Getting Real About What It Takes To Make The Shift To Student-Centered Learning in Science

Lab In Every Lesson

You may have heard, seen, read, or assumed that making the switch to a student-centered classroom will create more time for you, provide you with more freedom, or that you’ll work less hard. With teachers continuing to leave the profession for a laundry list of reasons related to overwork, under-appreciation, unreasonable expectations, and the general difficulty with maintaining a work-life balance, it seems like simply learning how to implement student-centered learning strategies would ease the burden they carry, providing them with more opportunity to enjoy their profession and their personal lives.

I have to remind myself of this sometimes, science teacher friends … NOTHING REALLY GOOD IS EVER FREE AND OFTEN ISN’T EASY.

I am living, breathing proof that those promises claiming student-centered classrooms provide more pleasure and more fulfillment for teachers CAN BE realized. They ARE possible and, I’d even say they’re LIKELY! There is a light at the end of the tunnel! But the notion that they just, POOF!, happen? That’s unrealistic and it’ an unfair, irresponsible idea to peddle.

The reason I started this podcast is that it wasn’t a stressless, work-free transition for me at all. It was a TIRELESS effort to re-engineer my chemistry lesson plans to support student-centered learning and prevent me from falling back to those teacher-centered habits of lecturing and demonstrating. On account of it being a complete and total mindset shift, it took REAL FOCUS, REAL INTENT to craft new, interactive, science lesson plans. And, because I believe whole-heartedly in the benefits of consistency in near-everything, I set out to craft A NEW SCIENCE LESSON PLAN FRAMEWORK that would guide the development of EVERY NEW CHEMISTRY LESSON PLAN I wrote.

I, too, benefited from the consistency that I intentionally integrated into my classroom. NOW, dare I claim that planning new interactive science lessons IS easy for me?! Differentiating the student-centered learning activities I incorporate into each interactive science lesson IS easy for me!

Is it still time-consuming? HECK YES.

This episode will provide you with a practitioner's perspective of what it takes to make the shift to student-centered learning for the students in your science classroom. This episode isn't for the weary or the easily-discouraged! Most of it is pretty heavy, but I promise you'll reap the rewards if you listen through to the very end . . .

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If you’d like to jump ahead or follow along with me throughout this series in the coming weeks – OR if you usually listen to me while driving in the car or while doing chores, I have some notes for you! You can download the free guide, "Things To Consider When Making The Switch To Student Centered Learning", when you share your email at www.labineverylesson.com/considerations. And, if this was the first episode of the podcast you’ve heard and you’re as interested in planning for a student centered science classroom as you are interested in leading one, you can download the details of my 5-Element Framework for planning interactive science lessons on my website at www.labineverylesson.com/5elements.

Remember, if you'd like to respond to this episode with comments or questions, please do so in the FREE community at community.labineverylesson.com.

If you loved this episode or any other on the Student Centered Science Teacher Podcast, please leave a review on the podcast player of your choice OR give me a shout-out on your favorite social network! Help me spread the word! Take a snapshot of that review or social shout-out and share it with me to receive a FREE interactive science lesson of your choice from those currently available in my store. Just go to my website, www.labineverylesson.com, and click on PODCAST in the menu at the top right. Then, follow the instructions on that page.