Thursday 23 August 2018

Juniors and Seniors -what do you know?

Kia ora koutou
This is just a quick post (mind you, I do say that a bit!) from a thought that popped into my head this week.
On the wall I have two NZC posters which have been up for quite some time. I decided to look closer and something about them struck me. One is for levels 1 and 2 of the curriculum and the other for levels 3 and 4. I have a funny feeling I downloaded them from the Ministry of Education website. Really the posters are focusing on the two different levels of the Key Competencies but they also had a different title on each with the juniors one titled "Emergent Understandings" and the seniors one "Developing Understandings". 
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It was a bit of a light bulb moment for me. Sometimes when I'm in junior rooms, I can see teachers working hard to develop quite intense and complex ideas for the children to get their head around. I'm always amazed when the children are able to share back what they've learnt but the minute I start asking questions it all starts to fall apart a bit. I'm not against going in-depth into science topics and certainly as the children learn more, they get hungry for more. One teacher I worked with told me once that her class had studied bubbles for the whole term. It wasn't a unit that the teacher had planned out every activity and direction before the class started but one where the teacher had some capabilities foci and the children led the whole inquiry themselves. This is exactly what science should be about! 
Anyway back on track... In the junior classes we're dealing with "emergent understandings" -just the beginning bits. We don't have to worry about whether or not children understand magnetic fields, tectonic plates, photosynthesis or the molecular structure of matter (all real life examples) we're just introducing these ideas to the children! We'll use some scientific vocabulary but the big focus is those ideas for Gather and Interpret Data concepts, and growing awe and wonder and curiosity AND an idea of what science is about (phew!).
If the seniors, and I mean Y5-8, are "developing understanding" this might make the programme at this end a little different. There's still space for new ideas, but to me (and here's the light bulb moment), if the children are developing understanding, there has to be some understanding that they have been exposed to in the junior room. And here's the big questions... do we know what the children learnt during the junior years? Do we know what ideas were shared, what units were taught so we can develop these ideas and understandings further? 
For some reason there does seem to be "junior" themed units: shadows, butterflies, float and sinking, etc but I reckon these are all great with the seniors too. With such beautiful weather outside, take the kids out quick and get them to point out their shadows. Now ask them to stand with their shadows on the other side of themselves -a lot will try to do this which shows where their understanding is: the emergent level: the sun's light source is creating a shadow of me. As a teacher I might try to develop it further with the seniors with "translucent" and "transparent" and what shadows actually are and...and... I might even dig out the Building Science Concepts shadows book for levels 1 and 2 and see what's in there!  
As I said earlier, there is room for new topics for the seniors but I love the idea of this 'learning pathway' happening through the school. As I wrote this sentence, the thought occurred to me could any 'new' topic the seniors want to do be at least introduced at a junior level? It's up to the junior teachers to find out what senior teachers might be wanting to do units on and vice versa!
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And that was my light bulb moment!

4 comments:

  1. I agree Paul. When I have introduced buoyancy with seniors I have had kids say "we did this in the Juniors," with the attitude that they have covered everything they need to know already. After challenging their thinking with a few pertinent ideas (images) like oil on water, ships/logs floating or the idea of neutral buoyancy they realise there is so much more to know, other than "things either sink or float", to develop their understanding.
    This begs the question; how can we ensure this is happening in schools, without prescribing contexts for study at each level?

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    1. And that's the big question... I sort of think there might be a place for a bit of student led topics as well as teacher directed work.

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  2. Kia ora koe Paora (Paul) kei te pehea koe
    I timata matau te mahi Hangarau me te Panui pukapuka, te kaupapa "The Tsunami that washed time away! We worked as a whole class on this reading (this was on the big screen). It was interesting to hear and see how many of the students were able to give feedback on this kaupapa. It was also a huge learning cure for me when it came to nga patai (questions), how I asked the questions? where the students were able to relate their own experiences or knowledge on this kaupapa (topic). Awesome session and huge learning, I have the next learning steps to this lesson that I would like to work on with my students, engari Kei te tino puku mahi matau (unfortunately we have been so busy, as schools are), fitting these sessions in have been impossible. This kaupapa has stirred the students and my interests in knowing more about this kaupapa.

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  3. Fantastic science happening here -I'm really excited to see you teachers doing this amazing mahi!

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