Sunday, 5 August 2018

Planning a science unit...

I hope the beginning of the term has gone well for you all. I have had a busy time with schools and planning for the term's science -which is always fun! From the discussions I had with the teachers, I thought it might support others who may also be planning.

I have developed a wee resource with laminate cards that we use to prompt our thinking with units that are for the whole term or longer. I wouldn't go to this length with smaller units (or lesson progressions) although often my lessons for teachers are that thorough simply because I want to support them in their thinking about the science capabilities.

My cards are used really to prompt our thinking rather than have all the answers. The first card is The Big Idea -what's the really big idea that underpins the whole unit. It's the thought that encapsulates science, reading, maths, social sciences, whatever! It's global and probably not an assessment WALT -for example, children appreciate the world around them or children take action.

Next is the NZC Principles, Vision, Values and Key Competencies. I know that these sort of happen all the time, but are there elements that can be deliberately focused on? With my work over the past couple of weeks, teachers have picked out critical and creative thinking themes and sustainability ideas. We also need to look at our own local school curriculum -the values or virtues, etc that the school uses. As with the NZC bits, are there any that we can particularly focus on? I like the idea of starting with these as they need to underpin the unit and the term's teaching.

Because this is a science unit (albeit integrated with other curriculum areas), we'll start with the Context Strands. I've been thinking lots about the idea of shifting from single context strands (i.e. Term Three is "Material World") to topics that can incorporate more than one strand. I might have a focus on one,  for example "Planet Earth and Beyond" and the Moon and Sun, but I might be able to develop some ideas in the "Physical World" with light and shadows. Remember, we don't assess student content knowledge, these context strands are the vehicle we use to develop student science capabilities or the nature of science. We still need the contexts to be rich and robust with lots of deep thinking and action happening though.

Now it's the stuff I particularly like! Science capabilities or the nature of science if you prefer. Remember that they are sort of interchangeable -you don't need to use both. The science capabilities can be found on the TKI site (try googling "science capabilities TKI") and again you'll probably be using more than one. I try to get teachers to focus on the capability that might be more suited to that year level so Gather and Interpret Data (G&ID) for the juniors, Use Evidence (UE) for the middles, and Critique Evidence (CE) for the seniors. I know that you need to use G&ID to develop UE thinking and you need both for the CE capability so all will be happening. It's just that as the teacher, I'm focusing on one particular capability, that's what I'm going to be assessing and using for my learning intentions. Of course, we will be looking at Interpreting Representations and possibly Engaged with Science too and they go across the levels.

Onto other curriculum areas... What else can you do with this topic? I like the idea of reading and writing (and oral language too I guess!) all wrapped up in the topic rather than simply independent stories that don't fit what we're studying as well as maths integrated. In a conversation I had last week, we talked about how to integrate reading and science, without losing the reading elements and gaining the idea that students can continue to develop their thinking about how the natural physical world and science itself work. It might be as simple as unpacking tables or diagrams, or did the scientist infer or observe and how do we know from the text...
We can also do some art or technology, etc too. One of the big things with integrating is that we still call science science. It's not topic. We might be doing a big unit on "The Lake" but when we do science-themed activities, we make sure that children realise that. Children are heading to high school without realising that they have had science lessons -they may remember topics but not make the connection. Of course we also want students to know what science is but that's what this whole blog is about!

I also had some extra cards -Tikanga Maaori, Digital Technologies, Citizen Science, Environmental Science, etc to stimulate thinking and further activities.

The final step is resources -where do we find them? They are pretty much everywhere but some ideal places to go is the Science Learning Hub, TKI might have some ideas,  Royal Society but also DoC, Landcare as well. DoC's lessons are great but besides that, here are lots of NZ resources for us to use. We don't need to download a ready-made unit -and most seem to come from the States but can create one as the unit progresses and student inquiry develops. I might have a couple of starters but then I want children to run the unit! If I do use some NZ lesson plans,  I'll need to adapt them for my class and if they're from overseas, I'm pretty certain they won't have a nature of science or capabilities focus.

Well, if you've got this far, well done! I'm happy to send out a pdf with the cards on to help with planning -just email me: paul.ashman@waikato.ac.nz.

Have fun, and enjoy your science for this term!
Paul

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