After adapting to the dynamic know-how of virtual learning and Edtech, find out how to keep your learners engaged with innovative and user-friendly tools in Math and Science!
Learner needs, differentiation, scaffolding, Bloom’s taxonomy, real-life connections—we were just exploring and building muscle in these and more pedagogical strategies, and then a pandemic hit us!
In such a dynamic environment, it can often get tricky to teach and keep learners engaged in Math and Science. It becomes all the more difficult when there is no blackboard to demonstrate a problem, and no individual student intervention is possible. What if we say that it is possible? We only need the right Edtech tools for it!
As a part of Highr’s big 4 of Quality Teaching, this webinar focussed on Designing Instruction and how educators may design activities that promote student curiosity and engagement.
Make Math come live!
As Math educators, we often struggle with two things: one, making learners develop real-world connections with the subject; and two, understanding where the learning gaps lie. But, despite all odds, Edtech is actually a boon to this struggle!
Different free and open source tools are available to help make little mathematicians visualise abstract concepts. GeoGebra is one such browser and app-friendly software that brings together geometry, algebra, graphing, statistics etc in one easy-to-use package. From Pythagoras theorem to calculus, learners can see and learn beyond that one dimension example of their textbooks. They can feed in different dimensions and see the theorem manifest beautifully into geometric wonders! The software also offers over 1 million free classroom activities, simulations and games in Math & Science.
Go ahead and give it a try using our simulation classroom. Simply login using the code above.
Another similar tool that you may explore is Desmos. One of the key features that it offers, in addition to GeoGebra’s features and activities, is a display of your students’ work with feedback that allows them to revise their work. Educators can customise GeoGebra and Desmos to suit their needs, integrate it easily with Google Classroom, and enjoy the Math art work of their learners!
Another common challenge is to write complex mathematical equations digitally, for which we have EquatIO and Mathspace to our rescue! This tool is a Google Chrome extension, with premium features if you have a registered G Suite account, that lets you type math symbols and equations and paste them as images in your worksheets and tests.
If you’re like us for whom a classroom setting of subject charts was really important, you can check out toytheatre.com and mathsbot.com for printables, creative concept visualisations and much more.
Scientific inquiry by Edtech simulations
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality becoming the new norm, it has become imperative for our curriculum and pedagogy to upskill our students with critical thinking and analytical thought. Here’s how Edtech tools can help us:
For a structured lesson plan where there are set concepts to be learnt, a tool like PhET simulations can be used. Learners can interact with the platform and learn concepts like motion, atomic chemistry with easy click, drag and slide. The beauty of this platform is how you can immediately see the reaction of various chemicals and effects of changes, something learners could only imagine sitting in a classroom. Educators can further nudge students to explore lessons, think of questions and its answers on their own.
In a lesson to encourage greater student agency, with an added ecological perspective, iNaturalist connects you to a million scientists around the world and learn relevant concepts together. Learners will love this app because it allows them to participate in challenges and award them for their contribution with badges like ‘research grade’. While learning, they are contributing data to quality research happening in that particular field. For primary grades, this tool’s ‘Seek’ version works better.
However, not all our learners will be able to access every tech tool due to internet bandwidth issues or device compatibility. Yet, learning never will stop! The very idea of science is to observe and understand what’s around us! A tool like Google Science Journal on a basic smartphone or real-time activities are the way here. There are a plethora of examples of real-world connections and kitchen experiments to learn the subject: like students may investigate the contrasting effects of caffeine, sleep or exercise on their body, or how a soap is different from a hand sanitiser.
Find more Edtech tools for Science HERE!
Educators can also record and create their own lesson videos using Screencastify. Or, presentations on concepts with live demonstration can be done using Google Slides or Microsoft OneNote where one can embed images or videos.
EdTech is the new norm and here to stay, but our old habits of conducting paper-pen tests to assess learners can do away to welcome analytical case studies and engaging projects to actually gauge if our students are ready for the real-time world out there…
Watch the full webinar here: