of the mind by focusing neither on knowledge per se nor on child psychology, but instead on the notion of "cognitive tool," that is, a tool that facilitates thinking and understanding. Cognitive tools are picked up by children as they grow up and become socially enculturated through a language community. One such tool is "story," and the educational process could be conceived, according to Egan (1997), as a process that provides students with an array of cognitive tools, which (tools) are also associated with particular kinds of understanding -more broader and general socio-cultural tools (see also next section in this chapter).

The implications of narrative thinking is that narratives and especially stories become indispensable teaching/learning tools. Indeed narratives and stories can be used for communicating important ideas of and about science. This mode of introducing students to science is engaging for a number of reasons. First, "narratives and stories are more appropriate in describing what we learn about the world" ( Hadzigeorgiou, 2016, p. 90), according to research based on the constructive nature of human sense- and meaning-making (see also Egan, 1986, 1988, 1999). Second, narratives, particularly those produced by the students themselves, can foster science learning, by bridging the gap between students' everyday knowledge (and quite frequently naïve conceptions) and scientific conceptions ( Zabel and Gropengiesser, 2015). Only through dialogue and the opportunity to partake of using science language in specific class settings can the so-called "three language problem" (i.e., specialist science language, everyday language, science education language), be gradually overcome, according to recent socio-linguistic-based research ( Wellington and Osborne, 2001; Yore and Treagust, 2006; Schulz, 2014b). Third, narratives and stories can be considered the means of translating "knowing into telling" ( Avraamidou and Osborne, 2009, p. 1,012), an idea that is crucially important in science education, where abstract scientific knowledge must be presented in a meaningful way to the student.

Fourth, stories provide the context for a "silent" dialogue between the teller and the listener, which, by its very nature, is engaging. According to Solomon (2002), a story can be considered as a dialogue. Indeed, despite the fact that the student/listener does not actively participate in the telling of the story, she/he tries to create meaning by listening attentively to the story. Finally fifth, narratives and stories have the potential to break barriers and dichotomies between epistemic subject and epistemic object, something that has been stressed from both a post-modernist perspective on teaching and learning, and a hermeneutic approach ( Kalman, 2011; Schulz, 2014b; Although a strong caution should be brought to bear when some post-modernist perspectives are employed in science education; Nola and Irzik, 2005; Schulz, 2007). Indeed, from such a post-modern perspective, understanding the world involves a rejection of traditional stark dichotomies, like those between fact and fiction, reality and epistemic subject. Gough (1993) has convincingly argued for a pedagogy, which "tacitly embraces [...] the relatedness of the observer and the observed and the personal participation of the knower in all acts of understanding" (p. 607). Likewise from a hermeneutic perspective, meaning-making through language and interpretation is seen to be prerequisite for any understanding to take place at all, which involves the learners' very being involved in an interpretive act (a form of intersubjectivity) between knower and object, in contrast to knowledge "possession" by isolated individual cognition, according to the standard (epistemological) spectator theory of knowing ( Eger, 1992). Borda (2007) has even suggested how some Hermeneutic dispositions (doubt, humility, strength) could be fostered in science learners to increase their engagement, to help overcome the textbook content-based and classroom-based language barriers, and approach science as a hermeneutic endeavor [see also Kalman (2008/2017, 2011), on the advantage of "reflective writing" when using the "hermeneutic circle method" in tertiary physics and engineering classes].

It should be noted that narratives and stories can be very engaging (compared with other teaching methods), not only because students become emotionally involved with content knowledge on a deeper level, but also because they have the benefits of experiential learning due to high levels of the listeners' active engagement. Moreover, narratives and stories can appeal to a wide range of intelligences as well as a variety of learning styles (see Hadzigeorgiou, 2016). It should also be noted that storytelling, in particular, satisfies all three elements of effective learning, based on brain-based research ( Caine et al., 2005, p. 233): (a) Relaxed Alertness (i.e., a state of mind created in a low-threat atmosphere, which also creates a sense of community), (b) Planned Immersion (i.e., the creation of an environment in which students become involved with the objectives of the lesson) and (c) Active Processing (i.e., utilization of learning methods, which encourage reflection and integration of the information in a meaningful way).

In light of the above, narrative thinking becomes indispensable if engagement with science content is itself a main goal of pedagogy. This, in turn, means that narratives and stories can play the role of bridges to the world of science, between the learner, and the science content. Narratives and stories can introduce students to science content ideas and to ideas about the history and nature of science (NoS), if these ideas are embedded in the narratives and the plot of the stories, and especially if the actual historical background is respected ( Allchin's warnings signs about using pseudohistory and pseudoscience is to be heeded, 2013). The empirical evidence thus far, although limited, is quite encouraging (see Hadzigeorgiou, 2016, for a review of studies on the use of narratives and storytelling in science education). Certainly there are some limitations to be considered, according to Hadzigeorgiou (2017)-e.g., narrative explanations are more suitable for the historical sciences, like geology and cosmology, and for unique events, like the disappearance of dinosaurs, whereas it is difficult to create narratives for all phenomena and for all science concepts because of the need to use deductive and descriptive explanations. While these can be presented in a narrative form, possibly also through the use of anthropomorphism, but these are more suitable for younger children. But it is their potential to engage students emotionally and cognitively that we should keep them in mind, and the instructional sequences that we design should take this potential into consideration, too. In particular, special attention must be paid so that the narratives and stories we create (fictitious or based on the history of science), should have specific features (i.e., narrative elements), according to the literature on narratives (see Klassen and Froese-Klassen, 2014a). Such caution is more readily understood in the case in which one seeks to create a narrative or a story with "romantic features," with the aim of fostering in students a romantic understanding of science ( Hadzigeorgiou et al., 2012). This we discuss in the next section.

