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.

Passive Learners

10NR are very borderline learners. There are a number of them that are not engaged in learning, and I am struggling to find a path in for them. The ones that are capable are not interested in learning for learnings sake, but instead see Year 10 as an intermediate wasted year and will engage again when it is time for credits.
My usual strategies are not working. They are an odd bunch. They will passively watch something, and they will tutu with things, but not if it looks like learning activity. Although for Climate change they all opened the website and worked a bit at, for most of the class they work rate was so slow. It is highly frustrating when I can see that as long as they focussed that they would be moving mountains, but they are just so apathetic.

I am going to work on them having more video clips, and instant rewards. There does not seem to be any appetite for slog in this class. They don't appear to be any recognition that with hard work comes better rewards.

I'm going to have to ditch the daily quiz, as it is a waste of time until I can get some sort of engagement with the learning. I have persevered, and it is still a good tool to use with my other classes as a daily revision task, but this class might be better served with a mini video or similar, something they can passively sit through rather than actively read or write.

I don't like feeling like I am requiring less from my students, Ultimately if they can't read or write well their choices will be limited in life, and I don't want to do that.

Passive Learners

10NR are very borderline learners. There are a number of them that are not engaged in learning, and I am struggling to find a path in for them. The ones that are capable are not interested in learning for learnings sake, but instead see Year 10 as an intermediate wasted year and will engage again when it is time for credits.
My usual strategies are not working. They are an odd bunch. They will passively watch something, and they will tutu with things, but not if it looks like learning activity. Although for Climate change they all opened the website and worked a bit at, for most of the class they work rate was so slow. It is highly frustrating when I can see that as long as they focussed that they would be moving mountains, but they are just so apathetic.

I am going to work on them having more video clips, and instant rewards. There does not seem to be any appetite for slog in this class. They don't appear to be any recognition that with hard work comes better rewards.

I'm going to have to ditch the daily quiz, as it is a waste of time until I can get some sort of engagement with the learning. I have persevered, and it is still a good tool to use with my other classes as a daily revision task, but this class might be better served with a mini video or similar, something they can passively sit through rather than actively read or write.

I don't like feeling like I am requiring less from my students, Ultimately if they can't read or write well their choices will be limited in life, and I don't want to do that.