We are planning to launch a bring your own device scheme at school. I work at an independent school so I suppose it s easier to insist on students brining a tablet to lessons.
I can foresee issues where students will not bring their device if we are not encouraging them to use them. But how?
1) If they get the kindle reader they will be able to annotate PDFs. This means I can ask key stage 4 students to download the specification and make notes on each section as to what they understand and things they will need to recap when they revise.
2) Socrative - if all students have devices then it should be simple to use them to complete quizzes using socrative. What I like about this is that an app isn't necessary.
3) Padlet - I like the idea of working collaboratively. Padlet will allow students to give answers/comments on the wall and see those of others.
4) Evernote is a free app, allowing notebooks to be shared and it works cross platform. It is a possible way to share my presentations with students and also a way for them to collate their work on their tablet.
5) Calendars and reminders - I would hope that most tablets come with these applications and they are a good replacement for the paper planners students carry.
6) Social bookmarking - again to help students stay organised. Through bit.ly, delicious and pinterest.
I hope that these ideas are simple enough to be accessible to all students and possible to use regularly.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Showing posts with label skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skills. Show all posts
Monday, 24 June 2013
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
Moving from aims to implementation
In a previous blog post here:http://geordiescience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/what-is-science-education-for.html I talked about the aims of science education.
I settled on three sentences from the ASE Guide to Secondary Science Education and they are:
1. A grasp of the "big" ideas that enable active participation in decisions involving science and technology
2. A basic understanding of what science is, how it works and what are its strengths and limitations
3. The ability to continue learning
My new Head Teacher had asked: "What is it that we are delivering? And what do we need to change/move forward? What it is that we could do better if we could" on her first meeting with the staff.
I think that I would like to remove "big" from the first sentence. It is vague, and while I want to keep the aims unspecific and therefore able to move with the times, I also don't want to highlight it.
Do the science GCSE courses we offer seek to achieve all these aims? Certainly the policitcal edge to the topics we teach in year 10, crude oil, plastics, diet, endangered species, generating electricity, using chemicals from the Earth and such like would indicate that we have a course, at GCSE at least, that meets aim 1.
The OCR gateway core science course is described in the specification as emphasizing explanation, theories and modelling in science along with the implications of science in society. So in fact we have bought into an intended curriculum that should meet aim 1 and to some extent aim 2. Meeting aim 2 fully and aim 3 at all will depend on how we deliver the curriculum as well as other factors.
At post-16 it is less clear that what we do and teach that reaches any of the aims above. In physics we only cover a few of the developments of ideas, such as the photoelectric effect and event then we might not mention the issues around it. I used to teach the context-led approach, in which the accompanying textbook had applications of the physics and discussion around the development of ideas. But mention of these were left to the students' reading or passing comments. Perhaps, that is enough?
Which leaves what we do at key stage 3. This is both the most practical key stage at which to make changes to achieve the aims above, but also the most difficult. As an independent school I don't need to consider the upcoming changes by Michael Gove to the the key stage 3 curriculum, but I do need to prepare my students so they are ready for their GCSEs.
(A colleague in a previous school once said the students don't learn anything at key stage 3, so it didn't matter what we did - I would say that is a massive concern and should have been addressed!)
Even though key stage 3 is the most practical and a good time to develop the learning skills we want to see in our students, it is a long time between the end of year 9 and the end of year 13 when the students go off into the "real world". Adapting what we do at key stage 3 is important, but it isn't enough.
Of course I have missed an important part of the curriculum: the extra curriculum. It is in this time that it is possible to develop a lot of the inter and intra personal skills students need for life. I will always remember fondly doing the STEM challenges with a group of students who came together from across the school and produced a fabulous presentation. Time for these things are always squeezed, but it would be great to spend the next few years developing an extra curricular programme that will enhance the development of the students to the three aims above.
NB: extra curriculum doesn't need to mean a "manned" club, it can be recommending books or events for the students to join in during their spare time. Alex Weatherall and Sarah Pannell's Science Teaching TV Guide is a great example, it is hosted along side Alex's Science Teaching Library recommendations. http://scienceteachinglibrary.wordpress.com/
I settled on three sentences from the ASE Guide to Secondary Science Education and they are:
1. A grasp of the "big" ideas that enable active participation in decisions involving science and technology
2. A basic understanding of what science is, how it works and what are its strengths and limitations
3. The ability to continue learning
My new Head Teacher had asked: "What is it that we are delivering? And what do we need to change/move forward? What it is that we could do better if we could" on her first meeting with the staff.
I think that I would like to remove "big" from the first sentence. It is vague, and while I want to keep the aims unspecific and therefore able to move with the times, I also don't want to highlight it.
Do the science GCSE courses we offer seek to achieve all these aims? Certainly the policitcal edge to the topics we teach in year 10, crude oil, plastics, diet, endangered species, generating electricity, using chemicals from the Earth and such like would indicate that we have a course, at GCSE at least, that meets aim 1.
The OCR gateway core science course is described in the specification as emphasizing explanation, theories and modelling in science along with the implications of science in society. So in fact we have bought into an intended curriculum that should meet aim 1 and to some extent aim 2. Meeting aim 2 fully and aim 3 at all will depend on how we deliver the curriculum as well as other factors.
At post-16 it is less clear that what we do and teach that reaches any of the aims above. In physics we only cover a few of the developments of ideas, such as the photoelectric effect and event then we might not mention the issues around it. I used to teach the context-led approach, in which the accompanying textbook had applications of the physics and discussion around the development of ideas. But mention of these were left to the students' reading or passing comments. Perhaps, that is enough?
Which leaves what we do at key stage 3. This is both the most practical key stage at which to make changes to achieve the aims above, but also the most difficult. As an independent school I don't need to consider the upcoming changes by Michael Gove to the the key stage 3 curriculum, but I do need to prepare my students so they are ready for their GCSEs.
(A colleague in a previous school once said the students don't learn anything at key stage 3, so it didn't matter what we did - I would say that is a massive concern and should have been addressed!)
Even though key stage 3 is the most practical and a good time to develop the learning skills we want to see in our students, it is a long time between the end of year 9 and the end of year 13 when the students go off into the "real world". Adapting what we do at key stage 3 is important, but it isn't enough.
Of course I have missed an important part of the curriculum: the extra curriculum. It is in this time that it is possible to develop a lot of the inter and intra personal skills students need for life. I will always remember fondly doing the STEM challenges with a group of students who came together from across the school and produced a fabulous presentation. Time for these things are always squeezed, but it would be great to spend the next few years developing an extra curricular programme that will enhance the development of the students to the three aims above.
NB: extra curriculum doesn't need to mean a "manned" club, it can be recommending books or events for the students to join in during their spare time. Alex Weatherall and Sarah Pannell's Science Teaching TV Guide is a great example, it is hosted along side Alex's Science Teaching Library recommendations. http://scienceteachinglibrary.wordpress.com/
Thursday, 21 June 2012
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.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Gloucestershire
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)