Making the Junior curriculum concept driven and student-led

LEM and I have been chatting about how we could make the junior curriculum more relevant to the students and the world they live in. We started thinking about all the ways climate change could be used to hook into the science junior curriculum. How it could be used as a context for multiple content needs in science.

We threw around some ideas at morning tea time, then while my class were doing an assessment I started to pull them into a mindmap using Coggle to link the ideas of climate change, to the Science content, and on to the type of assessments or investigations that could be done.

The goal would be for students to investigate their own interests within a larger framework. When I started to link the content that is essential to Year 9 and 10 it turned out the whole two years could be investigated within the context of Climate Change in Year 9 or Sustainability in Year 10.

The intention is to allow teachers some fluidity in what and how they teach allowing them to follow the students interests. The assessments can be chosen by the teacher to be either a research investigation, using secondary sources; or a practical investigation collating primary data.
Each class would be constrained by having to do at least 6 assessments to report back on, at least 3 research and 3 practical investigations, and for each content strand in the Science curriculum to be assessed at least once. Students who are really into biology can do 3 Living World  themed projects, as long as they still do once each for Physical World, Material World, and Planet Earth and Beyond.

The teacher can follow the students enthusiasms anywhere on the mind map, or beyond if the students are so inclined. As the assessments are Nature of Science based they are comparable.

SNC has developed some good assessment tools, assessing skills not content, so they can be used across different assessment contexts, but still be comparable. The repeated use of these assessment rubrics, coupled with their explicit teaching in class will allow students to both identify what they need to do within an assessment, and identify what their next goals will be to attain the next level in their progression.

Senior revision time

Aftert the school exams it was apparent that the L2 Chemistry students are not yet anywhere near ready for their end of year external exams.

In repsonse to this I decided to drop the final internal that was slated, Oxidation and Reduction, in favour of spending the remaining class time on revision of the content of the external standards.

In class time students are allowed to choose their own specific area of the course to concentrate their revision. To aid and focus them at the start of each lesson I circulate in the class and ask them to give me their personal topic or success criteria for the hour they have in the classroom. Making them choose one specific thing to master in the hour seems to improve their focus for their learning and help break down the seemingly impossible task into smaller bits that are possible.

Chemistry in the real world

I have been on the mailing list for Compound Interest for a while now. It is a website that tracks chemical progress in the academic science world I find it useful as a filter for finding real world applications of chemistry that I can illustrate to my students.

 It also creates useful infographics of scientific and specialist chemical processes. In the past I have colour printed and laminated some of their infographics into posters for my wall, but I don't have enough space for them all, and the Science Department doesn't have the printing budget for me to continue to do so with every poster. I will continue to do so with the really useful ones, but I have been thinking about ways to showcase the varied and interesting things that Chemists do.

I now have a spot on my wall where I black and white print the weekly mailer titled "This Week In Chemistry". The spot is by the door where it is easy to browse at the end of the lesson, and is passed by each student as they leave.

In addition when an infographic about chemical research comes into my mailbox, rather than colour printing I am setting as the new wallpaper for the projector screen. In this way I can change it regularly without reference to cost.

Appraisal - Thinking issues

For this terms observation for my appraisal MTH observed a year 9 lesson where we were looking at thinking skills and applying knowledge they had learnt to real world applications. In this particular instance "real world" was a rather broad concept. The framework for this was from the Issues Presentations that I had seen at the ChemEd Conference and presented to the department.

This particular lesson was within the unit of work dealing with waves and energy and the class had just completed learning about sound and sound waves. The presentation dealt with the movement of waves in a vacuum, particularly in space, using the explosion of the Death Star from Star Wars as the initial image.

The class in question was a lower ability class with many students having literacy at Level 2 or Low Level 3 on the curriculum. Many of them do not display critical thinking skills and show little to no desire to learn them.

The students were engaged by the gif of the Death Star exploding with the Millenium Falcon flying away from the blast zone.  Some could very clearly tell the class what had led up to that point and what came after, and could debate the plot points.  When challenged some problems or falsities in the presentation of the explosion were identified which led us into the text reading.

Five students participated in reading out loud to the class, a selection of text from MovieTropes.com detailing how movie explosions in space defy laws of physics. Due to their previous learning on sound waves and wave behaviour some of this made sense to the students. I was still having to lead the discussion, positing questions for them to respond to, but most students were engaged, especially the low achieving boys.

The final step was to watch a video on the physics of sound explosions which explained with  diagrams, pictures and animation in more detail.

There was very little writing in this lesson which helps get engagement from those students who struggle with literacy. I am trying to develop analytical and critical thinking skills in my students and to get them to see how what they are learning in class can help them to be better at interacting with the world and less likely to be taken advantage of.