"Romantic Understanding" as a Way to be Engaged With the Content of Science

"Romantic Understanding" is a term coined by the educational theorist Kieran Egan, who used it to describe a kind or form of understanding that children develop approximately between the ages of 8 and 15 years. It is one of five forms of understanding that students can develop throughout their participation in the educational process of schooling. According to Egan's socio-linguistic theory of "imaginative education" ( The Educated Mind, 1997), educational development can be conceived as a process or recapitulation, during which students' minds are socio-culturally shaped to recapitulate, that is, repeat, the forms of understandings, as these have appeared in our extended cultural history. These forms, also termed socio-cultural cognitive tools of mind, Egan called "Somatic," "Mythic," "Romantic," "Philosophic," and "Ironic," and postulated most cultures moved through these stages as civilizations progressed, although at a diverse pace and performance. Egan's grand theory (or "metatheory") is grounded on the fact of the historicity of language in human anthropology and cultural development and how this has managed to shape-albeit in ways not yet entirely understood-both the brain and the mind. "Without the historicity of language, human nature and the human mind remain essentially unchanged in history" ( Polito, 2005, p. 486). (See Schulz, 2009, 2014b, for a more indepth discussion).

One can certainly maintain, with little controversy when examining the anthropological record, that there has come to be a general cultural progression of the human race from plain mimicry and artifact construction (common to our primal homo sapiens ancestors-"somatic"), to oral language use and society ("mythic"), to creating literacy with the written word ("romantic"), and finally to more complex forms of language symbolism and use, including a shift to theoretical ("philosophic") and even ironic thinking, as noted by others ( Donald, 1991). "The exceedingly long historico-cultural development since our early hominid prehistory, which appears to be neither inevitable nor 'progressive' (in the older 19th century evolutionary sense), has nonetheless brought with it the discovery and invention of both physical and especially cognitive tools, which, according to their own sequence and time, have wrought technological advance as well as expanded the human capacity to reason and make sense of themselves and the world" ( Schulz, 2009, p. 262).

Here, however, the focus is strictly on "Romantic Understanding" which is itself a transitional kind of understanding, between "Mythic" (i.e., a kind of understanding associated with orality and developed by children in the age range 2-7, who rely on oral language to interact and understand the world), and "Philosophic" (i.e., conceptual or "theoretic" understanding, for those learners in the age range of about 15-20 years). It is important though to point out that Egan's notion of "Romantic Understanding," as a transitional kind of understanding is quite unique ( Egan, 1990). The reason is that neither Donald's (1991) distinction between mythic and rational thinking, nor Bruner's (1986) distinction between narrative and paradigmatic (or logico-mathematical) thinking, can explain or account for a transitional stage of understanding (i.e., from mythic to narrative understanding to more advanced conceptual understanding at the upper grade levels). In other words, Egan's "Romantic Understanding" is a quite distinctive mode of understanding, which is not to be confused or conflated with narrative understanding in general.

Although one could argue that both mythic and romantic understandings are narrative in their nature (i.e., both very young children and teenagers rely on the narrative mode of thinking to make sense of the world and their experiences), these two kinds of understanding represent two distinct ways of making sense of the world. This becomes easily understood if one looks at the specific characteristics for these kinds of understanding. For "Romantic Understanding" in particular these characteristics are the following: (a) the humanization of meaning (i.e., students' awareness of the human context of the knowledge and content to be learned); (b) an associa t ion with heroes and heroic qualities (i.e., students' association with things or people with heroic qualities, so they gain confidence that they, too, can face and deal with the real world); (c) an attraction to the limits of reality and extremes of experience (i.e., the limits of any new environment and human experience enables students to gain security and confidence in dealing with reality); (d) the experience of a sense of wonder (i.e., astonishment mingled with bewildered curiosity, admiration, and the awareness that one's knowledge is incomplete or erroneous or that some extraordinary phenomenon-exists), and finally, (e) revolt and idealism (i.e., contesting of conventional ideas and all kinds of conventions).

From this general conception of a "Romantic Understanding," an operational definition of romantic understanding in the context of school science education can be construed as follows: "A narrative kind of understanding which enables students to become aware of the human context of the subject content that they are supposed to learn, by associating, at the same time, such content with heroic human qualities, with the extremes of reality and experience, with a contesting of conventional ideas, and also by experiencing a sense of wonder" ( Hadzigeorgiou et al., 2012, p. 1,112). This definition of "Romantic Understanding," while different from that of conceptual or "theoretic" understanding, is very relevant to school science education in the sense that it relates to the content of many different science subjects. Indeed, the content of science is full of extremes, it can evoke a sense of wonder, and can provide opportunities for associating the subject concepts with people and even things that have "heroic" qualities. It can also provide opportunities for associating the content with the contesting of convention, as in the case of scientists who struggled against conventional and prevailing ideas and beliefs, and dealt with in proper historical context (i.e., Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Lavoisier, Priestly, Joule, Young, Darwin, Hutton, Wegener, Tesla, etc.).

It deserves to be pointed out that the humanistic element/context, the heroic element, and the sense of wonder, are similar to the characteristics of "romantic science," which had its roots in the movement of "Romanticism" (as a revolt against many Enlightenment era doctrines), that took place in Europe between 1780 and 1840 (see Poggi and Bossi, 1994; Hadzigeorgiou and Schulz, 2014). Watson (2010) sees the movement as a major contribution to the "second scientific revolution." And even though the term "romantic science" may sound like an oxymoron, even a paradox, given that the prevalent view of science sees its development primarily due to an emphasis on rationalism, deductive thinking, experimentation, reductionism, and the mathematization (modeling) of nature, "there is now widespread recognition of the importance of particular romantic contributions to the natural sciences" ( Cunningham and Jardine, 1990, p. 19). This revised historical assessment of "romantic science" can make science teachers and science educators more attentive to Egan's (1997) recapitulation theory, and specifically, to the potential of "Romantic Understanding."

