Using technology gives us the opportunity to make life a little easier. Although there will be some preparation involved, multiple choice questioning is one of those areas.
http://yorkscience.org.uk/2014/06/the-learning-brain-does-testing-make-you-smarter/ this blog post has convinced me that there could be advantages to regular testing of students.
It is possible to get students to complete multiple choice tests using technology that easily tracks the answers the students give. There are a number of ways of doing this.
http://www.socrative.com
https://plickers.com
http://get.quickkeyapp.com
http://www.flubaroo.com
These sites and applications that have been recommended to me, having been used with success by colleagues. Each one has different attributes.
Plickers is useful as the multiple choice question is not input to the software and therefore it is possible to use existing resources. Students are allocated a numbered card, which they hold up in a particular orientation depending on their answer, their responses can be immediately read using an app on your phone. The app saves the responses.
Quick Key reads multiple choice responses using a phone too. Students fill in a sheet you download from the site with their A-D responses. Allowing the app to do the marking means quizzes can be marked almost instantly.
Flubaroo carries out analysis on questions and grades tests for quizzes completed using google forms.
Socrative requires students to have a device, but they don't need a log on. However, using socrative codes it is possible to use quizzes other people have written, and this would save time. It isn't necessary to set up classes as the students add their names when they compete tests. Socrative tests can be printed out, and it is possible to type them on an excel template and upload, which is quicker than using the app.
All four methods allow responses to be saved. Having the data to hand allows the progression of students to be tracked, giving an indication of strong and weak topic areas, and therefore gives a starting point for intervention, reports and parents evening discussions. This blog post http://eviedblog.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/making-better-use-of-assessments-part-2/ Austin Booth explains how he uses a spreadsheet to track the attainment of students in the topics he has taught.
Writing multiple choice questions isn't always easy. There is some advice here: http://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/mcqdesign/ , examiners reports can give some ideas for incorrect answers http://yorkscience.org.uk/2013/06/making-best-use-of-exam-questions/ and it is also possible to find more online via a search.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
York Tweet Up 2014
Yesterday was the third #YorkTU, hosted by Mary Whitehouse at University of York.
During the day we had numerous presentations by a range of people involved in science education. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to ask questions after the presentations.
For me there were two powerful things about the day. Firstly there were no expectations of outcome from the day. What you take away from the event and put into practice is entirely down to you. And secondly there are some very reflective practitioners out there who are taking on board external ideas and using them to help them make an impact.
For a few the starting point of a talk was 'We are in this position, but we are doing this to turn the situation into a positive and useful experience for students and staff'. The choices and resultant practices of science teacher colleagues are deliberate and with purpose.
Alongside the ideas that can be used back at school is the opportunity to talk to people with knowledge of the current curriculum changes and development.
I don't know why this type of event needs to happen independent of the knowledge of schools and school management, but for me this is when the best sharing happens and I am at my most reflective.
I found the presentations of Austin Booth and Rebecca Walsh powerful. They have used spreadsheets that 'RAG' the confidence of students in specification areas. I am certainly considering how we might use this to help students and teachers identify strengths and weaknesses. I feel that for students who benefited from seeing the BTEC tracker to motivate them, this is a possible useful approach to GCSE, and this applies to the disappearance of modules too.
I also enjoyed Katy Bloom's presentation about her research into feedback. I was interested to see that her research backs up the finding of other studies. (Sometimes I wonder if research is transferable). It was also interesting to see that students only recognise written feedback as feedback.
Richard Needham's presentation highlighting the increased numeracy demand was also of great interest. I just feel that I am coming to terms with literacy within my teaching, but now need to properly address numeracy. 'We already do that via equations triangles and drawing graphs' isn't quite going to cut it! This is something I need to put into my plans for the coming year.
Lastly, I need to raise again the great resources on the STEM elibrary and commend them to all science teachers.
