So how did the students go?

Well after a wee hectic week with lots of driving and especially driving down a road that I wasn't even sure was a road, the term is coming to an end!

As a facilitator, I've been thinking about my own work:

• How successful has the PLD been?
• How will I measure this success? Is it by how many lessons the teachers have taken? By their engagement in the sessions?
• Who decides the success? Me? The teachers and principals?
• I don't want to measure my success by the amount of emails received as all the schools are reasonably quiet when it comes to communication!
• What about my blog and Facebook? Are they successful and again, how do I measure that? By number of engagements? Number of comments (on Facebook, this is almost zero!)?

I know that I'm sort of successful because schools aren't turning me away (!) and some even ask for more PLD. Teachers' responses during my visits is usually great so I think I'm not doing bad... But I really don't know how much they carry on with when I'm away. I have a sneaking suspicion that the rest of the school life gets in the way!

The last of the plums... I've been really interested in the amount of bees that get into the plums!

You can probably tell where this is going... How about science for the term? Have you been successful? I'm using 'successful' on purpose as I sort of think it's a loaded word! And rather subjective! We could be doing loads of science that children really enjoy and are engaged in -but does that mean it's been successful? 

The other big question that I've been challenging schools with, and I do sort of feel that I'm harping on about this a bit lately, is How do you know the children have been improving their science abilities? I'm thinking about the capabilities mainly, but the Nature of Science Curriculum Achievement Objectives could come into play here. And there's the rub! The capabilities are more like the Key Competencies and not levelled and Science in the NZC has the same objectives for 5 to 8 year olds and 9 to 12 year olds! 

One of the reasons that Autumn is my favourite season is the lovely fungi!
And of course finding mushrooms to eat!

If we use some indicators within a capability we can at least build an idea of whether children have improved this term. If you have some science observational drawings from the beginning of the term to now, you may be able to look for improvements. The same could be said for diagrams or children writing down, for example, some observations on rocks, insects, an experiment, etc. When I have worked in a classroom, we have pulled together literacy thinking, some maths skills, as well as our own OTJs to reflect on student work. We also compare to other student work within the classroom for more ideas, particularly on 'where to next'... for example, some children may be doing labels -we would like them all to; some children may be starting to write details for the labels but need more practice at with the science writing genre.

Even just using some indicators, I could at least decide where students are. For example, under Gather and Interpret Data is an indicator Notices change. I can decide how students communicate these observations or their gathering data through measurement -the Literacy and Mathematics Progressions can help but a simple assessment could be that the students are not noticing, are starting to (or with teacher support), or noticing 'well' or independently. If I have a large group that need teacher support, I might do some more work with them. 

In terms of more formal assessment, we do have some tools: the Science Thinking with Evidence assessments as well as the Assessment Resource Bank. You can use capabilities as a search term as well as other phrases eg "interpreting tables" or "compare and contrast". The cool thing here is that the arbs are levelled! If we're not certain what level our students are, the arbs may help.

I might even get the children to decide the success criteria alongside me as the teacher -what do they think 'observing like a scientist' might look like?

Finally, as a teacher, I might just grab the essence statement on P. 17 of the NZC: have I given space for students to explore how the natural physical world and science itself work? Are they participating as critical, informed and responsible citizens? And if I was feeling a bit like challenging you, I might ask, have they improved in these too?!

So, have a think about this term. Can you clearly show students have improved? Is there evidence? And what might this thinking do to shape your planning in science for term two? And I'm also happy to receive some reviews of my work this term -I guess you're all my students in a sense!

All that remains is for me to wish you a relaxing and refreshing term break! I'd be curious as to what science people are thinking about doing next term -if there's a big enough group, maybe I can help! Oh, and remember Science Week as well! Although the periodic table seems more secondary focused and a bit knowledge-based, I'm starting to think about how primary teachers can get involved. We need good contexts and this might just do the trick!

Keep sciencing!

Paul

My dog Ollie demonstrating the correct posture for term breaks!