This is the Napier University / Institute of Physics presentation from the Saturday the 5th October 2024 event I was kindly invited to by Doctors Farmer and McGill.
It is a PowerPoint on PDF - but do not fret - I am trying to follow Robert Macmillan's "Clean Up Your Own Mess approach to neat and tidy presentations. https://robfmac.com/2019/09/29/clean-up-your-mess/
I also try to follow Dr Carolina Keupper-Tetzel's Learning Scientist approach, particularly on extraneous seductive detail. https://www.learningscientists.org/carolina-kueppertetzel https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2019/6/20-1
The Basic Presentation
The brief description of the presentation is that BGE Science Skills are complex and many schools and departments have created very challenging assessment rubrics to meet the needs of tracking processes. There is an attempt in this blog to demonstrate that this is unnecessary, adds to workload and, frankly, is not demanded by Education Scotland in any shape or form.
What are Skills? Skills in BGE Science can be found in the Benchmarks document. https://education.gov.scot/media/kosdrlaj/sciencesbenchmarkspdf.pdf
The are:
Inquiry and Investigative
Scientific Analytical Thinking Skills
Skills and Attributes of Scientifically Literate Citizens
This blog focuses on the first skill listed above.
Looking carefully at page four, we find a 'Do and Don't' list.
Even better, examine the right hand column only. That should become your guide when deciding what to do in your teaching. Avoid over-assessing, excessive evidence, level judgements, elaborate tracking and individual tick-box exercises.
Read the above paragraph and look at what you, or your department does. Is it within the spirit of the advice? Is it helpful to workload reduction? I must confess, I found some well-intentioned but crazily complex assessment rubrics that look like they would take hours of work from any teacher to observe, assess and record before translating that data into a tracking friendly grade
Seeing the Tree in the Wood
The job of a Scientist is to take complexity and try to explain it as simply as possible. A pattern emerges when you read the Benchmarks.
Whatever level you are teaching, this skill demands the same scaffold when investigating via practical work. Don't compolicate. There is further advice but I think the art of teaching means you can present and guide from basic principles and expand out to suit the child and not the policy document.
I'm Walking on Rosenshine
Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction are a massive help.
Modelling
Models and worked examples can help students learn faster. If you know what a WAGOLL is, your already following good research.
Scaffolding
Scaffolding means providing verbal or visual prompts for challenging tasks. Then, the art of teaching allows you to judge when to remove elements of support to suit the learning need of each child until they can accomplish the task itself with little or no support.
How?
In the past, completed investigation booklets can be used with subsequent ones having less help and support as the child develops. I have also used silly acronyms such as TAM RECON to guide children towards: Plan - Title, Aim, Method Carry Out - follow the plan Results - what do they look like? How do we record them neatly? Presentation - how do we communicate our results and trends? Can we communicate a conclusion? The final plea is, keep this simple - as simple as possible. Teach weans, not levels.
Thank You,
Paul
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