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.
Showing posts with label Critical Thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Critical Thinking. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 December 2017
Friday, 25 August 2017
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.
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.
Monday, 12 December 2016
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.
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.
Friday, 9 December 2016
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 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.
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