Resources - Archived Materials

Section Four: Recommendations - Program Delivery Issues

4.2 The role of the teacher: teaching approaches and methods

Science teaching and leaming must be experiential, developmental, and varied. It is most effective when done through inquiry and problem solving. The teacher should act as a resource person, facilitator, and coach. Students should be assigned hands-on and project-driven activities that involve laboratories and group work and result in a final product.

To obtain certification, teachers of science should be required to demonstrate content and teaching competency in the subject. They should be supported and encouraged to be model learners and to pursue continuing education themselves. It is important that they see science as more than just finite facts and that they emphasize its theoretical aspects as well, since the "facts" are based largely on experimentation and the synthesis of theories from experimental data. Teachers who have a strong knowledge of and comniitment to science are able to teach this subject as a dynamic, evolving field of study.