Learning to love sciencea revised curriculum

Children’s learning: turning a paper curriculum into an exciting skills based curriculum

TRedu (c)

Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection

of facts is no more science than a heap of

stones is a house

Henri Poincare

Why I love science

Something to keep in mind

Follow Your Curiosity

I have no special talent.

I am only passionately curious.

Perseverance is Priceless

“It's not that I'm so smart;

it's just that I stay with problems longer.”

Make Mistakes

Discover the power of making mistakes. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again,

if you want to succeed, triple the amount of mistakes that you make.

The Imagination is Powerful

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. Imagination is more important than

knowledge.”

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” Are you

exercising your “imagination muscles” daily, don’t let something as powerful as your

imagination lie dormant lie dormant.

What have they got in common?

“Spatial thinkers are very often learning disabled

only in a print based environment”

(Special Children: The Hidden Einsteins Tandi Clausen-May 1999 )

• They all had major learning difficulties at school.

• Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4 and didn’t read until 9 years of age.

• Einstein was a spatial thinker. He once said that all his thinking was in images and that words played no part in his thinking. (Think of a child like this in a classroom where words are the main form of communication.)

• da Vinci - possible that he would be diagnosed with ADHD as well as dyslexia and language difficulties.

• Richard Branson failed all his standardised school tests.

• Bill Gates on autistic spectrum.

Despite their talents, creativity and genius qualities –all of these people would been allocated learning support if they were in school here today. Some would have been assessed by Ed Psychologists and allocated resource hours!

How many ‘hidden Einsteins’ are in our classrooms today, assessments mostly print-based on literacy and

numeracy skills

introduction

The words of learning

Planning a topic from therevised framework

Working scientifically, the skills of science

Assessment of the skills

Assessment of contexts

Exploring thenewer topics

Making learning

Irresistible

Tom Robson

Watch your thoughts,They become words,Watch your words,

They become actions,Watch your actions,They become habits,Watch your habits,

They become character,Watch your character,

It becomes your destiny

What do inspirational teachers do?

• Breath life into our learners

• The teachers we remember are the ones that leaves some of their breath inside us

Model what

you want

Talkabout what

you want

“Too many teachers think that if they had

more time, resources and space they could make a difference. The last thing most teachers

need is more.. ..they need different!”

John HattieDirector, Melbourne Education Research

Institute

What is hard work?

What is effort?

What do we want out children to do when we ask them to work hard?

What do we want our children to dowhen we ask them

to put in more effort?

The term work was introduced in 1826 by the French mathematician

Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis as "weight lifted through a height“

The SI unit of work is the newton-metre or joule (J).

The work done by a constant force of magnitude F on a point that

moves a distance d in the direction of the force is the product,

W=Fd

F

d

exfortiare, Latin ex+ fortis (“strong”)

Think of something that you have achieved.....

Now consider how you achieved it.....

Popular explanations Occasional explanations

Rare explanations

Effort; support from others; perseverance; determination; risk-taking; having a go; enjoying the process; patience; coping with obstacles; practice; planning; persistence; encouragement; self-belief; trying a different approach; positive self-talk; advice; interest in it; thinking about times I have achieved difficult things before; imagining myself doing it; proving others wrong; constructive feedback; breaking it down into small steps; having a vision

Luck; chance; faith; realism

Natural ability; intelligence; aptitude; gift; talent

Taken from the work of Barry Hymer 2009

How do your responses compare

with these?

language

• read and spell scientific vocabulary at a level consistent with their increasing word reading and spelling knowledge at KS 1.

• read and spell scientific vocabulary correctly and with confidence, using their growing word reading and spelling knowledge at lower KS 2

• read, spell and pronounce scientific vocabulary correctly at upper KS 2

Working scientifically

• ‘Working and thinking scientifically’ is described separately at the beginning of the programme of study, but must always be taught through and clearly related to substantive science content in the programme of study.

Discuss and list as many science skills as you can in one minute

Discuss and list as many attitudes as you can that will help pupils make good

progress in science, in one minute

Working scientifically

• Asking the question

• Collecting data

• Analysing data & drawing conclusions

• Presenting findings

Asking the question

• Asking the starter question

• Decide which type of enquiry is needed

• What are we measuring or observing?

• What might affect what we are observing or measuring?

