Developing the data analysis skills of students - attempt 1

In my year 9 lesson today (Wednesday) I am going to use a "Bad Science" resource from the Collins scheme of work. The topic is called "bad news" and in the task students have to use the same set of data to come up with evidence to support varying points of view.

To my mind the task as written in the scheme of work is not structured enough. However, it isn't that much harder than what is asked in GCSE questions. And the less structure the less scope for saying a point of view is right/wrong.

I plan to show the students how the marks for an individual science GCSE are divided up. The explain that 5% of those marks are for a "skills" question. Then I plan to give the students the "how science works" questions from the specimen OCR gateway paper, and allow the class to work on it in groups for a short period. Allowing them to see that this is a difficult topic and involves them being able to apply their skills in a variety of contexts.

This will be the focus for the next couple of weeks in lessons. (I only have them once per week). In the first lesson I plan to only use my questioning to help structure the ideas of the students and see how imaginative and logical the students are for themselves. This will give me an idea of where the students are struggling and areas of strength to base our interventions on.

The previous piece of my post was written before the lesson.

During the lesson the students attempted the past paper question and found it very difficult. They weren't best pleased by the questions and the vagueness of them. I would say that they are very hard to comprehend.

I gave them a set of data that could give rise to a variety of conclusions and each group had to make a different conclusion. They were happy to have a go at the task and come up with a variety of points of view. In order to do this they drew on their scientific knowledge and showed a good grasp of the science they have learned. However, very few were naturally looking to the data to help back up their claims.

When moving through the room and questioning the students about patterns in the data they struggled to break down then information into small enough chunks they could process and draw conclusions from. Only a few students could pick out general patterns and link them to a conclusion.

My task now is to develop activities to help these students and future year groups develop their data interpretation skills, ready for their GCSEs and for the rest of their life.


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Location:Gloucestershire

Using APP (badly) to improve engagement in my classroom

This year I have been teaching a course called Segue to my year 9 students. I have used Wikid before, a course from the same people for year 7 & 8, but I haven't been as impressed by that as I have by Segue.

For those who don't know the course consists of two or three lessons followed by an APP assessment. The lesson plans are thorough and included objectives that give a detailed picture of the ideas the students should be using.

After the first few teaching cycles my students latched onto the APP level criteria from the assessments. They wanted to get better. On top of this one of my groups starting getting upset and put off science because they were "the bottom set". So I started sharing APP levels with the groups in every lesson by writing them on the white board during my break or lunch before the lessons.

I would pick a stand of one of the assessment foci and write up the level 3-6 or 7 sentences corresponding to that idea.

Yes, the students were still interested in numbers: "does that make me level 6?" was asked quite a lot. "Could you do that independently?" is my reply to that question, followed up with "but now you know what to do next time to get to level 6".

By using APP in this way I was able to engage my groups, increasing their motivation and confidence. It has been an incredibly useful tool encouraging students to ask "what do I need to do to get better", and this was a regular question in my lessons.

There are a lot of statements in the key stage 3 APP grid; I just keep a laminated colour copy in my teaching files. I have started to pick up patterns and find strands that I like, but still don't know it that well. I have to plan the assessment into the lessons, but the rewards have been well worth it.

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Location:Cabot Close,Bristol,United Kingdom

Blogging with my class - I am stuck!

I know via twitter that lots of primary classes use blogs to help improve literacy and engagement with their classes. I thought that I would try the same with a year 9 group I have.



Firstly I checked with a member of senior management whether it would be OK. He said that I should teach the students not to use their full names, not to post images that included their faces, and to make sure comments didn't reveal where students would be at a future time. All of these rules seem to make a lot of sense to me.



I started a edublogs.org blog. There is advice on their page on how to set up the blog and educate the students how to use it. I have taken their advice and I only allow students to comment on the posts that I make. So far. After the students have learned to contribute quality comments they are allowed to write their own posts. Then it is possible to allow students to have their own blog, which is something I am not keen on.



I am still at the point where I write the blog posts and the students comment. The class seem to enjoy this, but I am struggling to get them to do more than write very simple comments and they don't respond to each other. I wonder if my issue is that I am not giving them enough time to complete the work. However, even groups who finish first don't automatically read and reply to others. I would like to see this happen.



It goes back to the classic issue of getting students to look back over their own work and act on the comments that the teacher makes. I have always struggled with this when we seem to move through topics and themes at a high rate, particularly when you might have one 2.5 hour per week.



I am pleased that I am managing to consistently use the blog with the students, once per week for half an hour.




My Year 9 blog can be found at http://missrogerson.edublogs.org