Pinning
Five tips for using
Pinterest to teach science
By Ryan S. Nixon, Shannon L.
Navy, Sarah Barnett, Marissa
Johnson, and Delaney Larson
22
•
•
s a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many professional development programs have been canceled or
postponed. Many teachers are working from home,
at least in part, limiting how frequently they can interact with
colleagues and interrupting the ease of popping in on the
teacher next door. Because these common resources are out of
reach, we are turning to online resources more than ever.
One of these online resources is Pinterest. Pinterest is a
social media website where individuals can bookmark content found elsewhere on the internet in one convenient place.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
When something is bookmarked it creates a pin. Clicking
on a pin takes a user to the original content, such as a website, image, or video. Users can search for pins created by
other users by typing in search terms and scrolling through
the pins that are presented on the screen. While not an education-specific site, education-related boards are the second-most followed category of boards on Pinterest (Mittal
et al. 2013).
Surveys show that many elementary teachers turn to
Pinterest to find teaching ideas (Hunter and Hall 2018; Pittard 2017). However, teachers and scholars have expressed
concerns about teachers’ use of Pinterest, including concerns about cute instructional ideas that lack conceptual
content, pressure to have a “Pinterest-worthy” classroom,
and wasted time from scrolling through endless content
(Gallagher, Swalwell, and Bellows 2019; Hertel and Wessman-Enzinger 2017; Schroeder, Curcio, and Lundgren
2019). While it seems clear that teachers find Pinterest to
be a valuable resource, teachers also need to be intentional
as they use it.
Our team of teachers and researchers has spent several
months closely analyzing 1,600 pins and their associated
websites for teaching the topics of force/motion and adaptations. As we did this, we came to some important realizations about the benefits and weaknesses of Pinterest
and some tips for how to better use this platform, especially
related to elementary science instruction. In this article we
offer suggestions on how to intentionally use Pinterest to
support your science instruction, by taking advantage of its
strengths while avoiding some of the concerns.
quality of their work and find individuals or organizations
whose approaches resonate with them. Thus, one pin can
help teachers identify many resources in addition to the one
it was linked to.
Weaknesses of Pinterest as a
Teaching Resource
Our analysis of pins and websites showed us several weaknesses of Pinterest. While outright content inaccuracies were
somewhat rare on the pins (16% of the pins had inaccuracies),
they were more common on the websites the pins were linked
to (41% of the websites had inaccuracies).
One weakness was that pins and websites, while often
avoiding content inaccuracies, were very shallow in terms
of the science concepts they included. Over three-fourths
of the websites focused on students memorizing low-level
facts or definitions. Pins and websites frequently did not
identify any of the most important science concepts as
identified in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
for force/motion and adaptations. While the ideas found
on Pinterest could certainly be used to teach important science concepts, teachers are left with the work of identifying
which concepts are involved and making those connections
for coherent student learning.
Another weakness in the websites and pins is how science instruction was portrayed. Investigations, where students work with data to answer a science question, were
very rare: less than a third included any investigation. The
Benefits of Pinterest as a
Teaching Resource
One of the key benefits of Pinterest for teachers is that it
can provide instructional ideas that teachers can adapt for
their classrooms. The website showcases a vast number of
ideas easily available and searchable in one place. As teachers scroll through the pins, they can see what lots of other
teachers are doing and can consider which of these would
be useful for their classroom. Many pins show instructional
activities that teachers are doing with their students or posters they are displaying in their classrooms. Pins also show
examples that teachers may not have considered using, ones
that go beyond the most common examples. For instance,
we encountered examples of animal adaptations with which
we were previously unfamiliar. This platform is effective at
helping teachers see many ideas that could start them on the
road to planning their instruction.
Another benefit of Pinterest is its ability to connect
teachers with resources and authors that resonate with
them. Many of the pins are linked to websites that include
multiple ideas in addition to the one on the pin. Once on
a website, teachers can see the authors’ style, context or
www.nsta.org/science-and-children
•
23
investigations that were included were missing important
pieces (e.g., a question guiding the investigation). In addition, websites were predominantly lists of ideas or activities
(56.8%) instead of coherent lessons or units. While there are
benefits to seeing a series of ideas, this leaves the work of
connecting the activities into a meaningful lesson or unit
up to the teacher. With these weaknesses, it seems clear to
us that Pinterest can serve as a starting point for generating
ideas for lessons, but teachers are left with a lot of work to
do to make the ideas meaningful, conceptual, and coherent.
Tips for Using Pinterest
In light of these benefits and weaknesses, we present the following tips for teachers using Pinterest as a teaching resource.
Tip 1. Understand the science concepts
yourself first.
Before searching for ideas on Pinterest, make sure you understand the science concepts yourself. The benefits and
weaknesses indicate that while Pinterest has some great
ideas for teaching, it should not be approached as good resource to help teachers learn science concepts. If you understand the concepts, you will be better able to identify
pins and websites that represent important science concepts accurately.
Other resources are available to help elementary teachers strengthen their knowledge of science concepts. There
are, for example, books and articles intended for this purpose. The Stop Faking It book series from NSTA and Science 101 column in Science and Children are both intended
to help teachers strengthen their understanding of science
concepts. In addition, Page Keeley’s formative assessment
probes can be a useful way for teachers to assess their own
knowledge by first taking the assessment. Each probe is accompanied by a brief description of the science concepts for
the teacher. Furthermore, there are a number of websites
designed for this purpose, such as Learner.org’s Essential
Science for Teachers series.
Tip 2: Decide what you want your students
to learn.