• Ask a questions (that could lead to a fair test)

• Predict what might happen

Collecting data

• Gather evidence

• sorting and classifying

analysing data and drawing conclusion

• Noticing patterns and relationships

• Think about spooky results (errors and anomalies)

• Suggest improvements

Presenting findings

• Record findings

• Reporting findings

Learning objective Skill WILF: year 1 & 2Teacher models good practice in language and

thinking

WILF: year 3 & 4Teachers helps pupils make decission

WILF: year 5 & 6More independence and more systematic

Asking the question Asking the starter question Teachers encourage pupils to generate questions (teachers modelled)

With help we can ask a scientific question We can ask our own scientific questions

Decide which type of enquiry is needed We can help to make decisions about the type of enquiry (research, comparative study fair test) to carry out

We can make our own decisions about the type of enquiry to carry out

Collect data What are we measuring or observing?

We can talk about what we are going to: look/listen for (year 1) to measure ….. (year 2)

With help we can decide what we are going to: look/listen for measure …..

We can decide the most appropriate observations and measurement to take and how long to take them for

Collect data What might affect what we are observing or measuring?

With help we can talk about (or list) the variables that will effect what we are observing or measuring

We can decide which variable to change and which variables to keep the same

Ask a questions (that could lead to a fair test) What do you think will happen to X if we ….(year 1)

What do you think will happen to X if we change Y (year 2)

What do you think will happen to X if we change Y and keep ….., and …. the same

What do you think will happen to X if we change Y and keep ….., and …..the same (using appropriate units the sentence)

Predict what might happen We think X might happen because ……..based on everyday knowledge

We think X might happen because……. (based on scientific knowledge)

planning This is the equipment/information we need for our investigation (teacher selects)

With help we can decide the equipment we need We can decide the most appropriate equipment to use

Collecting data Gather evidence Use our senses and simple equipment to describe what is around us (year 1)

We can measure things with help from our teacher (year 2)

This is what we have observed… This is what we have measured … (Accurate standard units, range of equipment,

including data logger))

This is what I have observed… This is what I have measured … (accurate, precise and repeatable)

sorting and classifying Using our senses we can tell our friend what thing are like (year 1)

We can compare things (objects, living things, materials) and with help can decide how to sort and group them (year 2)

We use simple keys to classify (objects, living things and materials)

We can use a classification key We can use a data base (record cards. Computers

etc) to describe and classify living things and materials

We can develop our own keys to describe and classify living things and materials

analysing data and drawing

conclusion

Noticing patterns and relationships We noticed ……happened/changed when ……(year 1)

We thought this might happen ….and the surprise was…….happened (year 2)

From the data (observation or measurements) this is the change/pattern we noticed.

These are the similarities/differences between…….

From the data in our graph/table we found out the relationships between X and Y

(e.g .the er…er…rule: the faster the X the slowerthe Y)

Think about spooky results (errors and anomalies)

We didn’t think this would happen ….. This is a spooky result. It might have happened because ….

Suggest improvements Suggest improvements to our method . If we did this again we would do ………

Suggest improvements to our method and say why If we did this again we would do X because …

In teams of three

• Use all the previous information to make a display you could use in your classroom to indicated the skills that make up science

• They must be the same ones used in all year groups

• Try and only use icons or single words

• It must show progression across the different year groups (e.g. Year 1, 3 and 5)

Asking questions

TEACHER

• “What is the flower called?”

PUPIL

• “I think it is called Betty”

Quick quiz compiled using research from Ted Wragg and Mike Hughes

• What percentage of teacher’s time is taken up asking questions?

• 10%, 30%, 70%.• What percentage of questions asked are closed

questions?• 20%, 60%, 90%

• What percentage of our questions do we answer ourselves?

• 18%, 38%, 88%• What is the average wait time between teacher’s

question and pupil’s answer or when the teacher moves on?

• 0.7 seconds, 3.2 seconds, 5.1 seconds

Einstein's Mum used to say ….

What questions have you asked today?

Mastery

Where learners experience:

• high quality teaching• guidance and support• encouragement and praise

……and where sufficient time is planned

……they will also experience personal learning success

Resilience, getting over making mistakes,getting over disappointment,Staying in control

Supporting others,Having confidence in yourselfListening with your eyes

Staying focussedFighting off the monster distraction

Knowing what the problem isTrying to solve the problem withouta teacher

Working in pairs to solve the problem

Working in teams of three tosolve a problem

How do you feel when you step off the edge?

understandingconfusion

challenge

achieve

TRedu (c)

Curriculum

Is it your job to cover it?

or it is your job to help your children discover it?

• Gaseous exchange and lung structure

• Inheritance and evolution – fossils

• Electrostatics

• Electricity

• Forces gravity in particular

• Changing materials – irreversible changes

• States of matter

• Electromagnetic spectrum and light