Questions to Ask a Science Teacher
Questions for a real conversation with a science teacher: the demonstrations they still enjoy, the ideas students find hardest, the misconceptions they unpick every year, and what they do when a student asks something they cannot answer. For students, parents and anyone interviewing a teacher about their subject.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What made you choose science over the other things you could have taught?
Why ask it
An easy opener that usually turns on one specific memory, a particular teacher, a job in a lab, an experiment that went wrong. It also tells you which branch of science they actually love, which is rarely the one on their timetable.
Which demonstration do you still enjoy doing, even after years of it?
Why ask it
The answer is a practical recommendation you can use, and it reveals what they think good teaching looks like. Teachers who name something small and cheap tend to trust the idea to do the work rather than the spectacle.
Which one goes wrong most often, and what do you do when it does?
Why ask it
Failed demonstrations are the standard experience of science teaching and almost never discussed. Some teachers turn the failure into the lesson, which is worth hearing described, because it is what scientists actually do.
Which idea do students find hardest, and how do you get them past it?
Why ask it
You are asking for a specific bottleneck, and specialists have a ready answer: moles, electric fields, natural selection, the difference between heat and temperature. The method they describe is the part you can borrow.
What wrong belief do you have to unpick every single year?
Why ask it
Persistent misconceptions are documented and stubborn. Notice whether they try to correct the belief directly or set up a situation where it fails on its own, because the second approach is what tends to stick.
What is a question a student asked that you could not answer?
Why ask it
Tells you how they treat the edge of their own knowledge in front of a class. Someone who remembers the question, and what they did next, is modelling something more valuable than any content.
How much of the course is practical work rather than writing, and would you change the balance?
Why ask it
The gap between the two numbers is often the honest picture of the constraints they work under: assessment format, class size, technician time. It is a more revealing question than asking about their teaching philosophy.
What has changed in what you are required to teach since you started?
Why ask it
Syllabuses gain and lose topics, and teachers have clear views on what was cut. Ask what they miss and what they were glad to see go, and you get their real judgement on what is worth a teenager's time.
How do you mark practical work fairly when different groups get different results?
Why ask it
A genuinely difficult problem in science teaching. Answers that credit the reasoning and the error analysis rather than proximity to the textbook value tell you they are teaching the method, not the answer.
What do you do with a student who says they are just not a science person?
Why ask it
Look for a concrete first move, finding one thing the student can already do, rather than encouragement in general. Most teachers can name the moment a particular student changed their mind, and that story is the useful part.
How do you keep someone interested who is already well ahead of the class?
Why ask it
Answers range from real, a competition, an olympiad, a project with a local university, to giving them the next chapter early. The second is common and, over a year, is how a strong student learns to coast.
How do you handle a topic where a student's family disagrees with the science?
Why ask it
Experienced teachers have a settled approach, usually separating what the evidence supports from what a person chooses to believe, without a confrontation. Hearing them describe it is more instructive than any position statement.
What do you say when a student asks whether something they read online is true?
Why ask it
Watch whether the answer teaches a check the student can run themselves, tracing a claim to a source, looking for a sample size, or simply substitutes the teacher's authority for the internet's.
Do you get the equipment and technician time you need?
Why ask it
Rarely asked and quickly answered. If practical work depends on a technician shared across three departments, that constraint shapes every lesson, and it explains a lot about why the course looks the way it does.
What topic do students never expect to be interesting, and then are?
Why ask it
This gets you their best material. It also reveals how they build a lesson, because these are usually topics they have rebuilt several times after watching it fall flat.
How do you decide when to give the simplified version and when to give the messy one?
Why ask it
A real judgement call: electrons as tiny planets, an atom as a ball. Ask how they signal that a model is an approximation, because students who are never told go on to feel misled later.
What do you want students to still be able to do in ten years, when the facts are gone?
Why ask it
Most of the content does fade, and teachers know it. Look for something testable, reading a graph, spotting a claim with no control group, rather than a general aspiration about curiosity.
Which former student surprised you?
Why ask it
Usually produces the story that explains why they stay in the job, and often it is a student who struggled rather than a prizewinner. Late in a conversation this is where a teacher stops giving professional answers.
If you could remove one topic from the syllabus and add one, what would they be?
Why ask it
Forces a trade-off, which is where opinions get specific. The addition is often something practical, statistics, how a study is designed, and their reasoning tells you what they think school science currently fails to do.
What part of the job would surprise someone outside teaching?
Why ask it
Answers tend to be the invisible load: risk assessments, ordering chemicals, the hour of setting up before a single lesson. Worth asking last, and worth listening to without offering a solution.
Talking with a science teacher
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to get past the polite answers
Pick your moment in the term
The week before reports go out or during exam season is the worst possible time. A quiet week mid-term, after school rather than at lunch, gets you a teacher who is not counting minutes.
Ask about a specific lesson, not their philosophy
How do you make science engaging invites a stock answer. Tell me about the last lesson that did not go the way you planned gets you method, constraints and judgement in one story.
Name your own confusion honestly
If you never understood moles or entropy, say so. Teachers are noticeably more forthcoming when there is something concrete to explain, and you will learn more about their teaching from watching them do it.
Let a pause sit
The best answers to questions about a student who surprised them, or a question they could not answer, arrive after a few seconds of silence. Filling that gap with a follow-up loses the answer.
Adjusting for who you are
- As a student: ask what you should do differently in your own study, and be ready to hear something dull like write up the practical the same evening.
- As a parent: ask what they see in class that you would not see at home, then ask what would help.
- As a fellow teacher: ask about assessment and technician time, the two constraints outsiders never think to raise.
- As an interviewer or writer: ask permission before quoting a student anecdote, since these often involve identifiable children.
What closes the conversation down
Testing them
Quizzing a biology specialist on quantum mechanics proves nothing except that science is broad. Ask instead how they handle a question outside their field, which is a real part of the job.
Treating teaching as a fallback
Any question shaped like why did you not go into research reads as an insult, however it is phrased. If you are curious about the choice, ask what teaching gives them that lab work did not.
Offering fixes for problems they described
When a teacher mentions class sizes or missing equipment, they are giving you context rather than asking for advice. Ask what they have already tried instead.