Deciding what you want your students to learn before searching on Pinterest will help your search remain focused. Without a specific focus to your search, you are at risk of looking
through thousands of pins without knowing whether or not
you found what you were looking for. Not knowing what you
want your students to learn also increases your susceptibility
to pins showing ideas that look cute or fun but may not be
focused on student learning goals.
The process of identifying what you want students to learn
starts with thinking about the standards you are responsible
for teaching. However, most standards are written as things
24
•
•
students should do and are less explicit about what students
need to know to be able to do those things. This will require
that you spend some time unpacking the concepts that are
embedded in your standards and breaking those into pieces
that are useful for instruction.
Tip 3: Identify common misconceptions
about the topic.
Make your search more productive by identifying common
misconceptions about the topic before searching on Pinterest. This will be helpful because you will be better able to
recognize when pins and websites communicate these misconceptions. When you see these misconceptions, you can
decide to move on to a more accurate pin or website or decide to make modifications to correct for the misconception.
Additionally, when you know the common misconceptions,
you can watch for ideas that will help you address those in
your instruction.
One way to identify misconceptions is to think back on
your interactions with students over the years to identify what
students often think they know that is incorrect. Common
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
PINNING AND PLANNING
misconceptions for many topics have also been identified in
research. Lists of these misconceptions can be identified with
a quick internet search for the topic and terms like misconceptions or alternative conceptions. One excellent resource comes
from the AAAS (see Internet Resources). Clicking on a topic
will take you to a list of key ideas in that topic. Clicking on a
key idea will then take you to a page that includes the heading “misconceptions” with a list of related misconceptions.
Another comes from resources created by the United Kingdom’s Department for Education. This website has lists of
“barriers to learning” divided by topics. As a final example,
a website from Carleton College includes common misconceptions in Earth science (which is not frequently represented in the other lists; see Internet Resources).
Tip 4. Check the website author’s expertise.
Once you click on a pin and find yourself on a website, quickly find some information about the author. This is often as
easy as finding the link to the “About” page. This is where
authors have a chance to give you a reason to trust their credibility. Ideally, for science ideas, authors should provide
insights into their science expertise and education expertise. Maybe this means they have teaching experience and a
degree in science, or at least have a passion for science. We
found that when authors have provided claims of expertise,
the quality of the website is better. While these claims may
not prove their expertise, it at least allows you to be more
confident in their ideas.
Tip 5. Fit the pieces together.
As you select ideas on Pinterest, be aware that you will need
to connect the ideas you use to help your students develop a
rich conceptual understanding. Pinterest is especially good
at helping teachers have access to a plethora of ideas, but it
is not particularly good at helping them see how these ideas
connect into a coherent curriculum that is needed for students to learn. If the teacher does not do some work to help
the students see how the activities are connected, the students may enjoy the activities but struggle to make sense of
the important science ideas embedded in them.
Tools such as those provided by Ambitious Science
Teaching and NGSS Storylines (see Internet Resources)
may be helpful for teachers trying to make coherent lessons
and units. These tools encourage teachers to consider the
most important science ideas that students are to learn and
then break these into lesson-size chunks.
These tips are things teachers can do before using Pinterest (#1–3), while using Pinterest (#4) and after using Pinter-
est (#5) that will help make the social media platform even
more useful. This social media platform can be a productive
resource for teachers—especially when used intentionally. ●
REFERENCES
Gallagher, J.L., K.M. Swalwell, and M.E. Bellows. 2019.
“Pinning” with pause: Supporting teachers’ critical
consumption on sites of curriculum sharing. Social
Education 83 (4): 217–224.
Hertel, J.T., and N.M. Wessman-Enzinger. 2017. Examining
Pinterest as a curriculum resource for negative integers:
An initial investigation. Education Sciences 7 (45).
Hunter, L.J., and C.M. Hall. 2018. A survey of K–12 teachers’
utilization of social networks as a professional resource.
Education and Information Technologies 23: 633–658.
Lipsitz, K., D. Cisterna, and D. Hanuscin. 2017. Methods &
strategies: What’s the story? Using the 5E learning cycle
to create coherent storylines. Science and Children 55 (4):
76–80.
Mittal, S., N. Gupta, P. Dewan, and P. Kumaraguru. 2013. The
pin-bang theory: Discovering the Pinterest world. http://
arxiv.org/pdf/1307.4952v1.pdf
Pittard, E.A. 2017. Gettin’ a little crafty: Teachers Pay
Teachers©, Pinterest© and neo-liberalism in new
materialist feminist research. Gender and Education 29 (1):
28–47.
Schroeder, S., R. Curcio, and L. Lundgren. 2019. Expanding
the learning network: How teachers use Pinterest. Journal
of Research on Technology in Education 51 (2): 166–186.
INTERNET RESOURCES
Ambitious Science Teaching Development Group: Planning
for engagement with important science ideas
https://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/planningengagement-important-scien…
American Association for the Advancement of Science:
Assessments
http://assessment.aaas.org/topics
Department for Education Teaching and learning resources:
Barriers to learning for ‘forces.’
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.
uk/20110809170921/http://teachingandlearningresources.
org.uk/node/1483
‘Easier to address’ earth science misconceptions: Teaching
Introductory Geoscience Courses in the 21st Century
https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/intro/
misconception_list.html
Next Generation Science Storylines
https://www.nextgenstorylines.org
Ryan S. Nixon (rynixon@byu.edu) is an assistant professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Shannon L. Navy
(snavy@kent.edu) is an assistant professor at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Sarah Barnett, Marissa Johnson, and
Delaney Larson are students at Brigham Young University.
www.nsta.org/science-and-children
•
25