What should be pointed out though is that the development of "Romantic Understanding" of science presupposes that students are given the opportunity to relate the science content with the romantic features. Even though students of the age range 7 or 8 to 15 generally understand and relate to the world romantically, that is, by associating reality (e.g., a mountain, a neighborhood, a building, a friendship, a human relationship) with the romantic features, it does not follow that they will understand science romantically. (Quite the contrary, they often find themselves at this age alienated from the content and language as presented in textbooks and classroom dialogue, what Lemke (1990) refers to as the "mystique" of science). Hence, it is vital, if the development of "Romantic Understanding" and ultimately engagement with content knowledge is to be an instructional goal, that students be given opportunities to experience a sense of wonder, to explore the extremes and the limits of reality and human experience, and to associate with heroic qualities, and also to become aware of the human context in which scientific knowledge is discovered and developed. Whether the instructional topic is forces and motion, photosynthesis, electric current, biodiversity, or radioactivity, it should be associated with all the above named features of the mind-set. Perhaps, the best way to associate all the aforementioned features of "Romantic Understanding" with science content is to create a narrative or, better, a story, whose plot incorporates all of them. Such an approach gives students the opportunity to use their narrative mode of thinking and to understand science content "romantically." Egan (1992) had also pointed out that a narrative context for the romantic characteristics "can enhance their power to stimulate and develop the imagination" (p. 72).

One could, of course, very well raise the issue of what empirical evidence exists, as regards the development of "Romantic Understanding." The anecdotal evidence about the educational benefits and perhaps about the effectiveness of romantic understanding are insufficient when it comes to informing instructional and curriculum planning, let alone educational policy. It is true that no empirical study can be found in the literature except the study conducted by Hadzigeorgiou et al. (2012). This study investigated "The Effect of the Nikola Tesla Story" on grade 9 students' understanding of the concept of alternating current. This story, based exclusively on historical events, included all the romantic elements [i.e., the characteristic features of "Romantic Understanding" according to Egan's theory ( Egan's, 1997)] and the researchers used a quasi-experimental design (i.e., a two-group, pre-test/intervention/post-test design). This means that the students (ninth graders) who participated in the study were not randomly assigned to two groups. Thus, two classrooms from each of 19 schools (from the wider metropolitan area of a European capital) that participated in the intervention formed the control and the experimental group respectively, with a total of 197 students. More specifically, the intervention was conducted over a period of 10 weeks, with the first 4 weeks spent on the teaching of prerequisite knowledge (i.e., fundamentals of current electricity), the fifth and sixth weeks spent on assessment, while the next 3 weeks were devoted to teaching both groups about alternating current and the idea of the wireless transmission of electrical power. The final assessment of both groups took place during the tenth week. However, 8 weeks later, that is, on the eighteenth week a delayed post-test was also administered to the two groups. The students of the control group were taught about alternating current and the wireless transmission of electricity through direct instruction, and more specifically through the mastery model (see Stefanich and Hadzigeorgiou, 2001), while the experimental group were taught exactly the same content through storytelling (i.e., the Nikola Tesla story).

However, it is important to point out that that study did provide evidence for a significant difference between the control group and the experimental group, in terms of engagement with science content knowledge, retention and understanding. Regardless of the interpretation of significant differences between the two groups (e.g., novelty of the instructional sequence through storytelling, the specific curricular content that was covered, such as current electricity, the Hawthorn effect), the fact that the story helped foster in the students of the experimental group a "Romantic Understanding" of science content knowledge (as all the characteristics of "Romantic Understanding" were identified through content analysis of students' optional journal entries), cannot be disputed.

Certainly more empirical evidence is imperative, but it quite evident that a "Romantic Understanding" of science relates to what the philosopher of science Yehuda Elkana had called "personal science" (as opposed to "public science"). He had argued that the methods of logic are insufficient for describing science as a human endeavor: "logical tools are of limited use in understanding the development of science or, what is even more important, in the teaching of science" ( Elkana, 2000, p. 473). Private science, as Hadzigeorgiou and Schulz (2017) argued, is inevitably phenomenological but the prevailing insistence on the "logic" of science, when formulated in public language of "final form science" as found in textbooks, does not give students the picture of science as a human activity, or even a proper historical activity (though the presented history is too often mythical- Allchin, 2013), as pointed out by several previous researchers (see Matthews, 1994, 2015; Hodson, 1998; Donnelly, 2004). A "Romantic Understanding" of science, if it takes place in a narrative learning context, in addition to encouraging engagement with science content, gives students the opportunity to understand science as an arduous and exciting, but also error prone, human activity, embedded in a socio/cultural context ( Hadzigeorgiou et al., 2012). Moreover, taking a wider view and considering the vocational aspect of school science, a romantic understanding can present science as "a grand adventure," something of vital importance, according to the late Nobel prize physicist Feynman (1964), if we want to attract young students to the world of science and, hence, educate future scientists.

Concluding Comments

This paper discussed the potential of "narrative thinking" and "romantic understanding" to engage students in science, particularly science content ideas and ideas about the nature of science. Even though engagement does not guarantee understanding, the latter always presupposes some degree of emotional and/or cognitive engagement. In light of the fact that both "narrative thinking" and "romantic understanding" are about students' making sense of the world and meaning making, they can both "help us answer two fundamental questions in educational theory: What is significant for students? What is meaningful to them"? (see also Hadzigeorgiou, 1997, 2005b, p. 31; Schulz, 2014a, b; Krevetzakis, 2019). It may very well be argued that the degree to which students become engaged with science, through the opportunities they have to use their narrative mode of thinking and also to understand science "romantically," namely, by being helped to associate science ideas with the characteristic features of "romantic understanding," can show teachers the degree to which students perceive science as something significant and meaningful ( Hadzigeorgiou, 2016).

Certainly, the complexity of the processes of both engagement with science and understanding science, one the one hand, and the multiplicity of factors involved in both of them, on the other, makes one cautious about the effectiveness of the use of narratives and stories, and of the "romantic" approach, as was discussed in this paper, to encourage engagement that will, in turn, result in understanding. Putting aside the empirical evidence that exists to date, what should be noted is that what teachers and curriculum designers wish to achieve is to increase the possibilities for students to understand science. Apparently, because of their inherent nature, narrative and romantic understanding increase such possibilities (for understanding science). The message from a recent study by Godec et al. (2018) should be a reminder of that. Even though their study-which they approached from a sociological/Bourdieusian perspective-showed that student engagement with science became possible only when students' "habitus" (i.e., set of deeply embedded and internalized dispositions) aligned with the "field" (i.e., the social environment of the classroom with certain sets of rules, relationships, and expectations), they did acknowledge the possibility of broadening the notion of "field," so that more opportunities for more diverse students could be provided.

