With the overhaul of the Junior curriculum to be context based and student-led it is necessary to develop a coherent framework for teachers. Especially those who require aid in planning a unit for their students.
After thinking through the logistics of how to run a unit I put together a flowchart on how to make it happen. When a major change like this is undertaken it can be very easy to slip back into old habits of teaching content not skills in context. A major driver in this revamp is to allow more student direction. In this manner it is imperitive to allow students to do a general plan of what they want to get out of a unit BEFORE we fill them with content. The flowchart allows for teaching content and for teaching skills, both within the flow of student investigation. The hope is that using this format will increase engagement of the student.
The final stage is for students to present their work, then reflect on it. Communication is a vital part of scientific investigation and students need to be prepared for that. Reflection links the inquiry circuit back up to start over again.
The flowchart
Tuesday, 12 December 2017
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.
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.
Wednesday, 18 October 2017
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.
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.
Thursday, 21 September 2017
Team Teaching
It is eye dissection time again. This year I suggested to VWJ that we combine classes as we were both going to do the dissection at the same time. This meant we had two teachers circulating the room. Even with the double the number of students, and hence the same ratio, it made for better supervision of what the students were doing. LEM joined us as well as for both of them it was the first time doing eye dissections with a class.
The class format was to watch a video of a dissection, then to do the dissection themselves and complete a worksheet about what they were observing, as a means of making sure they did take the time to observe and not just squee about the dissection.
As I was the more experienced teacher I took the lead in running the class, and setting out the expectations. Eye dissections are a busy activity with a lot of tooing and froing to get started. Having two teachers meant that one maintained order, and gave the students tasks, while the other set up the equipment, or chased down missing items. During the clean up it allowed one teacher to direct the clean up of the room, and the other to supervise the reloading of the trolley and the disposal of the eye remains.
I haven't taught with another teacher in the room as an equal before. Although I was taking the lead, as I was the only teacher with experience of this activity before, we had equal stakes in the class. I have always had another teacher as an observer whether on practicum or for appraisal purposes.
My son has a team teaching class at his school and it works very well for Primary, now I can see how it could work for us in the senior sciences.
The class format was to watch a video of a dissection, then to do the dissection themselves and complete a worksheet about what they were observing, as a means of making sure they did take the time to observe and not just squee about the dissection.
As I was the more experienced teacher I took the lead in running the class, and setting out the expectations. Eye dissections are a busy activity with a lot of tooing and froing to get started. Having two teachers meant that one maintained order, and gave the students tasks, while the other set up the equipment, or chased down missing items. During the clean up it allowed one teacher to direct the clean up of the room, and the other to supervise the reloading of the trolley and the disposal of the eye remains.
I haven't taught with another teacher in the room as an equal before. Although I was taking the lead, as I was the only teacher with experience of this activity before, we had equal stakes in the class. I have always had another teacher as an observer whether on practicum or for appraisal purposes.
My son has a team teaching class at his school and it works very well for Primary, now I can see how it could work for us in the senior sciences.
Friday, 8 September 2017
Planning the Year 10 Curriculum
I have been taking responsibility for managing the update to the Junior curriculum. The content and style have been communally decided by the department but I have been checking that things are not forgotten, and the resources are sufficient to support the beginning teachers.
The year 10 curriculum should be a matter for us to extend on the skills based curriculum we implemented in Year 9. That has had a tendency to fall back into being content based which we have had to consciously watch out for.
The year 10 curriculum should be a matter for us to extend on the skills based curriculum we implemented in Year 9. That has had a tendency to fall back into being content based which we have had to consciously watch out for.
Friday, 1 September 2017
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)