Thank you to Mary and the UYSEG team for hosting, and to all the presenters who raised my morale and inspired me to be that bit more reflective.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
During the day we had numerous presentations by a range of people involved in science education. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to ask questions after the presentations.
For me there were two powerful things about the day. Firstly there were no expectations of outcome from the day. What you take away from the event and put into practice is entirely down to you. And secondly there are some very reflective practitioners out there who are taking on board external ideas and using them to help them make an impact.
For a few the starting point of a talk was 'We are in this position, but we are doing this to turn the situation into a positive and useful experience for students and staff'. The choices and resultant practices of science teacher colleagues are deliberate and with purpose.
Alongside the ideas that can be used back at school is the opportunity to talk to people with knowledge of the current curriculum changes and development.
I don't know why this type of event needs to happen independent of the knowledge of schools and school management, but for me this is when the best sharing happens and I am at my most reflective.
I found the presentations of Austin Booth and Rebecca Walsh powerful. They have used spreadsheets that 'RAG' the confidence of students in specification areas. I am certainly considering how we might use this to help students and teachers identify strengths and weaknesses. I feel that for students who benefited from seeing the BTEC tracker to motivate them, this is a possible useful approach to GCSE, and this applies to the disappearance of modules too.
I also enjoyed Katy Bloom's presentation about her research into feedback. I was interested to see that her research backs up the finding of other studies. (Sometimes I wonder if research is transferable). It was also interesting to see that students only recognise written feedback as feedback.
Richard Needham's presentation highlighting the increased numeracy demand was also of great interest. I just feel that I am coming to terms with literacy within my teaching, but now need to properly address numeracy. 'We already do that via equations triangles and drawing graphs' isn't quite going to cut it! This is something I need to put into my plans for the coming year.
Lastly, I need to raise again the great resources on the STEM elibrary and commend them to all science teachers.
Thank you to Mary and the UYSEG team for hosting, and to all the presenters who raised my morale and inspired me to be that bit more reflective.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, 15 August 2014
Socrative Quizzes
I want to use socrative to capture student's progress at the end of a lesson. So I have made a few short quizzes and will make some more.
If you would like to take a look at the first ones that I have done then the codes are below.
P1c A spectrum of waves (features of transverse waves and wave equation):12371027
P3a Speed (distance-time graphs): 12195705
P3b Changing Speed (speed-time graphs): 12198553
You can then import my quizzes. I hope there are minimal mistakes, but do let me know if you find a problem.
I think that it will be quicker to use the excel template to import questions and answers as it doesn't involve quite so much clicking.
If you would like to take a look at the first ones that I have done then the codes are below.
P1c A spectrum of waves (features of transverse waves and wave equation):12371027
P3a Speed (distance-time graphs): 12195705
P3b Changing Speed (speed-time graphs): 12198553
You can then import my quizzes. I hope there are minimal mistakes, but do let me know if you find a problem.
I think that it will be quicker to use the excel template to import questions and answers as it doesn't involve quite so much clicking.
Thursday, 14 August 2014
Transition between QCA and Activate
Since 2000 my school has followed the QCA schemes of work. Even in 2008 when the change in the curriculum allowed science departments to be more creative we stuck with the QCA units. (Which I think was a wise decision).
However, now we need to transition to the new national curriculum.
Ultimately the plan is to teach the following activate units at Key Stage 3:
Click for the google doc.
However, we have taught the QCA units, so we need to transition for Year 8 from the old scheme into the new one.
Below is the plan for this transition.
We hope that by the end of Year 8 the GCSE curriculum will be developed enough that we will be able to use the time at the end of Year 9 to fill in any gaps that the student may have so they can be prepared well for GCSE.
However, now we need to transition to the new national curriculum.
Ultimately the plan is to teach the following activate units at Key Stage 3:
Click for the google doc.
However, we have taught the QCA units, so we need to transition for Year 8 from the old scheme into the new one.
Below is the plan for this transition.