Thus, in recognizing and valuing the individual capacities of students, teachers could offer more opportunities to more students. Narrative thinking is indeed an individual capacity as is a "romantic understanding" of the world, at least in the case of students approximately in the age range 8-15. In actual fact, such individual capacities are students' "capital," which ought to be considered by teachers and curriculum designers. For it should be noted that it is the "field" that determines whether something (e.g., an individual capacity) can be considered as "capital" (see Godec et al., 2018). Future research is certainly needed to more clearly articulate how such "capital" can be tapped from the various perspectives on teaching and learning science (e.g., sociocultural, conceptual change) so that we better understand and appreciate its potential. But we should be reminded, nonetheless, that this potential has been indirectly hinted at by the educational philosopher Maxine Greene: "the problem in education is how to help students discover the imaginative mode of awareness" ( Greene, 1978, p. 186). Both narrative thinking and romantic understanding can facilitate such discovery.

Hence, it is important, in closing this chapter, to point out that more attention should be paid by the science education community to the development of students' imagination, by seriously considering the role of the narrative mode of thinking and the development of romantic understanding in the context of school science education. Regardless of the fact that the history of science has provided ample evidence that scientific discovery and scientific understanding are indeed imaginative endeavors ( Hadzigeorgiou and Stefanich, 2001; Hadzigeorgiou and Garganourakis, 2010; Hadzigeorgiou, 2016; Lindholm, 2018), in the context of education in general, especially early childhood education, the value of imagination needs to be reclaimed. What the educational theorist Kieran Egan has pointed out should be seriously and carefully considered:

A feature of young children's mental life that is commonly asserted as an implication 'of research on their logico-mathematical thinking is that their thought is perception-dominated. If we focus instead on their imaginative lives we can see rather an enormously energetic realm of intellectual activity that is conception-driven. ( Egan, 1999, p. 9).

Data Availability

No datasets were generated or analyzed for this study.

Author Contributions

YH is the first author as he had run the original research study in Greece as mentioned in the paper, and whose major research has been concerned with the process of engagement with science content knowledge using imaginative approaches in teaching and learning. However, both have co-authored on several papers together involving engagement and history of science. YH wrote the first draft and RS added substantial aspects (concepts, clarifications, additions, research literature) to the manuscript as it developed. Both authors have read, revised, and contributed to the final version of the submitted paper, and approved the final submission.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Footnotes

References

Hadzigeorgiou, Y. (2005a). On Humanistic Science Education. Eric Document (ED506504) Washington, DC.

Tytler, R., Prain, V., Hubber, P., and Waldrip, B. (Eds.). (2013). Constructing Representations to Learn Science. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. doi: 10.1007/978-94-6209-203-7

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Engaging Students in Science: The Potential Role of "Narrative Thinking" and "Romantic Understanding"

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Engaging students in science and helping them develop an understanding of its ideas has been a consistent challenge for both science teachers and science educators alike. Such a challenge is even greater in the context of the "Science for All" curriculum initiative.

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https://www.edutopia.org/article/6-essential-strategies-teaching-english-language-learners

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Over 10 percent of students in the United States-more than 4.8 million kids-are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native-English-speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.

To learn about these needs-and best practices for addressing them-I interviewed a range of educators and observers, including Larry Ferlazzo, an educator and author of The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide; longtime teachers of English as a second language (ESL) Emily Francis and Tan Huynh; and the journalist Helen Thorpe, who spent a year observing a teacher who works with ELLs.

The group emphasized that the strategies listed here, which include both big-picture mindsets and nitty-gritty teaching tactics, can be incorporated into all classrooms, benefiting both native English speakers and ELLs.

1. Cultivate Relationships and Be Culturally Responsive

No surprise here. A successful classroom, our educators agreed, is one in which students feel known, appreciated, and comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks. That requires intentional planning and consistent messaging by the teacher.

Emily Francis, an ESL teacher in Concord, North Carolina, makes clear that she wants her students to "embrace their culture and their language as a foundation of who they are" and to consider their acquisition of a new culture and language "not as subtractive, but as additive." To help support students who may never have attended school before or may be coping with migration-based trauma, Francis emphasizes that little things make a big difference. "The first thing that I need to think about is, how is my student feeling in my classroom?" she says. "Are they sitting next to a buddy they can ask a question in their home language? Do they feel comfortable tapping me on the shoulder if they have to go to the bathroom?"

But creating a supportive environment is also about cultivating an appreciation of diversity-it's critical that both the curriculum and the classroom environment honor and reflect the lives of the students. For instance, Francis makes certain that her classroom library is reflective of her students' diverse backgrounds and identities.

ESL teacher Katie Toppel, who teaches near Portland, Oregon, champions the value of home visits to get to know students' families and takes care to incorporate the particulars of students' lives, such as pets' names and favorite sports, into lessons. Students are most engaged when they feel a personal connection to a lesson or unit, a connection that's created in part by a teacher's investment in culturally competent relationships.

2. Teach Language Skills Across the Curriculum

English language learners should not be learning the fundamentals of English in isolation; they should be applying their developing language skills to rich academic content in all subjects.

"It is key that in mainstream classrooms, teachers understand their role as language teachers," says Valentina Gonzalez, a district leader in Katy, Texas, suggesting that all teachers should be aware of the specialized idiom they work within. "If we teach math, then we teach the language of mathematics. If we teach science, then we teach the language of science." Math teachers, in other words, should take the time to teach the unfamiliar vocabulary of mathematics- add, subtract, calculator, solve -concurrently with the teaching of math skills.

3. Emphasize Productive Language

The educators I interviewed agreed that productive language skills-hard-to-master dimensions of language fluency like speaking and writing-should be front and center from day one, even if students feel hesitant about them.

Beginning ELLs often develop receptive language skills like listening and reading first. Educators who are unaware of the typical path to fluency may believe that students who can follow verbal or written directions will be able to produce oral or written language, but that's usually not the case.

To support reluctant speakers, Tan Huynh, an educator who blogs at Empowering ELLs, suggests using sentence frames. "For example, when a science teacher wants ELLs to produce a hypothesis, they might offer the sentence, 'If _____ was added, then _____ because _____.' This sentence frame provides clues that empower ELLs to sound and think like scientists," Huynh says.

