I know what I said but this is good!!!

I know, I know... I did say that I wouldn't write as many posts but I think this is a good one. The thought occurred as I was chatting to a teacher about topics for science. The school are doing a range of smaller activities as well as ones the students have come up with (big yay for that!). We were chatting and I talked about 'doing' a topic -I can't remember what it was but it stopped me for a moment...

mentalfloss.com

Should we attempt to ensure our science programmes are driven by questions? I know that was a big hit with the good ol' problem solving days, where a term's unit had some 'big question', usually engineered by the teacher to be an effective one, followed by questions that the children wanted to find answers for. If I wanted to do something about insects. what if we had a conversation as a class just to talk about what we might like to find out and what we already know. You could write up the questions on post-it notes or better still, use padlet and save a tree! It could be that you hear a really good question that could sit at the top or fiddle with one or come up with one yourself.

The kiwi Praying Mantis... not that South African import one!
And yes, I'm that English import! From wikipedia.

One thing I love about teaching is the enthusiasm and buy-in from students. I know that we all like to get the kids starting the questions but, during lessons I've taught, I've thrown out a question and then watched groups rushing off to find possible answers. I might chuck out some ideas myself, not removing the onus of research from the children but expanding and enriching it! By having post-it notes (or padlet), we can still go over all our other questions. It might be through a reading task or watching a video and then answering the question (a great writing activity or record voices for an oral language activity!).

A Katipo Spider -something, I've never actually seen.
It might not be an insect, but it could be a bug? From tripsavvy.com

If  I was doing insects, perhaps I could ask them all "What's the difference between a beetle and a bug?"... "Is there a difference?"... What do we think?, our parents think?, others around the school?, and the science field?! The cool part is, as the students seek answers, they'll learn about communicating in science ("bugs are yucky and I don't like them" is a perfectly fine communication and one I might be caught saying (!), but it's not a science statement!); investigating in science as they observe various insects to see if they meet the specific criteria; understanding about science as students think about this field is investigated and shared with other scientists and the general public; and finally they may even explore some of those pest insects like the Pea Weevil that I heard on the radio this week had been wiped out -and we're the first country to do that! And now I'm wondering if it should have capital letters...

The Pea Weevil -devdiscourse.com

I just ticked off all the nature of science strands with one question! I'd revisit our big question often and even pop out a few of the smaller post-it notes ones too, especially if I know some students might have uncovered some answers! One thing I do like to do is let the children answer the question even if it is not quite right or even wrong! "Metal objects sink", "Sugar disappears in water", "shadows move as the sun moves through the sky" are all incorrect but scientists have got it all wrong too (I wrote a post about this a wee while ago). The danger would be only having that answer. Chat with the class -Do we still agree with this answer? No? You found out that your uncle's boat is metal and it floats (thank goodness!)... So how could we write our new answer? Some metal objects sink? Let's do some more investigation into this -what kind of objects?, is it the type of metal?, etc... 

The good ol' Slater found in many terrariums -poor thing! From Massey University.

Anyway, I think that's enough for now! Why not take a look at your "Monarch Butterfly" unit, and wonder about starting with a question?

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome questions and comments!
Paul

PS: And yes, I went back through and added capital letters to the insect names!
PPS: Yes, there is a difference between bugs and beetles! Here's an interesting short link...

The Final Blogpost... well, for now anyway!

Hello and welcome to the first blog of 2020! This blog has always been about being responsive to what I'm seeing in classes and assuming (or presuming?!?) that if it's happening here it might be happening elsewhere too! However, I'm moving up the hill to take up the "Professional Experience Coordinator" position, placing students into high schools to learn about the marvellous profession of teaching. It will certainly be a whole new world (and yes, I've had that song stuck in my head all morning!) with a lot of new vocabulary too. However, I will still be doing a small amount of science and digital technology PLD so do sing out -and if I can't do it, I can suggest one of our other science PLD facilitators! That was the hardest part of accepting the new position, having to give up some exciting PLD plans for the year with schools I've worked with and loved, and schools I've never worked with but was very excited to!

I do hope that there may be the odd post after working in schools but not as often as previous years. And I can't imagine stopping thinking about science so that will pop up too, probably through Facebook (you can search "science happening NZ").

Right! So what have I been thinking about, science-wise? I've been thinking about PATs and assessment as well as the function of the first term: getting to know the children academically, emotionally and spiritually. Some schools do carry out the Science Thinking with Evidence assessment tool. There are two, one for Years 4 to 6 and one for Years 7 to 10 and both are online. I think they are a great tool to measure student progress in using the science capabilities.

If you don't use the STwEs, then how do you know what students are able to do when you focus on the science capabilities? Are they aware of them? Are children observing closely, inferring from data gathered? What does 'close observation' look like? Although I have my own list of what the capabilities look like at different levels, it's so much more valuable for teachers/teams/schools to sort this out for themselves: how do we think observation might be different for a Year 1 student and a Year 6?

Besides all this, teachers may just want to make some general comments about their classes as a whole -if we did a couple of the world famous Paul's science activities, it would show me how children are generally observing, writing descriptions, giving reasons, etc. It might be enough to show me that I need to do a bit more on using data to make sentences and not just 'it's out of my head' (although that is an important bit too!). And this is what I'm coming to for this term! Why not grab a few of the shorter activities for the term? Term 1 can be difficult with swimming, camps, athletics, etc but there's often little spots around the place. I remember my own bunch could be quite disillusioned with writing and reading, especially in the summer heat, but when it was a practical science activity, they were motivated. They might have to read (and sometimes order the steps correctly, which in itself could end up with interesting consequences!), or write up their reasoning as to what was happening, and then they were keen for literacy. I've had them outside with different height children measuring sprints and pacing to figure out how fast this dinosaur might have run if it was this tall...

As students do these activities you will notice the variety of observations, processes and how they draw their evidence and build explanations. Even spotting the range of these will give you ideas for the next activities...

• I notice that the observations are very basic, 
• I can see children aren't using maths measuring skills
• Their inferences aren't often connected to their observations
• The explanations show a good structure but seem to not have much data or proof in them

I like the thought of seeing the range of abilities and using this to decide next steps. It can also be good to think about what the next level might be for the children who are showing up at the top of the range -chat to the next level's class teacher! 

And that's what I've been thinking of. If you don't have my activities, you can use any you find on the internet -they'll be a lot shorter than my plans as I tend to use mine as PLD lessons to support teachers in thinking science capabilities-wise. I have loved sharing my thoughts with you all and I'm hoping that once the new job settles down a bit, I'll have more time to come back here! As always, read, use, share and comment! Oh, and ask questions -that could be the next blogpost!

have a fantastic term!