We hope that by the end of Year 8 the GCSE curriculum will be developed enough that we will be able to use the time at the end of Year 9 to fill in any gaps that the student may have so they can be prepared well for GCSE.
Monday, 11 August 2014
Reading Blogs and Saving Articles (Feedly and Pocket)
I want to recommend two apps not usually promoted in list of apps for teachers and teaching. The first is Feedly.
I really enjoy reading blog posts. There are many people out there sharing resources, ideas and opinions. Blogs like http://cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.co.uk from Amjad Ali for activities or http://www.learningspy.co.uk for opinions from David Didau. Feedly is an RSS reader that will pick up blog posts from your saved blogs and show the posts from the last 30 days. This means the posts come to you rather than having to check the blog.
However, once something useful has been found then it's useful to have a way to save it for reference later. This is where Pocket comes in.
It is possible to link pocket to twitter. This means it is possible to save links and images from tweets. It can be added to safari to save links too. Or links can be copied and pasted into the app or website.
The advantage off both these apps is they work as a website or app, so you can access your account wherever there is an internet connection. Both have subscription versions, but I have never felt the need to subscribe.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Royal Society Report
I missed the #ASEchat about the Royal Society report about the future of STEM education. I have since taken the time to read the summary of the report https://royalsociety.org/~/media/education/policy/vision/reports/vision-summary-report-20140625.pdf and the full version too: https://royalsociety.org/~/media/education/policy/vision/reports/vision-full-report-20140625.pdf
The key recommendations of the report are below. In the full report page 12 has a time line for achieving the vision.
I think that all the points are important.
However, I also believe that I am coming at this from the status quo. We should be thinking about what 16-19 education is for. If we can move away from it being a ticket to university only, then there is the opportunity to reassess what and how we teach students post-16.
I am concerned about the number of students who do only one science A-level. Science A-levels are the most common essential or desirable qualifications (after maths) for getting into university and don't only one of them often isn't enough. A rethink of the qualification suite at 16-19 would be welcome.
In the future more knowledge will be accessible from the web through subscriptions to publishers resources. Incremental changes and resources that keep pace would justify the subscription format. Although I don't mean to justify this practice by having constant change.
The recommendation includes setting up an expert body to oversee the curriculum. I would welcome this. It is important that we include people who have thought carefully about how progression of learning, how the topics will relate to the skills that need to be built and to the knowledge and skills that are needed once the students leave school. I think an expert body is best placed to oversee this. It should be tied to the long-term prosperity of the country and not be a political football.
I can't see this happening though. This government cut the quangos in order to give teachers and schools more autonomy and the DfE more control (that I can see). This kind of body would have to be funded by the government to avoid allegations of bias and I can't see that happening.
I and really pleased to see that the Royal Society also included technicians in this area. Effective and knowledgable technicians are vital to high quality science teaching. Their knowledge and organisation support science teachers and boost their CPD.
The other comment that interests me under this heading the summary of the report is that subject-specific professional development should be a requirement. I feel that the SLC (in their own interests I grant you) have put forward a strong case for this. However, professional development is more than just going on a course and I hope that the engagement of teachers in their own development and reflection on their practices continues to grow. I see this happening, however it still needs to be formalised and linked to evidence and research into impact.
This is an area that the government need to think carefully about. What does a career path for a teacher look like and does it represent the best possible way to ensuring that there are the best possible teachers in the classroom. I think the current system promotes leadership and school based issues over subject specialists and those who want to spend time in the classroom.
I would like to see more practical ideas for how this could be accomplished without having resorting to vast amount of work for individual schools and departments that I envisage. It is certainly not an area many schools can prioritise as they need good attendance of students to lessons to help them focus on grades. This means there is less time to visit companies or have outside speakers.
