For my second online resource, I
was pleasantly surprised by the website, Howtosmile. This website is a compilation
of professionally assembled lesson plans that are oriented towards mathematics and
science. The creators of this site had a vision to make math and science come
alive through their videos and activities, and they particularly wanted this to
be a tool for out-of-school teaching for grades K-12. Howtosmile is completely
free for both teachers and students, and an account isn’t even required to
access this useful tool.
One of my favorite components, is that any teacher can post self-created lesson plans. These lesson plans then get reviewed and revised by a team of experts before they can be accessed by the public. This site offers 9 different subjects for teachers and students to choose from including astronomy, energy, climate, life sciences, chemistry, math, health, ocean literacy, and even cooking! That’s right! This site integrates math and science and the fun, life-lesson of cooking! Within these 9 broad subjects there are several subcategory topics that cover a wide range of material within the subject.
I like that this site lists the essential
principles that one needs to understand before moving onto the next topic; I think
it is a good way of challenging students to be diligent readers. Each lesson
includes helpful information like the preparation time, learning time, cost of materials
per student, and the age range that each lesson was created for. For each hands-on
activity, an extensive amount of helpful, play-by-play instructions are provided,
so that even the most ill-equipped teachers could complete the lesson with
confidence. I would use this particular resource in my classroom. While it is more
geared towards out-of-school teaching, I could still implement these lesson
plans in my classroom setting. (295 word count)
https://www.howtosmile.org/
I checked out the site and it seemed like a great resource. Compared with my resource this go around in the sense that it made subjects come to life. I think it is crucial for us as teachers to find other sources like this so that we do not have to rely on textbooks to give us our info. Very much like our class discussion, that textbooks should be a supplement along with our other sources to aid in educating our students.
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Joe,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the resource! Most notable to me is that the site peer reviews teacher submitted lesson plans. You mentioned how this resource is often used for out of school education, but I agree that the lesson plans can still be useful at school. The website structuring the lesson plans so that they can be carried out with ease makes this resource seem perfect for first-year teachers or when I start my student teaching.
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