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Teacher Notes Guide

What Are Teacher Notes?

Each STEM Lab has resources only available to teachers. The goal of these resources are to help you prepare and guide students through each section of the Lab. There are two types of teacher resources in each Lab: the teacher section of the Lab and teacher notes on pages.

The Teacher Section

The teacher section will provide an overview of the Lab and resources to prepare for the Lab. This section will be very useful to get a big picture overview of the Lab and plan class time.

  • The STEM Lab Guide provides an overview of what each section of the STEM Lab is for.
  • The Preview page outlines key information such as materials needed, learning objectives, and standards. In addition, there is a description of each page in the Lab.
  • The Pacing guide provides a chart which covers the amount of time, concepts, delivery, materials needed, and resources.
  • The Answer Key provides the answers for the questions in the Know section. Note that the answers will also be provided in a teacher note on that page.
  • The Finding Help section gives a brief overview of how to use the VEX Library, a library of support articles that can be used to assist both teachers and students during the STEM Labs.

Teacher Notes

Teacher notes are sections of teacher-only content which can be found on the pages of the STEM Lab itself. The goal for these teacher notes is to provide in-time tips and guidance for each stage of the Lab to make every page easier for you to teach. There are several types of teacher notes which will provide overviews of the content, student successes, discussion questions, extension activities, and answer keys.

There are several main types of teacher notes on the STEM Lab pages:

Teacher Toolbox: this type of teacher note will serve a number of purposes. Teacher Toolboxes will have answers to questions or descriptions of investigation results. They could provide additional options for teaching approaches or summaries of the content on the page. This Teacher Toolbox is for an activity that utilizes

Teacher Toolbox

Teacher Tip: this teacher note will provide short, direct tips which typically provide just-in-time help for making the STEM Lab run as smoothly as possible for students.

Teacher Tips

Motivate Discussion: this type of note provides questions you can ask students to spark discussion and get students thinking about the topics in the Lab. Answers, or possible answers, are also provided for guidance.

Motivate Discussion

Extend Your Learning: this note will provide extension activities which can be assigned to students when there is additional time available. Extend Your Learning activities might also be assigned to students who complete their work faster than other students.

Extend Your Learning