Scott McDonald
Co-Host of Science In-Between
Dr. Scott McDonald is a Professor of Science Education at The Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Krause Studios for Innovation in the PSU College of Education. He received his undergraduate degree in Physics. He was high school Physics teacher for six years before returning for a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies and Science Education at the University of Michigan. Dr. McDonald takes a design-based approach to research focuses on science teacher learning and student learning in the geosciences. He researches teacher learning, framed as professional pedagogical vision for ambitious and equitable science teaching practices. His current projects, in collabortion with Amy Pallant and Hee-Sun Lee at the Concord Consortium include The Geological Models for Explorations of Dynamic Earth (GEODE), GeoHazard: Modeling Natural Hazards and Assessing Risks project, and Geological Construction of Rock Arrangements from Tectonics: Systems Modeling Across Scales (GeoCRAFT).
Scott McDonald has hosted 171 Episodes.
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Episode 138: Unintentionally Matching Outfits
April 26th, 2023 | Season 3 | 43 mins 51 secs
This week we talk about doing equity work with white teachers, especially in context where there are only white people in the room.
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Episode 137: Dispositional Throwdown
April 19th, 2023 | Season 3 | 1 hr 5 mins
In this episode, we debate the concept of dispositions in teacher education.
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Episode 136: Teaching Layer Cake
April 13th, 2023 | Season 3 | 46 mins 44 secs
This week we talk about facilitating different kinds of conversations we engage in because we teach people who teach people.
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Episode 135: Researching Epistemic Agency
April 6th, 2023 | Season 3 | 41 mins 24 secs
In this episode, we discuss some recent research on epistemic agency in science education.
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Episode 134: Coercive Persuasion
March 29th, 2023 | Season 3 | 54 mins 8 secs
This week we talk about minds and how you change them. We talk about David McRaney's 2022 book How Minds Change.
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Episode 133: The Agency of Outdated References
March 22nd, 2023 | Season 3 | 44 mins 5 secs
In this episode, we revisit the concept of agency and discuss how it applies to students, classrooms, schools, and learning.
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Episode 132: Umwelt of Podcast Dads
March 15th, 2023 | Season 3 | 53 mins 4 secs
This week we return to Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education (CRSE) and expand to Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching.
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Episode 131: Obfuscations for Change
March 8th, 2023 | Season 3 | 59 mins 10 secs
In this episode, we discuss Pennsylvania's new teaching competencies for Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education and how they apply to our roles as science teachers.
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Episode 130: Silver Bullet Pointing Practice
March 1st, 2023 | Season 3 | 47 mins 27 secs
This week we talk about where to begin with doing Ambitious Science Teaching and how there are no silver bullets to making a change in practice.
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Episode 129: A Made-Up Sandwich
February 22nd, 2023 | Season 3 | 54 mins 14 secs
In this episode, we discuss the differences between hands-on/minds-on science, discovery learning, inquiry-based instruction, and phenomenon-based science learning.
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Episode 128: Peanut Butter Epistemology
February 15th, 2023 | Season 3 | 52 mins 32 secs
This week we talk about personal knowledge management and how we don't manage it as well as we would like.
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Episode 127: From the Audio Bunker
February 8th, 2023 | Season 3 | 34 mins 28 secs
In this episode, Scott and Ollie discuss the ways that school leaders can support change in science education in their schools.
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Episode 126: The Benefits of Regularity
February 1st, 2023 | Season 3 | 49 mins 20 secs
This week we talk about our values and how they help us think about the work we do with teachers and students.
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Episode 125: Total Mushiness
January 25th, 2023 | Season 3 | 42 mins 46 secs
In this episode, we talk about summary tables and how they can be used in science classrooms to scaffold students as they develop evidence-based explanations.
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Episode 124: That's not the Process
January 18th, 2023 | Season 3 | 51 mins 7 secs
This week we talk about the first day of school / class and how you use it to set up norms for the rest of the year.
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Episode 123: Special Electrons
January 11th, 2023 | Season 3 | 43 mins 5 secs
In this episode, we discuss having students generate evidence-based explanations as part of a unit arc.