Andrea Honigsfeld, a professor of education at Molloy College in Rockville, New York, suggests that all lessons touch on every letter of the acronym SWIRL, which stands for Speak, Write, Interact, Read, Listen. The approach intentionally privileges productive language skills "from the beginning," she says.

4. Speak Slowly-and Increase Your Wait Time

Easier said than done. Still, many of the teachers I spoke to said this simple change is vital. You can record yourself speaking in class to measure your cadence, and adjust.

"Adding in an extra three to five seconds after we pose a question offers all students time to think," explains Gonzalez. "However, for English learners, it also gives time to translate, process their thinking, translate back into English, and develop the courage to answer. If we call on students too quickly, many of our students will stop thinking about the answers-or trying to answer at all."

That means undoing some of our own habits, according to Larry Ferlazzo, a high school ESL teacher in Sacramento, California. "Researchers have found that typically most teachers give one to two seconds between asking a question and expecting a student response," he says. "The same researchers have shown that if you wait three to five seconds, the quality of responses is astronomically greater."

5. Differentiate-and Use Multiple Modalities

All kids learn better when they engage with material in multiple ways: Lessons that involve writing, speaking, drawing, and listening, for example, give students four opportunities to deepen their understanding of the work. For ELLs, those additional engagements also provide a little breathing room so they can work through the language barrier.

Helen Thorpe, a journalist who spent a year observing Eddie Williams's classroom in Denver in order to write a book about immigrants called The Newcomers, marveled at Williams's method of differentiation. "Eddie would enunciate very clearly in English multiple times, he would write it on the board, and he would go to the projector to give a visual. And, finally, he'd be asking the kids to verbalize aspects of the lesson themselves," she says, tracing Williams's efforts to move his students from receptive to productive language fluency.

Toppel uses a strategy called QSSSA to scaffold classroom discussions with ELLs. The letters stand for Question (the teacher poses a question, then gives ample think time); Signal (a designated motion like a thumbs-up, a finger on the nose-something that lets students indicate that they're ready to answer); Stem (the teacher provides a sentence starter for the question-for example, for "What is your favorite place to read a book?" the stem might be, "My favorite place to read a book is _____"); Share; and Assess.

6. Incorporate Students' Native Languages-and Don't Be Afraid of Technology

Bilingualism is the goal, of course, not replacement.

Ferlazzo uses a strategy called "preview, view, review," which leverages a student's native language skills as a foundation for learning the new language. He introduces a topic and encourages students to preview it in materials in their home language (often using multilingual videos and other online resources); he then teaches the topic in English, and then has students review the information in their home language.

Ferlazzo also encourages teachers to embrace technologies that students find helpful, like Google Translate. He stresses that the app can be a useful way for students to translate words quickly-but warns that it can quickly "become a dependency" if it's used as more than a handy dictionary.

Thorpe agrees that Translate can take pressure off teachers, who sometimes find that they "just stand at the front of the room and say things over and over. And if the kids didn't know what those words are, they're out of luck." Translation technology means you can say it once (or twice) and let the students use the technology to translate key words and phrases.

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6 Essential Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

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We interviewed educators with decades of experience in teaching ELLs and tapped a network of experts and observers to find the strategies that work.

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https://www.ascd.org/blogs/making-these-4-sel-strategies-work-in-your-classroom

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Recently there's been a rise of interest in the need to include Social Emotional Learning (SEL) into the curriculum. This is no surprise due to the recent attention focused on the school environment. One of the takeaways from these discussions, according to The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is that we can explicitly stimulate students' social and emotional abilities, and the result is not only beneficial for students' emotional health but also their academic achievement. ()

We don't need to add an SEL class or include a new curriculum piece to an already over-filled teacher's plate. The good news is you probably are already implementing SEL strategies in your daily teaching practices and also when you are casually around your students.

First, it's important to understand what SEL entails. has categorized five proficiencies that encompass SEL: self-awareness, self- management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. ()

Here are four strategies that work well together (from the five proficiencies of SEL) you could already be doing or easily start.

As a teacher, you are hyper-aware of your students from the minute they step foot in your classroom. Even if you and all of your students are at peak performance (insert LOL here), you know that they and you need a transition activity to get all participants focused and ready to learn.

This is the time you have them take out their personal journals. In fact, you do it with them. You unveil a prompt on the board and your timer is ready. This prompt is a self-reflection of their own ideas, feelings, and/or goals. For example:

Today, my goal is to _________in this class. I am struggling with ______ at the moment, and I know I could do better at________. Now, write about your goal today and three ways in how you could accomplish this.

You are modeling this as well because after this time (maybe 5 minutes) is up, you share with them your own thoughts. In being real with them, you are showing your students your human side. They need to see that being more self-aware allows one to make corrections to improve and grow from weak areas. Journaling is just one tool for this. These journals can also be used with content. If the students are reading a fiction piece, they can connect with the character with his/her own experiences.

We want our students to manage themselves. After the class has completed, it is a perfect time to take out those journals for reflection on the goal/s of the day and then to reflect on his/her learning. For example, what was challenging today? What worked in your studies today and what was more difficult? How did you process the answer to a problem? These reflections on learning will encourage the student to make adjustments to his/her own habits. The serendipity to all of this is students can own their learning and become more successful in the process.

This sounds simplistic and obvious, but by having the SEL lens in the classroom, our language and behavior should be warm, encouraging and supportive. This will only help students be more relational inside and outside the classroom. For example, when we are walking around the room, we can point out positive behavior (vs focusing on the behavior problems). "Juan, I love how you are using your quiet voice to work with Sara." This is much more effective than pointing out the loud duet next to them.

Mark Twain said it best, "Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."

As teachers, we must become self- aware of the importance of our word choice, the tone of voice, and body language and how they can quickly alter an atmosphere into a positive or negative one. Instead of "Can you stop tapping your pencil, Billy?", we can say, "Billy, show me what a great listener you are!" This self-fulfilling prophecy allows the student to make a change without feeling belittled or embarrassed. As we model our positive language, we can remind students that we expect this in our classroom. "We are a kind classroom."

