iExploreScience: STEM in Elem

157 Episodes

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17 Crafting Connection and Building Trust In Your Upper Elementary Classroom

2026-08-0317:46

Most back-to-school advice says lock down routines first, then relax and get to know your students. I think that's backwards. Norms and routines don't come with consequences attached, they're just how a classroom runs, and they only hold when kids feel connected to you and to each other. Connected students take care of your supplies when you're not watching. They're kind to each other when you're not watching. In this episode I walk through the strategies I actually use in my fifth grade clas...

16 Why Your Students Can't Learn Until They Feel Safe

2026-07-2015:39

This is the first episode where we're really looking ahead to the back-to-school-season — and we're not starting with seating charts or procedures. Instead, we're digging into what's actually happening in your students' brains before they can engage with any of it. Fun Fact: your brain's primary job is not learning. It's keeping you safe. And when a student is in threat mode — shutting down, pushing back, deflecting with humor — their brain has gone offline for learning. That's not a discipli...

15 The Reason Some Students Struggle With Science Questions (And What to Do About It)

2026-07-0614:13

Most of us were taught to think about teaching in terms of standards coverage. Hit the standard, move on. But there's a layer underneath that we don't talk about enough — and it's what actually determines whether a student can access the standards in the first place. In This Episode: the moment Nicole realized her students weren't struggling with skills — they were struggling with background knowledgethe advantage of knowing something about a topic (aka background knowledge) before standards-...

14 Vertical Whiteboards In Science & Math

2026-06-2927:24

Vertical whiteboards are all the buzz in math circles -- and whether or not you subscribe to the whole BTC framework, the boards themselves? Golden!! The good news is, it works just as well in science as it does in math. In this episode, Nicole breaks down exactly how she uses vertical whiteboards in both her math and science classroom: what they are, why they work, and the specific ways she uses them for everything from complex word problems to building food webs to analyzing data in real ti...

13 How To Get Students Asking The Questions (Instead Of Just Answering Yours)

2026-06-2223:31

What if the most powerful thing you could do for student engagement wasn't a flashy lab or a big project — but just getting kids to ask the questions instead of you? Questioning is one of the most underused tools in upper elementary science. Not teacher questions — student questions. In this episode Nicole walks through the exact practice she uses to get students generating real, relevant science questions, why observations always come first, and the simple move that takes the whole experienc...

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