Best Evidence Science Teaching

The best teaching draws on the best evidence.

Amid increasing calls for evidence-based practice in classrooms, science teachers’ lives are usually too busy for them to comprehensively access and implement the best evidence emerging from education research.
 

Best Evidence Science Teaching (BEST) is a collection of free research evidence-informed resources for effective teaching of difficult ideas, embedded formative assessment and adaptive lesson planning. It is initially focussed on science at ages 11-14.
 

Research evidence-informed progression toolkits for key concepts in science include:

  • appropriately-sequenced learning steps
  • diagnostic questions that provide evidence of learning and of common misunderstandings
  • response activities that promote purposeful practical work, metacognition and conceptual progression

Best Evidence Science Teaching, Salters' Institute and the University of York Science and Education Group logos

 

Research informed progression toolkits to help you develop the big ideas of science

 

The BEST resources (age 11-14)

 

Publication of resources

Teaching and learning resources will be added on a topic-by-topic basis. The resources are being developed based on careful consideration of the best available research evidence.

Sign up for BEST email updates from University of York Science Education Group or follow @BestEvSciTeach on Twitter to find out when new topics have been made available.

 

Further information

Read more about how BEST can help you develop evidence-based practice in the classroom

  • Example article from BEST

    INTRODUCTION

    Download a short, easy-to-read introduction to Best Evidence Science Teaching.

  • Best Evidence Science Teaching presentation

    PRESENTATION

    Download an introductory presentation about BEST, with speaker notes.

  • BEST Improving Secondary Science

    IMPROVING SECONDARY SCIENCE

    How can BEST help you work towards the recommendations of the Education Endowment Foundation’s Improving Secondary Science report?

  • Using diagnostic questions

    USING DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONS

    An introduction to using diagnostic questions to provide evidence of learning, diagnose misunderstandings and inform what happens next.

  • Response activities

    USING RESPONSE ACTIVITIES

    An introduction to using response activities to challenge misunderstandings, encourage metacognition and facilitate progress in understanding.

  • Teaching energy

    TEACHING ENERGY

    An introduction to building students' understanding of energy using the stores and pathways approach.

BEST project development

The resources are being developed by the University of York Science Education Group in collaboration with science teachers, with generous support from the Salters’ Institute.

They are providing online access to the resources in collaboration with STEM Learning to support science teaching at no cost to teachers or schools.

 

All Best Evidence Science Teaching (BEST) resources are © University of York Science Education Group. The resources are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license.