One of the best uses of cooperative learning is to teach taking turns and sharing responsibility. Talking Pencils is one approach that works wonders for discussion. A question is posed and each one must share an answer in a group of four. When one wants to share an opinion, he/she places his/her pencil in the center of the four-person group. Now, this is where we must model how to speak to each other. We can provide sentence frames (posted on the board) to aid in the discussion. "My answer is ______ because of ______." Once that student speaks, the next student places his/her pencil in the middle but then must say something like this: "Thank you for sharing, (Sal); I like your idea but have you thought of this?" Or, "I like your answer. I disagree, however, and this is why." These sentence frames teach students how to discuss topics in a kind way, allowing for differences in opinion.

We must then walk the room pointing out positive talk. "Bob, I love how you disagreed with kind words and then gave your opinion in an understanding, helpful way." Again, we are modeling, guiding, and expecting our students to rise to our high standards.

Each of these four SEL strategies is seamless, but they all must first start from us. We the teachers have the power in our hands to make or break our classroom in how we want our students to feel, how we want our classroom to run, and what kind of students we want to produce.

Dr. Stephanie Knight is an experienced 7th and 8th grade English language arts educator. She taught in Title One schools for eight years-helping them grow from underperforming to excelling-and then in an independent school for four years. Knight is now is part of Grand Canyon University's adjunct faculty where she teaches graduate-level education and reading courses.

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Making These 4 SEL Strategies Work in Your Classroom

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Recently there's been a rise of interest in the need to include Social Emotional Learning (SEL) into the curriculum. This is no surprise due to the recent attention focused on the school environment.

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https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

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https://www.edsys.in/innovative-science-teaching-methods/

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Student engagement and understanding of materials is given more emphasis in today's education over spoon feeding the facts.

Therefore, using black-boards or the typical lecture methods are not adequate to teach science and other related subjects.

Many scholars and researchers have proposed advanced ideas and they claim that virtual teaching scenarios or simulations can help to build a better understanding of subjects amongst students.

More than just conveying facts or findings in science, students will love to explore the world of science. These innovative teaching methods in science can substitute the typical teaching techniques to achieve the goal.

1. Hands on Learning:

This is the best teaching method invented so far that involves the active participation of students to experience scientific concepts than to just have an audience view.

Schools are promoting the use of low cost apparatus in classrooms to helps students to have hands on learning experience. It can be a string telephone to teach about sound and communication, matchstick mecanno to teach 3D structures, notched pencil to teach rotation motion or anything similar.

2. Story Telling

Students love to hear stories and therefore, storytelling is one of the best ways to get their attention in class.

Teacher can explain the facts of biology or the laws of physics in the form of stories. This is a mental organizer as human brains can remember stories than just plain facts. Some teachers present the whole concept as a story while some others use a story to open and end the session.

3. Role Play

This innovative method is becoming an integral part of science education as students can intellectually and physically involve through activities while learning a new concept.

Activities can be organized in classroom sessions where a group of students can take the role of atoms or molecules to study a chemical reaction or they can represent a scientist group to demonstrate the particular scientist's laws.

4. Sports Based Learning

This is an interesting approach to learn problem-solving in physics or a stepwise method to study complex chemical reactions.

A game of football or cricket helps them to learn about the percentage, average or probability which can find its use in physics problems. Sports are mostly played in teams which also promote the importance of teamwork that helps them to synchronize better in group projects.

5. Visual clues

Using visual clues easily supplements auditory information and students can easily connect better with ideas.

The multi-sensory experiences improve their understanding and memorization. This includes drawings, diagrams, and pictures to assist theory and setting up examples to show its application side.

The sequence of lab procedures can be better taught using pictures with words approach.

6. Instructional Conversations

Building instructional conversations is a key method to teach science vocabulary. Let them talk in between the lectures about the experience they had with an application related to the topic of discussion.

This promotes their dialogue construction in science as they communicate using scientific and technical terms. Make this a classroom strategy to help students to easily learn science vocabulary.

7. Science Text Cards

This is an innovative teaching method to convey the science facts in an easy and organized way. In this activity, statements related to science concepts are written on index cards.

Students can work individually, pairs or in groups to sort the cards based on the given format. The formats include true/false,agree/disagree, matching pairs, classification, sequencing and more.

8. Word Games

This is a creative strategy to help elementary students to experience the language of science. Hangman, Pictionary, Dingbats, Bingo, Scrabble, Odd One Out, Charades, Trivial Pursuit etc. are the common games.

Playing these games using scientific terms helps the students to work closely with different hard to understand words and use them fluently in their subject.

9. Graphic Organizers

This teaching approach is helpful for students to interact with science in a more organized and structured way. Teachers can use different types of templates to represent the data according to the topic that is being handled.

A typical format for graphic organizer contains a central point from which different branches are formed and there may be sub-branches in certain cases. Arrows are used to point the direction or sequence of a process.

10. Word Parts

This teaching strategy is followed by teachers to educate the basics of science to elementary students. While introducing new scientific terms, they can reinforce the structure of words.

Students are asked to identify and understand prefix, suffix, and base word, and to relate their meanings. For example, metamorphosis - meta (large), morph (change), osis (process); photosynthesis - photo (light), synth (make), isis (process).

11. Social media

The different social media platforms can be used wisely to teach science to make the science classrooms more interesting and engaging. For instance, students can be asked to follow scientists in Twitter and share his/her new thoughts and findings in class or to use Feedly for improving the content of their research projects.

Students can also use Vine to document and to share science videos, Pinterest account for sharing images for research projects or writing prompts or WordPress class account for peer-to-peer learning.

12. Virtual science labs

There are many virtual science labs available online for free and therefore, this approach almost gives hands on experience of learning the subject without much expense.

Detailed diagrams, illustrations or close up pictures allow students to virtually get inside a plant or animal part without actually doing it. Dissections in biology can be studied thoughtfully with a virtual hands-on sensation without the problem of odour and similarly, experiment a chemical reaction without burns.

13. Word walls

Science word walls in classrooms can stimulate the interest of students in the subject and an opportunity for them to illustrate different concepts. In an advanced technique, a more in-depth understanding of different scientific terms can be made possible with pictures that accompany the words.

