Assessing interest in Science and diagnosing thinking skills.

Given that 9BY have completed the course set for the year, but we still have a couple of lessons to go I am trialling an activity with them.

I have provided them with some links to reputable providers of news and asked them to find a science article that interests them. They then need to post the link to a shared document, summarise it, and explain why they found it interesting.

Once they have found their article of interest, they were instructed to read other's articles and comment on them. I am using this as a diagnostic to see the areas of interest in the class, but also the depth of thinking skills that they are willing to apply.

Once I refine the process, as a spreadsheet is not a tool with finesse, I would like to use this as a homework task, but I still need to figure out how to manage the data that will be produced in a way that I can use. Particularly how to track who has been reading, thinking, and commenting without it taking up so much time as to make it unwieldy.

This will also be a task that can be extended for assessing student abilities at discerning fake news.

The importance of developing Critical Thinking in our students

In keeping up to date with Science news I came across an article talking about a study done by Stanford University. When shown a bunch of news sites, up to 80% of students could not distinguish between fake 'news' and real 'news'.



The study has yet to be replicated, but as an initial finding it is disturbing. I take it for granted that some items presented as news is not. I take it for granted that 'sponsored content' may not be accurate and will likely be very biased. This makes it more pressing that students be able to evaluate sources and recognise bias.

https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf

It is especially important to inculculate this into students in the junior school as so little time is available to teach anything other than the content they need to pass achievement standards in the senior school. In addition, the ability to critically review the places they are getting their information from is a skill that will be much more valuable to many than the knowledge on how to safely light a bunsen. Although that skill is transferable to lighting gas hobs and barbecues.

The new Junior Curriculum - Research

The new junior curriculum is taking shape. The science department have worked on an outline for the year and for the units. We have decided how to structure the changes, and now we are working on a small section of the first unit each.
I am using my experience from teaching Social Studies for a year, specifically research skills, to plan the research component of the unit.

The research component will have basic research skills, and will include a research project. The initial project will be into a scientist. I have compiled a list of scientists they could research, and I have included a wide range of fields and cultures, with a focus on women and Maori. In addition I looked for ethnic minority scientists from Australia, Canada, and the US as these are cultures that some of our Maori students identify as being in a similary position to Maori, as exemplified by the support in the community for the Standing Rock native americans protesting the North Dakota pipeline.The intention is to make the students aware that science is for everyone not just old white men.

To encourage the students to be more introspective and thoughtful about the learning process, the will receive two grades for their piece of research. They will have one for the content of the research, and another for the process of research. What did they look for, what was successful. In addition they will be expected to do a reflection/evaluation of how they performed. I have set this up as a google form in order to make it manageable for staff to implement, but also to differentiate the questions the students are answering

Part of what we are trying to do is develop students into critical thinkers. The students are expected to compile a reference list, but for the higher level thinker I'm implementing a system to encourage them to think about the perspective of the source as an introduction to bias and to be wary of who they are listening to.

Inquiry goals

I've been thinking about my goals for next year, and trying to narrow down exactly what I will focus my inquiry on.

Given the big push we are putting in for the junior curriculum my goal is going to be focusing on year 9's mastery of skills.

In the current curriclum, the old one, skills are not taught as explicitly as some students need, and they are expected to pick them up obliquely while learning content. The new curriculum flips this on its head with the skills being the focus and the content being used as a means rather than the end in itself.

Pre exam jitters

It is the L2 Chemistry exam today. I went to talk to my students before they went in. Most have been strategically picking which papers to do and focusing their efforts.
The students seem upbeat and were surprised and happy to see me, saying that I'm the only teacher who has been to see them before their exam. I encouraged them to come and see me afterwards to tell me how it went.

Success on resubs

I have been working with some of the chemistry students who failed achievement standards earlier in the year. All those who stayed in the class for the full year have managed to achieve all the credits they were entered into, which means they are entering exams with 10 Chemistry credits under their belt.
They are also all intending to do Chemistry next year. I am quite pleased with that even though I still don't know who is teaching the Level 3 next year.

The last students to get their assessments needed more practice time. For the repeats I gave them lots and lots of practice questions until they felt ready. Part of it has been the maturing of the students.

 This year I have identified the weaknesses that have come through from the Level 1 classes and I am planning how to ameliorate those at the start of the year to make the classes confident in their abilities from the start. Hopefully this will also address the relatively high attrition rate. Some of the attrition was due to bad course selection, but a few I think were because they felt discouraged when they didn't pass the first Achievement Standard.

Peer Assessment

I tried  a new style of assessment and marking with my Year 9 class.

For the end of astronomy unit they had to research astronomical cycles and their effects on the earth. There was a limited scope for personal choice, as there was a number of cycles they could choose from. The real difference was for them to do the marking of each others assignments.

For this I gave the students copies of the marking rubric and explained how to use it. The students worked in groups to mark each other and to feedback and feedforward to each other. The purpose of this exercise was to get the students to link the intructions of an assessment with the marking of it, to start showing them how the two are together so that in the future they can better tailor their efforts to where it will make the most difference.

Students took to the exercise and were very positive in their feedback to each other. The marking was accurate.

Some students didn't submit their work, but the exercise will have shown them the work that goes into marking regardless and hopefully will encourage them to respect deadlines.