Just give me the lessons and I'll teach them!

So I have a wee confession... It has changed through the four years that I have worked as a facilitator from "let me give you everything you want to teach science" to "I don't think giving you everything is the best way to do science PLD, let me help you to learn how to plan some effective science units..."; sort of that whole 'give a man a fish or teach him how to fish' idea. When I often have a reflection time for PLD, I do get a few comments wanting lots of lessons and units.

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And here's my worry. Yes, I could pass on some resources and I know that there are other PLD providers who do this -sending out a box jam-packed with lots of great science ideas or providing participants with a folder full of lessons and activities for classes, and to be honest, I do share unit plans and lesson activities too (although I'm not sure where they end up as most teachers I work with have no idea about these lovely lessons!)... However, I don't know how this is going to support teachers to learn about the science pedagogy. When I was teaching, I used to sometimes download great units. I would teach them, the kids would love them, but I'm not sure I grew in my own understanding of that curriculum area or the pedagogical knowledge to teach, for example, science well. In fact, most of the stuff I downloaded wasn't New Zealand based but I would decide it was good enough! I was so flat out with all the other curriculum areas that to have prepacked units were marvellous!

Looking back, I realised that I still actually taught Science or Social Sciences or Art the same as I always did. I once found a great website with art critiquing and I remember one lesson where we were a bit behind and I was basically saying look at the artist's work, see those lines? Get them on paper! Our Japanese art (I forget the artist's name but he created beautiful ink art) looked nothing like the art we were looking at because I didn't really 'get' art. Looking at the essence statement in the NZC (p. 17), I think I understand art better now. I think I would spend more time looking at art, a sense of communication, a sense of a message shared with me by the artist and then creating our own 'messages' in that form.

Sometimes we're so busy that we just want to get the science done! Those boxes of resources are marvellous and I know there could be some good science in them but what do you do if there are no more boxes? Or courses? Or (heaven forbid) me!!! Do I understand the science well enough to be able to teach a nature of science based unit (or science capabilities based)? Do I know how to question? Can I think of ways of dealing with student misconceptions (or my own!)? And just as importantly, are these ready made units actually reflecting student wonderings? Are they an authentic context that reflects my students, where they're at, the place I'm working in... My class was predominantly Maaori, so I had to adapt any unit to reflect this.

And here's the goal of this blog! Teaching the science capabilities seems difficult at first. I'm always delighted though when teachers get the essence of what this is about and get excited! I don't need to know a lot of content (although I need a bit even just for my own confidence), and I do need to know how to question well (and I have Paul's lovely question sheets to help me), and how to involve the children and get them wondering and investigating further. Sometimes a prepacked box, or printed lessons (and yes, even mine) won't know or understand your class! They'll need some adapting. In fact, you may not even want to follow my roadmap! Or the Learning Intentions... I know that Paul's lesson is focusing on Gather and Interpret Data but I actually want to develop their thinking around explanations so I'll shorten this bit and extend out their wonderings so we can get some investigating happening and then build up explanations. I'll also get some School Journal articles together so we can explore some literacy examples to scaffold writing explanations as well as some fake news articles to challenge their critiquing.

What does excite me with the PLD reflections is that some teachers do ask for planning support! I know I've been in this job for a few years now and I'm pretty much able to automatically slip into gear with thinking nature of science style and I also know it's taken a while to get here (and that I still have lots to learn and grow in!). I also remember being a teacher and the pressure of planning. I used to use the second week of the holidays to do my planning and I never got it finished! So my goal with the PLD is to support teachers to be able to adapt what's out there.

We have the Science Learning Hub (with NZC planned lessons, units, videos, posters, etc, etc), the scienceonline site with TKI (with capabilities lessons at all the different levels and for all the science capabilities), pond, Royal Society, and NZAPSE (science educators site) just for starters online! And these are all kiwi sites. There's also the Connecteds, School Journals, Making Better Sense, Building Science Concepts books in the cupboard at your school! There are many, many activities out there on the interweb as well. I use a number of American, British and Australian resources in my science teaching but never as printed! In fact even the NZ stuff, I will adapt for what I want to do, how I can support the teacher who may have given me some ideas as to what the class has been up to, and if I know the class well enough, to suit them.

By adapting the lessons, they'll be tailor made for my bunch! I might add more questioning, or even need to add the whole science capabilities idea as most international resources (and our older science printings) chase after content. I might drop bits altogether. I need to also be thinking about those authentic contexts, what I want the children to get out of the lessons and where to after that.

The big question is always if I had to teach science myself with no support, would it be a science capabilities based lesson or unit? If all the external PLD became extinct, what is your science understanding? What is important to you for the children to understand and develop? What do you want children in your class to leave with (and that's only a couple of months away!)? Adapting a resource might seem scary but it can be fun and actually help develop your thinking and understanding of science! It can be PLD for you!  So what do I want at the end of the unit? What evidence do I want to record about student understanding in science? What do I want them to have developed further? These are hard questions! Is it important they know that wasps have six legs and three body parts? Or Saturn has a hexagonal cloud structure over its north pole? Or that water is produced when you mix baking soda and vinegar together? Or that e=mc²? That last one might be a wee bit hard!

YouTube image of the man himself!

I might like children to know some of this stuff as we're going along. I get excited if a child comes up to me with a shell and can tell me all about it -and I get even more excited about the process... unless it's simply a lucky google hit! I want to hear the child's enthusiasm and passion! I want to ask questions and see how this child is thinking and answering. I want to know how they can be sure it's a such and such shell...

So what do I want at the end of the unit? I don't mind if it's magnets, friction, ants, the solar system, broadbeans or the theory of light! I want to know that the children are developing a concept of what science is about. I want them to be learning about evidence and proof and investigating and asking questions and being curious. I want them to 'own' the science, to know it's their science. I want them to grow up and ask questions, be sceptical, be confident to find answers, and to challenge thinking (their's and other people's)! So this is what I'll be checking as the lessons are progressing. My lessons pinched from somewhere may not include any of these ideas so I'm going to have to adapt, scribble everywhere, pull in other ideas etc. I may even ask a knowledgeable person about tikanga... I want to get the students planting and wondering about adding some authentic contexts for them, could you help at all? 

So get out there, be confident, listen to what the students are interested in and follow their lead! This was going to be a post all about how to adapt and I've sort of done that but I think there might need to be a part two!

Keep on sciencing
Paul