During the last few days I was invited to take part in the Fifth Beijing Science Festival (BJSF) that took place at the Beijing Olympic Stadium. It was my first time to participate in such a big and so well organized event that aims at engaging children and the general population in science, technology, engineering […]

As I am writing my last blog post this summer, I have noticed a number of new posts online on the “stop-homework-before-it-stops-us” movement. The movement, or at least the way I understood it, aims to abolish homework in our schools as it has very low value (if not a negative value) in the eyes of […]

When I watched this video (in Hebrew), I knew that I had to make sure that my students – future physics teachers can watch it as well. This motivated me to contact an Israeli physics teacher – Dr. Ilya Mazin and ask him if it would be OK for me to translate it into English. […]

This summer I was asked to teach an Inquiry course in our STEM Teacher Education Program. The course is the last inquiry course that teacher-candidates take after they have completed their school practicum. As a result, they come to this course with much richer and more interesting experiences as compared to their previous, pre-practicum courses. […]

I am teaching a summer Inquiry course for future mathematics and science teachers. As I was planning this course I decided to make it as exciting and relevant for the teacher-candidates and for myself as I could. So every meeting I try to share some interesting teaching ideas with them and to learn from them […]

As I am preparing to my 8th academic year as a Teacher at the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, I keep thinking of my role as a science educator who has a lucky opportunity to help prepare new STEM teachers. I am deliberately using the word Teacher and not Professor, as I think […]

I am very fortunate to be able to participate in the 4th International STEM in Education Conference at Beijing Normal University. I am also proud to represent UBC and to be a member of the Executive Organizing Committee. I feel I am a part of a very exciting group and I hope we will become […]

Every year I feel excited to explore educational technology tutorials created by the students in my ETEC 533 online course that focuses on creative use of technology in mathematics and science education. I hope these tutorials be used not only by my students (who are mostly secondary mathematics and science educators), but by other educators as well. […]

I am getting ready to attend a Euro Science Fun Conference in Iceland. I have been actively involved in math and science outreach for almost two decades now. I am very familiar with the outreach efforts (in math, physics and chemistry) that are going on in North America. I have helped to establish a number […]

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.  Winston Churchill During this weekend, I happened to stumble a number of times upon an idea that failure is crucial for learning. While listening to Bill Nye’s book “Undeniable” in the gym, I  noticed how he talked about Dolly the sheep and […]