This is also an option to help them better understand words with multiple meanings. Teachers can design creative word walls or ask students to contribute to the idea weekly or monthly.

14. Thinking Maps

This is an ideal way to visually represent different thought processes which help to organize the science education with a better flow. There are different types of thinking maps available which can be chosen wisely to represent the particular topic.

This includes bridge maps to teach relation between ideas, brace maps to break larger objects into smaller parts, flow maps to show sequence of events, multi-flow maps to show effects or causes of an event, tree maps to classify objects or ideas and more.

15. Mini anchor charts

These interesting charts are a great idea to give a detailed overview or explanation of a science topic. Teachers use it to interactively teach areas such as scientific methods, types of energy, plant life cycle, states of matter, mixtures and solutions, force & motion and more.

To make the whole idea interesting, the teacher brings variations such as black and white charts, colored ones; fill in the blank models, and full-page anchor charts for large classrooms.

16. Crossover Learning

In this teaching method, students are given opportunity to learn in multiple settings such as inside the classroom, museums, field trips or clubs.

Teachers can use this method effectively by proposing a question in class, taking students to informal settings to find answers and then, going back to classrooms to discuss and share the findings. This way, learners can record, link, recall and share their diverse learning events to explore the topic and get a deeper level understanding.

17. Argue with Science

Learning through argumentation gives students a widened thinking to contrasting ideas which in turn deepen their understanding.

They can refine ideas with others and engage with open-ended questions, and re-state observations or remarks in a more scientific language. Teachers can also guide them in their approach and share the intellectual expertise with them.

18. Context-Based Learning

In this method, students are given the opportunity to create context and explore ideas from them. They interact with surroundings, hold conversations with subject experts, make relevant notes and attempt to modify the nearby objects.

The context can be understood in detail by exploring the world around. This gradually helps them to interpret new information from the context and relate to what they already know.

19. Computational thinking

This is an advanced technique to improve thinking and problem-solving skills. The method comprises decomposition i.e. breaking large problems into small units and pattern recognition-related problems to the ones which were already solved successfully in the past.

Computational thinking skills also cover algorithms-step by step approach to reach a solution; abstraction-neglecting unimportant details and debugging-refining these steps.

20. Remote labs

Learning by doing is an unparalleled approach to teach science and this is made a reality with remote labs. Students are given access to authentic scientific tools and opportunities to control remote lab experiments.

This would enhance their inquiry skills and conceptual understanding and also, the students can learn and explore with motivation.

21. Embodied Learning

In this approach, mind and body of the students work together to explore science. The physical feedback, as well as the resultant actions, will reinforce their learning process.

This idea is well supported by today's technology such as visual systems that track movement or wearable sensors to collect physical and biological data.

22. Science museums

Give opportunity to students to visit a science museum as part of the learning process. This gives them access to innovative resources and they can visualize data they learned in class.

They can have a look at the real work of scientists which improves their urge to learn about it further. Regular visits to museums make learning science more engaging and interesting.

23. Projects

This can be an individual activity or group activity which helps students to showcase the application side of what they learnt through theory.

This method involves choosing the idea, building a plan, executing the plan and finally evaluating it. When students pass through these stages, they can improve their skills to express ideas, problem solving, overcoming the challenges, team work and self assessment.

24. Multimedia Approach

This method is a blend of text, audio, animation, video, still images or interactivity content forms to teach diverse difficult to understand concepts in science.

The educator can convey vast information using advanced media, devices and techniques, and involve a wide range of activities to provide a meaningful learning experience.

25. ICT Enabled Learning

ICT refers to the use of Information and Communications Technology to teach the scientific ideas that promotes open source learning.

In order to make the accessing, storing, transmitting, and manipulation of information more easy, this approach integrates telecommunications, computers and relevant enterprise software, storage, middleware, and audio-visual systems required to handle the topic.

26. Video clips

This teaching technique makes use of instructional video clips available online or in libraries to show and teach a new concept.

The evolution of a process can be conveyed better with animation videos. It can also be videos of demonstration of an idea or an application side of a theory or an interview with a scientist, tutorial by a subject expert and more.

27. Power Points

Instead of the conventional talk and chalk methods, teachers now include power point presentations in their classroom sessions to make it more interesting.

They connect the computers to projectors to address a larger classroom and include interesting slides with diagrams and flow charts to make the teaching more interactive.

28. Mini-labs

Mini-labs allow students to take part in hands-on activities inside the classrooms to illustrate a concept. This makes classroom sessions more fun, engaging and memorable.

Students can attempt to mock-up day/night with a globe and flashlight, build circuits, test for conductivity and magnetism, produce mixtures and solutions or model the formation of sedimentary rock and more.

29. Science Fair

Schools should conduct science fairs as part of their teaching strategy to promote students interest in the subject as well as to evaluate their level of understanding.

In this competition, students are given a time frame to answer a question or perform a task through a range of experiments and research. They showcase the output in the form of reports, display board, or as models.

30. Research books

The teacher can promote the use of research books in classrooms rather than just text books and lecture notes. Students are asked to do a research on whatever topic is covered in class by means of libraries, websites or by talking with experts.

This can include the extended information of their syllabus and their findings with diagrams and charts to emphasize it. They can share their research books with classmates too.

31. Documented Problem Solving

In this method, the teacher insists students record their thought process when solving a problem. They are asked to explain their reasoning for reaching the particular solution rather than simply presenting a solution.

This kind of documented problem solving helps them to have a deeper understanding of their process and gives an option for self-analysis.

32. Science kit

This is one of the innovative methods of teaching scienceto kids and adults alike. Let it be physical science, life science, or earth science, teachers are now making use of science kits to help students have an engaging educational experience.

They can conduct small experiments with guided instructions to identify rock specimens, to watch out for insect metamorphosis or demonstrate chemistry reactions.

33. Science stations

This is a fun, quick and engaging way to teach science that promotes student-led learning. Science stations support differentiated learning that lets students immerse themselves in topics, experience science to the fullest and then reflect back on their learning.

There will be multiple stations built with different learning styles and students can research, explore, watch, read, write, assess and illustrate the science concepts.