Developing thinking skills by focusing on Issues

Attending the ChemEd conference I participated in a workshop entitled "Who Cares" which was about developing awareness in students of applications of Science, linking issues in the world to the content they are learning in the classroom.

It involved hooking students in with a picture and allowing them to form their own ideas on what the picture was representing. The students would then be given an explanatory text, a short text that one student would read to the class, related to the picture and the issue. After listening to the text students would develop ideas on the opinions and points of view of the people involved, whether directly in the issue or on the periphery. The next step was to watch an explanatory video on the topic, after which they could have further discussion on the topic.

The issues could lead directly or indirectly to the topics being taught.

I prepared and presented an Issue presentation to the Science department and it was very well received. I intend to try and bring it into my classroom as a regular feature. Jenna is also considering using it for the shared classes she has once a week.

To facilitate the departmental use I have set up a folder where presentations of this kind can be filed. In addition I put in a "How to" instruction sheet, and a recording sheet for the various issues that have be put in the file.

Class differentiation in Level 2 Chemistry

For Term 3 I have split each Chemistry class into two groups. One group of the academically focussed students, and another of the students who are happy to just get their 14 credits. The academic kids are going to work on both remaining externals, and the others on one external.

Parents have been contacted to ensure that it is clear what their child is doing, and have been asked to respond to me to acknowledge that they are in agreement with the choice that they are making.



<Date>


<Parents>
<Postal Address>


Dear <Salutation>

Re : <First Name> <Last Name> <Class>

From this term in Chemistry, and for the remainder of the year the classes within the course has been split into two working groups. One group comprises the students who are planning to take Level 3 Chemistry in 2018, and may be planning a career or further study in which they may use Chemistry ("The L3/Career" group). The second group are students who have decided that Chemistry does not feature in their future plans, and are aiming to get enough credits at Level 2 to pass the course, but do not plan to take their study of Chemistry any further (dubbed the "I just want my credits" group). So far the students are self-selecting the group they want to be in.

The L3/Career group will be working at a quick pace through two Externally assessed Achievement Standards, 2.6 Chemical Reactivity, and 2.5 Organic Chemistry. It is necessary that this group is diligent about keeping up with the work, and this will require regular homework.

 The "I just want my credits" group will be spending their time learning Organic Chemistry and revising the 2.4 Atomic Structure and Bonding standard we covered last term.

All learning for externals should be completed in time for the school exams in Week 9 of Term 3. After the school exams we will tackle the final internally assessed standard 2.7 Oxidation and Reduction.

<First> has yet to choose a group. Please discuss with <First Name> which group <he> will select to be in to ensure that you and <he> are comfortable with his choice.  I also ask that you confirm that you are aware of <his> choice in a response to this email.

Yours faithfully,


<Teacher>
<TeacherEmail>

Winning Hone Haka

The Science Department won the weekly "Hone Haka" award for being best at incorporating the Te Reo Maori Kupu o te Wiki.

Ongoing Inquiry into the Geology assessment for Year 10's

The last couple of days I have been watching and marking presentations from my year 10 class on a Natural Disaster. 

The quality of presentation is much higher than last year. This is a combination effect from having a more literate and engaged class than I had last year, but also having provided greater scaffolding for the students. From the scaffolding they have a better understanding of what is expected of them, and the detail to which they need to go.

Some students are, as expected, only doing enough for the minimum. Others have really been focussed on the higher levels, and been motivated by the clear outlines. The hardest part for many has been presenting to the class, however as scary as it may be, presenting is a valuable skill for them to practise.

In addition I think I will give them a modified re-submission opportunity, modelled on how they will be assessed at Year 11 in NCEA Level 1. Modified, in that I will be showing each student what on the rubric that they missed, and perhaps helping them to research their way to a better grade. In this way they will hopefully develop a better understanding of how they may use rubric's to check their assessments for sufficiency.
The aim would be to have them better craft their assessments to meet the criteria at every level .

Wanting the best for my students

I have been taking a special interest in "I" in my Whanau class. He is a very capable student, and very good-natured and willing to give back. He can, with thought and planning, be successful in both the Maori and Pakeha worlds, and I am trying to help him navigate that.

Today we had a chat in Whanau about what he wants, in the short term and the long term, and we are starting to talk about his options. He would like to go into Carpentry. I have been talking to people that I know in the business and that may not be advisable as the industry in Whangarei appears to be controlled by a cartel keeping wages and movement between firms down. We are looking at Engineering courses, that allow him to fulfill family commitments, while earning, learning, and being a stepping to a full engineering degree.

We also talked about how we need students to go out and be successes in both worlds, then to come back and show others that it can be done. I later heard that he went to his friend in the next class and told him about our conversation, and he was all chuffed that I had called him one of the students we want as a role model.

