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Location:Birmingham,United Kingdom
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Do teachers ever switch off?
I am at the cycle show at the NEC. We've just seen a beautiful bike made from copper. What do I think? "I wonder if I could use that as a starter in a lesson!"
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, 29 September 2012
RRS reader
I can't recommend enough using an RSS reader to read blogs. So simple to use, add blogs and save favourite posts for future reference.
I use google reader and an app on the iPhone and iPad that picks up the feed.
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Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Modelling Electricity
Is it easier to understand electrical circuits by "playing" with batteries, bulbs, leads and ammeters or by modeling it by walking around the room?
If I am honest I think that I wouldn't teach one without the other. I believe that it is important for students to "see" the science for themselves, even if there is an easier way to explain it.
Last week we investigated circuits and revised the concepts students should have come across in year 7. This didn't go as well as I would like: new plan needed!
Today I decided to introduce models to the students instead.
I felt that the students grasped the ideas better. But they did have the "real" experiences from the previous lesson to back up the ideas I was giving them.
At the end of the lesson I asked the group to look at other models. I was impressed with how they managed the task, however their written explanations require work. That's next!
If I am honest I think that I wouldn't teach one without the other. I believe that it is important for students to "see" the science for themselves, even if there is an easier way to explain it.
Last week we investigated circuits and revised the concepts students should have come across in year 7. This didn't go as well as I would like: new plan needed!
Today I decided to introduce models to the students instead.
I felt that the students grasped the ideas better. But they did have the "real" experiences from the previous lesson to back up the ideas I was giving them.
At the end of the lesson I asked the group to look at other models. I was impressed with how they managed the task, however their written explanations require work. That's next!
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
ASE Conference January 2013
I intend to go to the ASE conference 2013. It is being held in Reading, which is convenient for both my and my science teacher partner, Richard.
As we are both members and will get the 20% early bird discount it isn't too expensive to stay for all four days, three nights.
I want to go to the international day as I teach a lot of international students and communicating with international teachers will help me to understand the prior experiences of the students and therefore teach them more appropriately.
I know that I want to go to some frontier lectures. I enjoyed hearing about cutting edge science. Sometimes I get so involved in education I forget about "science". I want to take as many opportunities as I can to remind myself.
I will also be careful not to arrange any booked courses on Friday afternoon, as I really hope the ASE can get a key note speaker for that time. Although I would like to go to a literacy workshop at that time.
This year I am interested to hear the presidential address and I want to go to some sessions that relate to the changes happening to the curriculum and the way that GCSE/EBC science will be assessed.
The added bonus of the conference will be meeting a lot of the people I know from twitter. Putting a face to the twitter handle will be great.
As we are both members and will get the 20% early bird discount it isn't too expensive to stay for all four days, three nights.
I want to go to the international day as I teach a lot of international students and communicating with international teachers will help me to understand the prior experiences of the students and therefore teach them more appropriately.
I know that I want to go to some frontier lectures. I enjoyed hearing about cutting edge science. Sometimes I get so involved in education I forget about "science". I want to take as many opportunities as I can to remind myself.
I will also be careful not to arrange any booked courses on Friday afternoon, as I really hope the ASE can get a key note speaker for that time. Although I would like to go to a literacy workshop at that time.
This year I am interested to hear the presidential address and I want to go to some sessions that relate to the changes happening to the curriculum and the way that GCSE/EBC science will be assessed.
The added bonus of the conference will be meeting a lot of the people I know from twitter. Putting a face to the twitter handle will be great.
Organising Resources
I noticed on a few blogs I've read teachers leaving pages for websites they've found. I use delicious to store links to websites, but I don't often retrieve them, I collect and hoard.
In my department staff use folders with paper and plastic wallets to store schemes of work. Mine are stored electronically these days, but how organised are they really? How useful on a day-to-day basis is the the information stored between the school shared drive, my mobile phone, my iPad, iCloud, Dropbox and my computer?
I am increasingly aware that moving away from paper is not going to be a practical solution. I give out worksheets to the students and if there is spare I don't want to throw them out.
I have decided that I'll use pinterest to organise links, (mainly videos and distinct resources) by the topic I'm teaching. I'll continue to use delicious for all links, but I do want to review the tags I'm using.
I have 100GB on dropbox. I am going to reorganise these files and reconsider the folders I am currently sharing. Leaving the majority. I will move my folders away from being only on my hard drive. I need to sort these folders too. They are organised by year, not only by topic. But should I be using iCloud?
There is so many wonderful resources out there, I do wonder if I'll ever have the perfect way to organise and store them! I suppose the way to do it has evolved over the past 10 years and will continue to.
All this is before considering the various applications available to organise calendars, notes, reminders etc.
In my department staff use folders with paper and plastic wallets to store schemes of work. Mine are stored electronically these days, but how organised are they really? How useful on a day-to-day basis is the the information stored between the school shared drive, my mobile phone, my iPad, iCloud, Dropbox and my computer?
I am increasingly aware that moving away from paper is not going to be a practical solution. I give out worksheets to the students and if there is spare I don't want to throw them out.
I have decided that I'll use pinterest to organise links, (mainly videos and distinct resources) by the topic I'm teaching. I'll continue to use delicious for all links, but I do want to review the tags I'm using.
