The Science Continuum P-10 Learning & Teaching Branch Office for Government School Education

Maths and Science Strategy Challenges identified at the Maths and Science Roundtable: improve the quality of teaching and learning in mathematics and science, raise the profile of mathematics and science in the community, and increase the rates of student participation in mathematics and science. Key focus for classroom teachers  student engagement in science learning

OUR EDUCATIVE PURPOSE What is powerful to learn? What is powerful learning and what promotes it? LEARNER How do we know it has been learnt? Science Continuum P - 10 Science Continuum Purpose

Powerful learning in science restructuring existing ideas awareness of purposes; linking practical activities to science ideas reflection and metacognition thinking laterally and creatively connecting to everyday experiences; issues of science in society sharing intellectual control

Science Continuum P-10: Design VELS Science standards Science Knowledge & Understanding Science at Work Science concept development maps MatterLiving thingsForces & motionEarth & space Focus ideas Student everyday experiences vs scientific view Critical teaching ideas Teaching strategies Links to further resources

Focus ideas Student everyday experiences Scientific view Critical teaching ideas Teaching activities Further resources Eg. Friction is a force

Student everyday experiences Conceptions that students commonly bring into classrooms and experiences that lead to these Alternative meanings students have often constructed from initial teaching These have important implications for learning and teaching behaviours. Teachers need to find these in their own classrooms.

Challenge the answer Solids The particles are close together, stay in one position, but do keep vibrating. Liquids The particles are close together, but keep swapping places, they keep moving. Gases The particles are a long way apart, move very quickly, bounce around the container, collide hard with each other and the walls.

Challenge the answer Some Year 7 student challenges: Why do particles always move… keep colliding? [Wouldn’t] water fall between the holes in the particles of a cup?

Challenge the answer Why do atoms [in gases] float and not us? Why doesn’t a hole in a solid fill up if they are always moving? Why can’t I feel [or see] a table vibrating? How do the particles get stuck together? Are the particles hard or soft, what shape are they, are they coloured? How can particles make us?

Scientific view Statements of acceptable science relevant to many common conceptions are hard to find The language and the level of explanation are intended to be age and audience appropriate There are links to other critical teaching ideas and to a glossary

Critical teaching ideas These are intended as foci that are revisited in any teaching sequence as well as across topics and year levels They flow from insights into learning as well as from science.

Teaching activities: pedagogical purposes The pedagogical purposes provide a learning agenda They are entry points for what may be significant changes in practice

Teaching activities: pedagogical purposes Collectively these are ways of teaching important aspects of the nature of science They provide opportunities to hear stories from other teachers and to share and reflect on initial experiences, which is critical for teacher learning

Science Continuum: Maps sourced from The Atlas of Scientific Literacy, AAAS not aligned to the VELS hyperlinked – same concept in different contexts; critical teaching ideas that support development of the context

Further resources Digilearn Primary Connections Sample Science (coming)

OUR EDUCATIVE PURPOSE What is powerful to learn? Victorian Essential Learning Standards What is powerful learning and what promotes it? Principles of Learning and Teaching LEARNER How do we know it has been learnt? Assessment Science Continuum P - 10 Audit

Moving forward Watters & Diezmann (2003) School Science (a typical science classroom) World Science (science in practice) Problems are well defined and devised by teachers curriculum designers or publishers Problems are ill-defined and identified by practitioners – problem identification is as important as problem solution Focus is on communicating content, facts or on testing established theories Focus is on finding out the unknown or generating theory There is assumed to be a right answer to a problem (failures are attributed to methodology) Failure is important as an outcome of testing a theory – experience is the greatest teacher Science content is discrete based on technical rationality with systems being considered in isolation or clustered as traditional disciplines Content is integrated and holistic. Social, economic and ethical issues are significant considerations with reliance on skills of persuasion and argument