pseudoteaching

While going through some of my favorite education blogs I came across this post on pseudoteaching. It seems that pseudoteaching was spawned from pseudocontext, which talks about how contrived and non-realistic scenarios are presented to students as being real-life examples. For example, a math question where some convoluted set of circumstances between Joey, Joey’s cash and Joey’s shopping list means that the student has to solve a word problem. I think the idea of pseudoteaching takes this concept a bit further.

One thing that I’ve been thinking about lately is how peer instruction or other attempts to get away from pseudoteaching can be applied to junior science classes. For example, yesterday I started a Grade 8 science unit on Water. I really like this unit because it has a lot of relevance for the kids and a good number of opportunities for both lab inquiries and outdoor experiential trips. However, I can’t help think that the actual learning of the topics is firmly grounded in reading and scientific literacy.