I have 100GB on dropbox. I am going to reorganise these files and reconsider the folders I am currently sharing. Leaving the majority. I will move my folders away from being only on my hard drive. I need to sort these folders too. They are organised by year, not only by topic. But should I be using iCloud?
There is so many wonderful resources out there, I do wonder if I'll ever have the perfect way to organise and store them! I suppose the way to do it has evolved over the past 10 years and will continue to.
All this is before considering the various applications available to organise calendars, notes, reminders etc.
Planning for Progression
"Planning for progression is an important aspect of any curriculum
development. Effective planning involves carefully and deliberately
sequencing the curriculum content and experiences that teachers ... intend learners to have. These plans should build on previous
learning and achievements to promote future learning." From http://waes-elearn.waes.ac.uk/moodle-resources/Basic%20Skills/Pre-entry%20%28D%29/planning/index.htm
During the last few weeks I have had to think about these points a lot. Firstly I have had to write a year 6 scheme up to Christmas with nothing but the word "underground" as a stimulus. And now I am back I am teaching the dreadful OCR Gateway chemistry specification that doesn't allow any progression through it in terms of difficulty - in fact I would suggest it gets easier.
If you have any books from the "teaching secondary..." range from the ASE the concepts and ideas are arranged in such a way that they allow learners to progress in difficulty and understanding. This is what I interpret "planning for progression" to mean.
The long term plan introduces the core concepts and ideas that students need to base their knowledge of the next set of concepts and ideas on. The methods and abstract models that are introduced early in the scheme allow students to access the ideas later and the complexity and difficulty of the topics being covered increases through the curriculum.
It might be that this plan is across key stages; what concepts have to be grasped at key stage 3 in order to support progression to key stage 4. It may be within a key stage, for example teaching particles in year 7 means that students can grasp ideas in the atoms and elements and sound modules in year 8.
However, there is also planning for progression in the short-term. For example in a single lesson. The 5E method of lesson planning allows this, by eliciting the ideas students will need, allowing them to use these to explore something else and then using what they have found out to make connects to something further shows short-term progression.
In the medium term a module might allow progression of ideas. For example in acids and alkalis, the progression is from "there are such things as acids" to "there are such things as acids and their opposites alkalis" and move on to "acids and alkalis have different strengths you can measure using pH", to "acids and alkalis can cancel each other out".
SOLO taxonomy is a useful guide to working out if the tasks being asked of pupils are more difficult than the ones before. Or using national curriculum levels, as looking at the way topics have been arranged by their QCA unit there is clear progression in difficulty from year 7 to 9, and it is increasingly possible to access higher levels in the majority of lessons in year 9.
I hate the new GCSE courses and in a lot of ways I believe that this is because they reduce the opportunity for me to do any "planning for progression" in the medium term. I hope that the new curriculum will brig this back. Although I do not expect my wishes to be heard.
During the last few weeks I have had to think about these points a lot. Firstly I have had to write a year 6 scheme up to Christmas with nothing but the word "underground" as a stimulus. And now I am back I am teaching the dreadful OCR Gateway chemistry specification that doesn't allow any progression through it in terms of difficulty - in fact I would suggest it gets easier.
The long term plan introduces the core concepts and ideas that students need to base their knowledge of the next set of concepts and ideas on. The methods and abstract models that are introduced early in the scheme allow students to access the ideas later and the complexity and difficulty of the topics being covered increases through the curriculum.
It might be that this plan is across key stages; what concepts have to be grasped at key stage 3 in order to support progression to key stage 4. It may be within a key stage, for example teaching particles in year 7 means that students can grasp ideas in the atoms and elements and sound modules in year 8.
However, there is also planning for progression in the short-term. For example in a single lesson. The 5E method of lesson planning allows this, by eliciting the ideas students will need, allowing them to use these to explore something else and then using what they have found out to make connects to something further shows short-term progression.
In the medium term a module might allow progression of ideas. For example in acids and alkalis, the progression is from "there are such things as acids" to "there are such things as acids and their opposites alkalis" and move on to "acids and alkalis have different strengths you can measure using pH", to "acids and alkalis can cancel each other out".
SOLO taxonomy is a useful guide to working out if the tasks being asked of pupils are more difficult than the ones before. Or using national curriculum levels, as looking at the way topics have been arranged by their QCA unit there is clear progression in difficulty from year 7 to 9, and it is increasingly possible to access higher levels in the majority of lessons in year 9.
I hate the new GCSE courses and in a lot of ways I believe that this is because they reduce the opportunity for me to do any "planning for progression" in the medium term. I hope that the new curriculum will brig this back. Although I do not expect my wishes to be heard.
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Controlled Assessment Graphs
I really want my triple science students to get maximum marks from their graphs.
It isn't going to be easy.
What constitutes a "complex mathematical technique"? And once you've used one how do you demonstrate "quantitative uncertainty"?
I know year 13 students who would struggle to do this independently.
The success will be when they do it successfully in their controlled assessment.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
It isn't going to be easy.
What constitutes a "complex mathematical technique"? And once you've used one how do you demonstrate "quantitative uncertainty"?
I know year 13 students who would struggle to do this independently.
The success will be when they do it successfully in their controlled assessment.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:United Kingdom
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