By Megan M. Bettis

This spring, I had the pleasure of teaching an elementary science methods course for the first time. Typically, I work with middle and high school credential candidates, so I was a bit nervous as I prepared to teach the class. While I taught elementary science students before, it was always in a self-contained setting, and I wasn’t sure if my strategies and messages would land with the teachers who work with our youngest students.

The credential candidates I taught came with a range of experiences teaching science in their student teaching placements. Some had students who went to a science specialist, some taught in classes with no adopted science curriculum, and some just didn't have dedicated science time. And then I came along, telling them to start with phenomena! Engage in science and engineering practices! Create opportunities for scientific discourse!

It was a tall order for these new teachers, and one afternoon, a student, Emma, shared the absolute disaster that was her first-ever science lesson with her 3rd graders. She asked them to notice and wonder, to pair-share ideas with each other and the whole class, striving to put into practice the theories and strategies I had taught her. Emma looked discouraged as she told me how nothing went well. “Of course, not!” I told her. I emphasized that she had never taught this way before, that her students had never been asked to engage this way, so of course it won’t go well the first time. I encouraged her to give herself and her students some grace, try it again, and allow everyone the opportunity to practice the new skills she and the students were both developing.

Emma came into another class I taught a few months later to share her experience as an elementary credential candidate. She shared that she’d facilitated three or four more science lessons since that first one and that now students shared their observations skillfully, engaged in discourse with their peers, and she felt confident helping students explore scientific phenomena.

Emma’s story is one that I know will stick with me for a long time. At any stage in our teaching career, being willing to take a risk and try something new is an act of bravery. Of course, it won’t go just the way we wanted it to, but that’s still worth “cell-brating!”

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