GETCA 2025

Join us for an engaging and enlightening session where we demystify the new elementary science curriculum! Designed specifically for elementary science teachers, we'll tackle common misconceptions in earth systems, matter, energy, computer science, scientific methods, living systems, and space. Discover innovative ways to teach these concepts, equip your students with critical thinking skills, and inspire a love for science. Let’s break down the barriers and ignite curiosity in our young learners

Are you an elementary teacher looking for resources to support implementation of the new Alberta K-6 science curriculum? In this session, we will share free resources developed by the Centre for Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education at the University of Alberta. Resources include teacher guides for each learning outcome, integrated year/unit plans, and a searchable database of lesson resources aligned with the new Alberta K-6 science curriculum. For more information visit sciencecurriculumwayfinder.ca

Dive deeper into the connection between scientific discourse and visible learning in this engaging session. Discover how oracy in the classroom serves as a powerful assessment tool. We will backward plan using action verbs across organizing ideas and explore the significance of "Inquiry" and "High Impact Questions" to foster increased student talk and engagement. Join us to enhance your strategies and create a more interactive and thoughtful learning environment.

Michael Ng shares several short activities that can provide students with a mental reset while incorporating fun and interactive learning. Emphasis will look at the pedagogical research studies behind Brain Break activities and how it can be a valuable tool for high school chemistry educators to help enhance focus; encourage engagement; improve retention; promote community building; and reduce stress. TQS #1-4 AND LQS #1-6.

Are you looking for strategies to use in your classroom that will enhance student learning and provide you valuable feedback about your teaching practice? Formative assessment provides information on what, how much and how well students are learning. This information can guide instructional practice and will benefit all students; however, it will particularly have a positive impact on low-achievers. This would be a valuable session for you because it will introduce you to a range of formative classroom assessment techniques, how to use them, how to analyze the data that they gather, and how to share that data with students. The takeaways from this session are very practical and could be smoothly incorporated into your classroom regardless of teaching situation or teaching style.

The use of performance assessments in the chemistry laboratory present unique opportunities for formative assessment. They are authentic ways for students to demonstrate their abilities and can positively affect students’ attitudes toward the lab, their academic achievement, and upon the overall environment of the classroom. When used in conjunction with student self-assessment checklists performance assessments can also promote metacognitive activity. This session will present how to administer performance assessments of five basic lab skills and the benefits to the classroom that result. The lab skills that will be discussed are measuring mass using an electronic balance, measuring volume using a graduated cylinder, lighting a Bunsen burner, measuring volume using a pipet, and completing one trial of a titration. Although this session focuses on high school chemistry, the ideas discussed could easily be adapted to the physics, biology or general science classroom.

Reflective journals are one example of formative assessments that could improve academic outcomes for all students. Michael Ng reflects its use as a classroom ritual whose practices, when applied effectively with students, could help teachers maintain the high intellectual expectations required by students. It also supports student growth development for better self-awareness into what they are learning too and how to self-improve. Connecting back to TQS #1-5 AND LQS #1-6, this instructional improvement practice found that when students were prompted to address and reflect on certain topics imposed by the teacher, students benefited more academically.