Year 10 Geology Assessment

I have been reevaluating the assessment for the Year 10 Geology Unit. Although the assessment task itself is a good one, it needed more scaffolding to help the students to understand what is required.

I have spent some time putting together scaffolding resources to support students in this process.

I decided to give the students an exemplar of what was required to get to excellence standard, and along the way I also made a resource showing how I thought through the requirements, and another on how I recorded my information prior to putting my final document together.

When introducing the assessment task I showed the students all of these things, and talked through them with the students, before giving them access to them on Google Classroom.

The exemplar was also highlighted to identify which parts satisfied Level 4, and which Level 5. The student were informed that the expectation is that at Year 10, they need to be working at Level 5 or "Merit", but many students are aiming for the Level 6 assessment grade.

This is a continuation of the revised assessment task I created in 2016 in response to the absence of a reliable assessment task.

Revising assessment tasks

I was responsible for the research task component of the new Year 9 curriculum in the first term. Now that I am marking the task I am adapting it. As it was the first time that we have used it we have discovered some changes that need to be made to be streamlined.

The students have not been very good at picking out the important parts to achieve at a higher level. On reflection I plan to make it clearer in the instructions what they need to do and when it needs to be done.

The post-assessment evaluation and reflection tool does not lend itself to Google Forms in the current format. In the future I will make two documents. One that is all instructions, including a time break-down, and one that they will use as a log and complete. In addition I would put a mostly blank document onto the Google Classroom assignment in order that all the files are in the same place.

Kapa Haka Seamstress

Whaia Awa asked for anyone who could help with the Kapa Haka performance costumes, I like to sew so I volunteered, as did Hazel. We decided to split the effort by task, so I put together the outfit for Whaiora, the lead female, and Hazel extended the pre-existing junior.

Solubility

Teaching solubility to L2Chem a student asked to see an example of an experiment I was telling them about. With consultation with SGSS we found an example of a non-polar substance requiring a non-polar solute to dissolve it.

The students were happy to be able to see all the range of polar and non-polar subtances acting as solvents and solutes as it rounded out their learning experience.

Student Wellbeing and

The Year 10's did a test last period. Through a concerted push I managed to get the test scripts marked and returned the next lesson and took the time to go through each question explaining how to approach that question and what the answer was.

Afterwards each student was asked to write on the paper their immediate thoughts on the test and the unit it assessed, focussing on how they had worked and how they approached the test. This was then extended with guided reflection set for them on Google Classroom.


Think about the topic so far and write a reflection. Include in your reflection
- How well you worked in the unit ( Did you try your best every lesson or were you goofing off, DId you persevere when it was hard, or give up?)
- How seriously you took the test? Did you persevere and try to figure stuff out
- How well did you do compared to how well you felt about the test when you did it.
- What your goal for the next unit is. Your goal should be challenging but achieveable
- What are you going to do to achieve this goal.


The majority of the class took the task seriously and there were some very good responses. At the end of the unit we will refer back to this to see how they got along and I intend to repeat it each unit to guide them through self-review and improvement cycles. Hopefully it will help them to learn skills in planning and reflection which are vital to self-management.

As a consequence of this I had an interesting conversation with a student who had received distressing news on the day of the test. On confiding to me what the upset was, I reassured her and she seemed fine. I am concerned for her longer term though, so I have let the counsellor who the student is, asking her to keep an eye out.

Student Led learning

During the topic on Acids and Bases one of the content pieces to focus on was Acid Rain. One student was curious about the topic. He did some research on his own, and found a practical to do. He sent me the details and asked if we could do it in class.

The practical was straightforward and was a good illustration of the point. The colour changes using indicators reinforced the idea of indicators while it showed how gases can make neutral solutions acidic.

The rest of the class had greater engagement for this lesson. I had seen this practical before and dismissed it as not very interesting, so it was a timely reminder that our life experiences shape what we think is interesting .


Hi Miss Trewin

I was looking up acid rain recipes because i was bored and found one
that my class could possibly do?

Bromothymol blue
Small clear bowl with a lid
Big glass bowl
Water (10 ml)
Matches (that have a high sulfur content?)

1. Pour around about 10ml of water into the big glass bowl. Add
Bromothymol blue until it makes a light blueish colour.

2. Burn matches and put them into the small glass bowl with lid. Cover
the bowl and let the matches burn out. Collect their emissions and
leave the lid sealed tightly shut.

3. Open the jar and quickly pour in the water/Bromothymol blue
solution. Quickly shut the lid to stop any more of the Carbon dioxide
from getting out. Shake the jar and watch the solution turn a beer
colour!

So yeah. A possible acid rain recipe. I also found some more that
involved spraying plants with acid but that isn't environmentally
friendly and I like my garden so my plants aren't going to die today!