34. Observation stations

More than just the textbook assignments that have limitations in exploring the topic, these advanced observation stations help students to build up their research, observation, and creativity.

This includes activities that help them to have an understanding of a specific concept using 5 to 6 stations with varied options. The activities include determining mass using a triple beam balance or testing objects to find out their electrical conductivity and magnetism and a lot more.

35. Peer-to-Peer Teaching

Students take the role of teaching each other that promotes excitement learning science. In Peer-to-Peer Teaching approach, they are really engaged in the content by discussing scientific topics, generating questions and working in teams to explore new information.

Some of the activities involved in this approach include buzz groups, solution groups, and critic groups.

36. Science movies

Teachers take initiatives to take them for science movies in theatres or in school halls that clearly showcase the application side of scientific concepts.

More than just entertaining them, many science movies captivate their attention and illustrate diverse science concepts in the real world. Science and nature-focused documentaries is one of the best ways to introduce science to kids than spoon feeding them with text book content.

37. Science games for kids

Kids always love to play and that is why smart teachers introduce science to them with interesting games. They can learn more about science and technology with fun.

A wide range of games are available online that showcase the concepts of animals, plants, space, forces, light, sounds, magnets, electricity, weather and gases. There are games with multiple levels and passing each level teaches a new concept and illustrates scientific experiments.

38. Science songs

This is another creative teaching method to help kids to learn about the science world with fun. Teachers can make use of the interesting science songs available online or create one to introduce the basics of astronomy, biology, botany, physical science and earth science with fun.

Science Is Real, Meet the Elements, The Star Song and Motion Song are a few among the popular science songs available online.

39. Science Exhibition

Encourage your students to take part in science exhibitions as part of school level or inter-school level competitions. This is a great opportunity to bring out their creativity in science and design an application based on a scientific concept.

Develop this inquisitiveness and creative mindset in students right from the elementary classes to help them to grow up as science enthusiasts.

40. Mobile apps for Science

A number of mobile apps are available online for elementary, middle school and high school students as well as for those undergoing advanced studies. Today's kids are tech savvies and they love to learn science using their gadgets.

The advanced mobile apps built with innovative features in fact turn students into scientists. This lets them hold science in their hands and explore it with just a few taps. The popular apps in the category include Human Body, Cozmic Zoom, Earth Primer, Video Science, Science360, NASA GLOBE Observer and a lot more.

41. Field trips

In the middle of boring classroom sessions, take your students out for field trips to experience science while learning. Go to an aquarium, a nature center, a scientist's home or visit a pet store.

You can also spend some time with the students in the bird park or simply go on a nature walk to experience the science around while learning new concepts.

42. Science clubs

Set up science clubs in your schools or community, which is an ideal approach to STEM education that assimilates high quality hands-on instruction.

This is the right place for science enthusiasts to share and discuss new happenings in the science world and to connect innovative ideas to what they actually learned.

43. Reward discovery

Right from the elementary classes, teachers should support, guide and inspire students to discover the wonders of science.

With an inquisitive mindset, there are a lot to discover from the science world we are living in. Also, reward them for the small discoveries they make and let them share and present it in class.

44. Interactive science journals

This is an advanced version of lecture notes in which students express the information they learnt into different templates and elicit their own responses.

Students can use this technique effectively to have a deeper connection to their learning and this activity promotes their higher level thinking. They can be creative with their notebooks using pictures, charts and comments, thus, building an encompassing resource for future reference.

45. Science at home

Like scientists say, science starts from home. Encourage your students to discover science at home from elementary classes itself. Ask them to find out a specific science concept application at home as assignments and let them discover science on the go.

There are fun science activities at home that involve parents and kids such as measuring Earth's circumference with a shadow, creating under water fireworks with chemistry, building a balloon powered toy car and a lot more.

46. Flipped Classroom

In this innovative teaching technique, students are asked to go through video instructions or tutorials in the initial stage, i.e. digital learning.

The second stage will be in classrooms where they involve in challenging tasks and assignments based on the information gathered through video assets. This flipped learning frees up class time for activities such as hands-on labs, guided practice or online simulations.

47. Guided Discovery Problems

Understanding science is more than just knowing some facts and the guided discovery problems method makes it possible. This technique can be integrated into the lecture, lab and field courses.

It refers to understanding science step-by-step through the discovery process and involves the collection and processing of data, debugging and explaining it through intriguing puzzles, structured hands-on activities and right presentation of information.

The conceptually difficult or counter-intuitive topics are better handled with this approach.

48. Fishbone

This is a visual tool for organizing critical thinking which is a good approach for problem solving in science. The fishbone diagram helps to teach students about the root causes leading to a problem and quantifying the relationship between the effect and cause. This is more effective when teaching a group. In this diagram approach, the head of the fish represents the change, the ribs show the reason and riblets have the supportive evidence.

49. Science Quiz

Include a quiz as a part of your classroom sessions when teaching science. This can be done as a whole class activity by splitting the group into 4 or more sets. The questions can include the application of the theory taught in class. Students can discuss and share ideas to find the solution within the stipulated time frame. This teaching approach helps students to think from different angles and sometimes, to think out of the box.

50. Build your model

This can be a challenging task given to students as part of science education. Models are the building blocks of science which are used to explain the diverse aspects of real world.

Ask your students to build their own model using the scientific knowledge they have acquired and you can provide supportive guidance.

Students will be creative in making models and designing their own imaginative means of testing them. This is the right approach to find the scientist in them.

The new era teachers and science enthusiasts have come up with many innovative teaching methods in science and the listed ones are just a few among them.

We live in a scientific world and the advanced teaching strategies are helping students to discover and explore science every day.

Other than the listed methods, teachers looking for advanced techniques can also try group discussion, case studies, laboratory experiments, seminar, outdoor teaching, creative illustrations, crafts, dramatization, and interactive lecture demonstrations to help students to experience the beauty of science.

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50 Innovative Teaching Methods in Science | Edsys

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More than just conveying the facts or findings in science, students will love to explore the world of science. These innovative teaching methods in science can substitute the typical teaching techniques to achieve the goal.

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