This needs to go beyond workshops and include in-class training and on-site visits to help improve interactions with the children, said Smith.
The supporting activities include in-class instruction on financial ratios, a computer lab session on Excel, draft papers, peer reviews of writing, and paper revisions.
Course activities include in-class debates, a peer-review exercise supervised by a senior scientist, observing research with animals and human participants, and interpreting science ethics commentaries in national newspapers.
Other graded assignments include in-class and online quizzes, written responses on in-class guided-inquiry assignments, and the completeness and quality of laboratory notebooks and other homework assignments.
CWP focuses on supporting schools with SRE via its programme Teaching SRE with Confidence, which includes in-class training.
In addition to meetings between mentor and mentee pairs, the program included in-class components for group mentoring, as will be described below.
"Every day teachers across California use a variety of benchmarks, including in-class quizzes, tests, projects, and personal observation to fine-tune their approaches with their students," said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers.
For instructors interested in including in-class concept questions in their courses, several resources are available at http://STEMclickers.colorado.edu.edu
