Have you seen this Scottish Government CfE in Action video?
I like it. I think it demonstrates the power of inquiry based learning in Science very nicely indeed.
Thank you to Lewis Hamilton and his pupils at Balfron High School for sharing.
Archive for science
PISCES
I’ve mentioned before about the S-TEAM project.
Since then I’ve been working quite closely with the Strathclyde University team from S-TEAM on developing a CPD module which could be used with Science Teachers to help them to develop approaches for inquiry-based learning in their lessons. The module is called PISCES: Promoting Inquiry Skills for a Curriculum for Excellence in Science.
We’ve sent out the details this morning to East Lothian Science Teachers, so I thought I’d share them on here as well.
S-TEAM: Firing Up Science Education
I’ve just been lucky enough to spend the weekend in sunny Cyprus as part of the S-TEAM project – not the sort of opportunity which normally arises for us teachers! S-TEAM stands for Science Teaching Advanced Methods (a bit clunky I know) and is funded by the EU. It’s a vast project which involves institutions across Europe and is aiming to produce materials which can be used to support Science teachers to develop their use of inquiry based teaching methods in Science. My role in the project is as a member of the project’s reference group. Exactly what this entails is still developing, but it basically involves looking at the outcomes from the project and commenting on these from the perspective of a teacher. I’m also able to add a slightly different perspective this year as someone who develops and delivers CPD.
The project has just finished the first of its three years, and although I knew it was a big project – I only really began to appreciate just how enormous it is this weekend. There is going to be a vast amount of materials arising from the project which could be used by teachers, teacher educators in Universities and all those many professionals across Europe who offer CPD to in-service teachers. It’s clearly going to be a major challenge for the project to tie all of this together in a form which is manageable and appropriate.
One of the most fascinating discussions which occurred a lot over the weekend was just what exactly inquiry is. It was surprising to me that this is a conversation which is still taking place at this stage at the project, but it would appear that the common understanding is developing as the project progresses. For me, I do not think it appropriate to try to turn classrooms into scientific laboratories. We cannot convert our teaching methods wholesale to incorporate scientific inquiry as would take place in that context. We have curricula to cover, and in most countries there’s no escaping that fact. We also aren’t in the business of ‘doing science’ – we’re in the business of learning. With this in mind I’ve come to the conclusion that for me the ideal is to develop increased inquiry based learning in Science as opposed to inquiry based science teaching (which is often seen summarised as IBST). This then broadens the concept beyond science alone and becomes very equivalent to what Dan Meyer is putting forward in this fantastic talk on his approach to teaching Maths.
This would also for me be a fantastic form active learning. What could be more ‘brains on’ than the pupils having an inquiry approach to their learning? So as Dan suggests, we shouldn’t start a problem or piece of learning with all the information required laid on and in an artificial setting. We should start with a question, and progress from there. In Science, we might need to carry out some practical work to generate some of the information we need to answer the question – but not always. With this in mind, I feel we need to see inquiry as more than practical work. The reverse of this is true also. Not all practical work is inquiry – even so called investigations. I wonder how many Standard Investigations carried out by pupils throughout the country could really be considered to be inquiry based learning. Who originated the question? Who controls the investigation? Who designs the investigation? Who is interested in the outcome of the investigation? How do the results contribute to the pupils’ curiosity? I know how I would evaluate my own attempts at this in the past.
So…how can I alter my teaching to allow for more inquiry based learning? And how can I improve any investigations I have to deliver to ensure they’re used more effectively? I’m looking forward to see what the materials produced by S-TEAM can do to support me with these questions…watch this space.
Curriculum for Excellence: the end of Separate Sciences?
Mr Hood’s recent blog post on the impact of CfE on science teaching has genuinely taken me by surprise. He argues that CfE spells the end for integrated science lessons in the lower school. It seems so obvious to me that CfE means quite the opposite to this that it had not even occurred to me that it would be possible to see it any other way. What has surprised me even more is that some teachers seem to agree with this in their comments. This has provoked me to write this post outlining my reasons for seeing CfE as a major opportunity to develop interdisciplinary learning in secondary science lessons.
For me, Curriculum for Excellence is about involving pupils in their own learning in a broad and balanced curriculum which allows for personalisation and making cross-curricular links. My understanding is that there is now a large body of research which suggests that this approach to learning not only engages and motivates more of those children who are switched off by the current curriculum, but also raises attainment in those who continue on to sit certificated courses. In other words, this benefits all pupils.
As secondary teachers, we tend to see school through the prism of higher results. We also tend to assume that in order to improve higher results in our subject, we need to start teaching them in a way which best suits the higher exam as early as possible. So we biologists want to teach them only biology from S1 and develop courses which train them for standard grade and so on to higher. Unfortunately this has a number of unintended negative side effects.
- Those pupils who have no intention of ever sitting higher biology do not experience courses which engage and motivate them. They misbehave, fail the tests and learn that they “were no good at biology at school”.
- Those that do continue onto standard grade and higher will have covered biology content in isolation and fail to see the links with chemistry, physics, maths, english, geography, history…They tend to have a fairly narrow view of the subject.
- Due to the lack of time which results from carving up the sciences (one period per week) the pupils rarely get to really explore the subject in any breadth or depth. The teacher can barely get a chance to learn the names of all the classes properly, never mind encouraging pupils to take ownership of their own learning.
- Also as a result of the lack of time, lessons tend to focus on content over skills. If you only have them for an hour each week, you tend to want to get through the biology rather than spend time developing their literacy/numeracy/ICT/group work/enterprise…skills.