I also like to see that the Royal Society feel that accountability should be more than just exam results. I understand why exam results are so liked, but I have to agree. Perhaps the school's alumni or destinations should be looked at (although I would hate young people to be forced into careers for the sake of league tables), perhaps the engagement students have with the wider community. Perhaps an e-portfolio of the work of students so that progress can be assesses?
I hope that the Royal Society are keeping an eye on the work that the Heads Roundtable (and vice versa) are doing on accountability measures. The aims of the two bodies may be aligned.
On area that I have been interested in recently is girls being put off physics, seeing it as too masculine and not for them. I am interested to see where the IoP go with this and if they can find a way to have a positive impact on the proportion of girls and boys studying physics.
What is the best way to teach science? Does it depend on the topic? Does practical really help? Can we teach problem solving in science lessons? We are science teachers, we should be able to look to evidence to work out the best way to teach.
It is a really interesting report and I suggest you have a look.
The key recommendations of the report are below. In the full report page 12 has a time line for achieving the vision.
I think that all the points are important.
Of all the recommendations I believe that this is one of the hardest to implement. I will be interested to see how the demand on the number of maths teachers changes as students have to study maths to 18 if they have no achieved a grade C at GCSE. I would also be interested in knowing how this would impact at GCSE. Science is such a vast knowledge base that I can't see how we could agree on a satisfactory curriculum.All young people study mathematics and science up to the age of 18.
However, I also believe that I am coming at this from the status quo. We should be thinking about what 16-19 education is for. If we can move away from it being a ticket to university only, then there is the opportunity to reassess what and how we teach students post-16.
I am concerned about the number of students who do only one science A-level. Science A-levels are the most common essential or desirable qualifications (after maths) for getting into university and don't only one of them often isn't enough. A rethink of the qualification suite at 16-19 would be welcome.
Curricula and their assessment are stabilised and support excellent teaching and learning.I can't disagree with this. We have just had a curriculum review that changed very little. Does a change in the assessment require a change in the specification? Do we need to have a big swap round every 4-6 years or can we have incremental changes where they are necessary?
In the future more knowledge will be accessible from the web through subscriptions to publishers resources. Incremental changes and resources that keep pace would justify the subscription format. Although I don't mean to justify this practice by having constant change.
The recommendation includes setting up an expert body to oversee the curriculum. I would welcome this. It is important that we include people who have thought carefully about how progression of learning, how the topics will relate to the skills that need to be built and to the knowledge and skills that are needed once the students leave school. I think an expert body is best placed to oversee this. It should be tied to the long-term prosperity of the country and not be a political football.
I can't see this happening though. This government cut the quangos in order to give teachers and schools more autonomy and the DfE more control (that I can see). This kind of body would have to be funded by the government to avoid allegations of bias and I can't see that happening.
Teachers have high professional status and there is a strong supply of science and mathematics specialists.This is a bit of a circular issue, if we don't have good teachers, then we probably won't have a supply of them as young people won't be enthused by the subject areas. I want to see support for existing teachers and better professional support.
I and really pleased to see that the Royal Society also included technicians in this area. Effective and knowledgable technicians are vital to high quality science teaching. Their knowledge and organisation support science teachers and boost their CPD.
The other comment that interests me under this heading the summary of the report is that subject-specific professional development should be a requirement. I feel that the SLC (in their own interests I grant you) have put forward a strong case for this. However, professional development is more than just going on a course and I hope that the engagement of teachers in their own development and reflection on their practices continues to grow. I see this happening, however it still needs to be formalised and linked to evidence and research into impact.
This is an area that the government need to think carefully about. What does a career path for a teacher look like and does it represent the best possible way to ensuring that there are the best possible teachers in the classroom. I think the current system promotes leadership and school based issues over subject specialists and those who want to spend time in the classroom.
Students understand the significance of STEM through better careers awareness and guidance.This is an area that I feel that I am weak in. I really have little idea what scientists do beyond go to university and research things. I know that there are companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca who are very keen to promote good science teaching, I assume because they want scientists... But what does working for them look like, what would you do? It is easy for me to say to students that science is linked to every part of life, but how does that really link to careers?
