Interactive Teaching

For years I've had vague feelings of disquiet about my teaching of science and I couldn't work out what was worrying me. I read up the Units beforehand to see the scientific facts the children needed to know, carried out the activities which I thought enabled them to 'discover' those facts for themselves, asking leading questions which led them to the facts, and recorded their findings in notebooks, on charts, with artwork or projects. I was teaching the facts in a way that was comfortable for me, from teacher to child. But all my instincts had been trying to tell me that I was forgetting the child. I would introduce a topic, find out what the children already 'knew' about it, but then consider only the 'right' answers. I did not really try to find out what the child who gave the 'wrong' answer was thinking.