So how do I see science in the lower school then? My vision of this is still growing and changing as I get to grips with CfE myself. I concede that for most schools it would probably be best to to have integrated science courses for just S1 and S2 and separating in S3. I also don’t think I object to possibly allowing some choice between S2 and S3 – possibly permitting dropping of one science and giving a little more time to the remaining two.
In S1-2, I envisage an interdisciplinary approach whereby the pupils progress through a number of what might once have been called topics. At Stoneyhill they now call them I.D.E.A.s (I think this stands for InterDisciplinary Experiences and Activities) which I quite like. So, we might start with “Space” followed by “Earth” then “Life” and so on. Each of these would begin with the some sort of starter lesson(s) to get the pupils into the subject and for them and the teacher to find out what they already know and what they can already do. From this point the class would then enter a planning phase with groups working out what they need/want to learn about and what skills they could develop. They could also work out what links they can make within the sciences and to other subjects. They could set the learning intentions and suggest ways they would assess whether they had met these. From all of this, the teacher would put together a plan and share this with the class.
In this plan, would it matter that I’m a biology teacher when we’re learning about space? Can a physics teacher teach life? I really don’t see this as an issue at all. For sure, when I’m teaching biology I can add to the learning experience in ways a physicist might not – however this is not always beneficial. It is possible that as a biologist I get too hung up on the subject content when teaching biology in S1, when really I should be placing a greater emphasis on skills. I also believe that when I’m teaching physics or chemistry, although I can not bring as much subject expertise as a specialist, I bring other qualities instead. For example, I find that as I’m learning the subject a little too, I have a bit more enthusiasm when I come across something new. By being honest with the pupils, I think this also demonstrates that us teachers do not “know everything” and aren’t there to simply impart knowledge, but help guide learning. And there’s always a few chemistry and physics graduates conveniently nearby if I get stuck!
It really is time for us secondary teachers to stop focusing so heavily on exam results and allowing it to drive what we do in S1. A small percentage of the pupils we teach in S1 will end up sitting higher in our subject, so we must not allow that exam to dictate the way we teach those kids. Although it is frustrating that we don’t yet know how the new exams will look, in some ways this is a good thing. Otherwise, that’s all we’d be looking at and preparing S1-3 accordingly. And anyway, the research shows that learning about learning and encouraging pupils to think and make links actually improves exam results.
It is time to approach learning in secondary schools in a new way. This is as scary as it is exciting, but it has to be done. For some schools these changes will lead to a move away from discrete sciences in S1/2, however I feel that this is necessary to meet the aspirations of Curriculum for Excellence.
Science Teaching: Integrate or Separate?
Image from Cartoon Stock
There has been much discussion within my department over the past year or so on how to approach Science teaching in S1/2 and possibly S3 once aCfE is here. We currently teach the three sciences separately throughout the school and as the new curriculum approaches we took the opportunity to think again about how we should be going about this.
It was a while after this discussion came to some sort of conclusion, that it occurred to me that no-one had really looked to literature or research to inform the debate. Being on the road to chartered teacher, I was surprised that I hadn’t already thought of this – so I decided to have a go. Amazingly I found nothing.
I decided to ask for help and sent an email to Peter Gray who coordinates a lot of communication between education researchers across Europe and he kindly advertised my request:
Although some interesting discussions arose from this, no-one was able to provide genuine research into this question.
So what do you think? Should Science be taught as one subject in the junior secondary or as three discrete subjects? Have you come across much literature on the subject?
S1 Cells ACE…?
Our department, like many others I’m sure, is currently considering how we’re going to begin to implement a Curriculum for Excellence next year.
I’ve had a little go at having a think about how I’d introduce a cells topic next year with this in mind and come up with this:
What do you think? Am I on the right lines? Any suggestions?
Conservation Project
I’m really proud of a group from my S5 Higher Biology class who took a homework task and really made it their own. They were were set the task of producing something which could be used to raise awareness of global and local conservation projects. Six of the pupils decided to make a video on the work of Edinburgh Zoo and the reintroduction of beavers into Scotland. They used their own equipment, money and time to do this and you can see their product below:
For me, this is exactly what Curriculum for Excellence is about. It’s my task to find a way of incorporating these sorts of activities into lesson time, and hopefully a reduction in content will assist in this?
What the Science teachers think…
Last Friday afternoon, lots (about 40 I think) of East Lothian’s Secondary Science teachers gathered at our school to discuss a Curriculum for Excellence. This was organised by my colleague Annette Smith who has recently been appointed in the new post of Science Support Officer (or something to that effect – sorry Annette if I’ve got that wrong).
After a brief introduction, Annette had us all working in cross-curricular groups to consider four very fundamental questions regarding Curriculum for Excellence:
Q1 What will it mean to us as teachers?
Q2 How will it change the way we teach?
Q3 How will it affect the pupils?
Q4 How will it affect the curriculum?
You can see the responses to these on the new Science Support eduBuzz pages.
I found this session really useful for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was great to work (no matter how briefly) with non-Biologists from other schools. This is still a surprisingly rare occurrence for me, and I always enjoy it.
It was also interesting to hear what other secondary science teachers are thinking about aCfE. I was really glad that Annette kept this first session quite simple, in terms of the discussion questions, as it really got everyone going. It’s also interesting to note that the responses include a lot of positives as well as the concerns, legitimate and otherwise!