I would like to see more practical ideas for how this could be accomplished without having resorting to vast amount of work for individual schools and departments that I envisage. It is certainly not an area many schools can prioritise as they need good attendance of students to lessons to help them focus on grades. This means there is less time to visit companies or have outside speakers.
I see that the Royal Society has a vision where some teachers are trained to become expert assessors. I have heard this idea before and I am coming to like it. I think it is certainly something ofqual (and score) should look at further. We need to be able to bring back teacher assessment as a trusted part of the assessment of science qualifications.The success of students, teachers and education systems is judged through appropriate and broadly based assessment and accountability measures.
I also like to see that the Royal Society feel that accountability should be more than just exam results. I understand why exam results are so liked, but I have to agree. Perhaps the school's alumni or destinations should be looked at (although I would hate young people to be forced into careers for the sake of league tables), perhaps the engagement students have with the wider community. Perhaps an e-portfolio of the work of students so that progress can be assesses?
I hope that the Royal Society are keeping an eye on the work that the Heads Roundtable (and vice versa) are doing on accountability measures. The aims of the two bodies may be aligned.
I agree with this statement, we need to find out what influences students to study STEM and work out what puts them off. I would be interested in finding out how many students have science as their favourite subject in Year 7 and how many of them have maintained that to Year 9 or 11? How then can we change our approach to have an impact on that.Education policy and practice are better informed by evidence.
On area that I have been interested in recently is girls being put off physics, seeing it as too masculine and not for them. I am interested to see where the IoP go with this and if they can find a way to have a positive impact on the proportion of girls and boys studying physics.
What is the best way to teach science? Does it depend on the topic? Does practical really help? Can we teach problem solving in science lessons? We are science teachers, we should be able to look to evidence to work out the best way to teach.
It is a really interesting report and I suggest you have a look.
Monday, 21 July 2014
Socrative
As I have mentioned before. The girls at my school will all be arriving at school in September with iPads in September. I want to make sure that I am utilising them from day one for two reasons. 1) I am interested in seeing how they can impact on my practice and 2) I want to make sure that the iPads are value for money for the families.
I am using explain everything, audio boo, nearpod, iDoceo, QR codes and pinterest. I have had a go at Aurasma and will continue to work on iBooks too, with a view to the new curriculum.
However, another tool I want to utilise is Socrative.
I am using explain everything, audio boo, nearpod, iDoceo, QR codes and pinterest. I have had a go at Aurasma and will continue to work on iBooks too, with a view to the new curriculum.
However, another tool I want to utilise is Socrative.
It is a website and app that allows students to answer multiple choice, true & false, and short answer questions.
It is possible to upload an image to the question, which is very useful for science questions.
In the summer term I trialled this with a few classes using their mobile phones. They did find it hard to find the website and put in the room number to start with and there was some staggering of starts of the quizzes. I would hope to get over this as the students start to get familiar with the site and/or app (if they chose to download it). I also want to look at using the teacher paced idea to help students keep up and not race ahead.
I would also suggest that keeping a quiz short will help to reduce the time lag between the fast and slow finishers. I have perhaps made too many questions with 12.
After the quiz it is possible to download the report to see how students have got on. I am interested in doing this and uploading it to evernote and ultimately idoceo to help create better, personalised, feedback in reports and parents evening.
I have also noticed that it is possible to download the quizzes and hand them out as paper resources. I think this really adds to socrative: It takes a long time to type a multiple choice test, but this means that it will be better to type it into socrative and get a paper or online test. Two birds, one stone. It will also mean I can keep a copy in my teaching file or give a copy to a student who forgets or breaks their iPad.
When I have completed all the work for P1/3/4 from the Gateway science GCSEs suite I will share the resources, including the socrative quiz numbers.
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