1. "Learning happens when people have to ___________ "
Professor Brian Coe, 2013
When do you think learning happens?

2. "Learning happens when people have to think hard "
Professor Brian Coe, 2013

3. thescienceteacher.co.uk
The role of challenge as a formative assessment tool for science teachers.
Welcome. This presentation is all about why we want to challenge students in science lessons. We will look at what challenge is and why and how we want to use it. Finally we will look at a new website I have been creating for science teachers that shares ideas and pedagogies on how to challenge students in science lessons.
Dr Jasper

4. What does a great lesson feel like?
Hurts
How hard are students thinking
Medium
Requires improvement
A signatures of most great science lessons is challenge. Challenge can be created in many different ways. If you were to sketch the level of challenge during a great science lesson what would it look like to you?
Inadequate
Not
time of lesson

5. What does a great lesson feel like?
Hurts
Hook I We
You
Plenary
Great +
How hard are students thinking
Medium
Do now
Requires improvement
I have reflected on when challenge could take place in a lesson and this is my thinking. Remember that challenge is not always a good thing. When giving information, use challenge carefully as this can overload working memory and cause confusion.
Inadequate
Not
time of lesson

6. What is the purpose of challenge? What is it doing?
I used to think that challenge just made people think and that was a good thing. More thinking = more learning. But I’m not sure that it is this simple. What exactly is the role of challenge in science lessons? We are now going to explore this question.

7. What do I mean by (optimal) challenge?
Challenge refers to a moderate level of difficulty that allows students to experience a sense of mastery and competence when they succeed.
Challenge does not just mean difficult.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978).

8. Challenge is used to motivate people for prolonged periods of time when they play a computer game. But why does this work?

9. Flow theory
Flow is a state when you are so into a task you forget about the world around you
Activities that challenge students, but are still within their ability to accomplish, are optimal emotional and motivational experiences as well as optimal learning. People are happy!
Flow theory – an explanation of how to create that sense of flow – match skills with level of difficulty. For me there are remarkable similarities here to the ZPD as developed by Vygotsky.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Intrinsic motivation and effective teaching: A flow analysis. In J. J. Bass (Ed.), Teaching well and liking it: Motivating faculty to teach effectively (pp. 72–89). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

10. Source: http://www.gamasutra.com
The stages needed to create cognitive flow share many key elements of a great science lesson. Flow theory has developed my own thinking on the role of challenge in science lessons: challenge is good because it allows the teacher to give clear and rapid feedback.

11. Why challenge students?
Address misconceptions and reorganises students’ thinking
Develops cognition
Makes assessment for learning visible so rapid feedback can be given
Motivates students
So, perhaps the greatest role of challenge is that it provides teachers with the ability to (i) find out specifically what their students do and do not know and (ii) allows teachers to provide rapid feedback that in-turn motivates students to learn more.

12. 2. How can we challenge students effectively in science?

13. How can we challenge students (PCR)?
Preparation
How high do I go?
Challenge
Rapid Feedback
When I want to challenge students I generally follow a three layered approach. 1. Find out what they already know. 2. Then make sure the challenge is adequately pitched to students’ level of knowledge and skill and 3. Provide rapid feedback to students during or after the challenge.

14. Preparation
Determine what your students already know and be clear on what prior knowledge and skills are necessary before you begin Establish what resources students are going to need to solve the problem
How do you find this out without giving a test?

15. Assessing prior knowledge
One idea to assess prior knowledge. Get the students to ask a question about an image. The quality and detail of the questions will tell you a lot about their prior knowledge. You do not need to answer the questions, the purpose of the activity is to gauge their level of knowledge not answer the questions. The questions could be written down and reviewed at the end of the topic.

16. Membrane proteins. What I already know
Step 1. Sketch and complete this spider diagram into your book using a blue pen to show what you know already about this topic.
Membrane proteins. What I already know
Another simple strategy to assess prior knowledge is to use spider diagrams. It really works. In this case we are assessing prior knowledge of membrane proteins.

17. Membrane proteins. What my partner already knows
Step 2. Now discuss your spider diagram with your partner. Can you add their ideas onto your spider diagram using a red pen.
Membrane proteins. What my partner already knows

18. Membrane proteins. What my class already knows
Step 3. Now discuss your spider diagram as a class. Can you add the class ideas onto your diagram using a green pen. The teacher may help by putting everyone’s ideas on the board.
Membrane proteins. What my class already knows
By the end of the activity all the ideas of the class are assembled onto the whiteboard by the teacher. The teacher then has a reasonably good idea of what their students do and do not know. The challenge can now be pitched accordingly.

19. Challenge: how can we challenge?
I tend to use four distinct ways to challenge students in science. Although an oversimplification, it is simple enough to be useful in school.

20. Have a go at this question.

21. The correct answer is described above
The correct answer is described above. Most students (and adults) will consider that temperature increases from 00:00. By specifically challenging this misconception we are able to provide rapid and focused feedback on this one possible prior-conception.
Hourly variations in surface temperature for a location at 45° North latitude over a 24 hour period.
Source:

22. Cognitive conflict
You present some new knowledge that is incompatible with students’ current ideas
Students have to reconsider their own ideas and accommodate this new information
Understanding becomes rooted and brings about conceptual change
The basic elements of cognitive conflict as outlined by Piaget. A powerful approach to bring about conceptual change. Lots of other ideas are available e.g. ice cubes melt faster on ‘cold’ metal blocks than ‘warmer’ plastic blocks. 22

23. Identify the deliberate shortcoming of these five models.
All materials are represented at room temperature.
Pace, set a time-limit
Use time-limits to create challenge. By limiting the time available you increase the demand of the activity. This task allows lots of different misconceptions to be challenged quickly. Feedback can be given as you review answers. If you really understand something you can do it quickly. Performance on timed tasks therefore provides some information on students’ understanding.
Source: National Strategy.

24. Off you go…open ended but with a clear outcome
You can increase the level of challenge of a task by limiting the number of instructions. I think the key thing with ‘open’ tasks is that you want the outcome of the task to be focused so that you know when the outcome has been achieved. This activity created by Sana Badri exemplifies excellent AFL. The teacher is able to immediately see when students arrive at the right answer: they have a white precipitate floating in a colourless solution. If students are getting blue solutions then rapid feedback by the teacher can be given to move those students on.
Contributed by Sana Badri

25. Probing questions http://thescienceteacher.co.uk/natural-selection
Probing questions allow you to challenge understanding of specific ideas within a concept. In this activity students answer questions about a scenario based on a family of ducks crossing a busy road. The activity challenge students’ naive prior-conceptions such as animals choosing to adapt and environmental changes being inherited. Through a discussion of students' answers we are able to find out what they do and do not know in a much richer way that can be achieved using exam questions.

26. Another example of a probing question.

27. Rapid feedback
As with most feedback it is best given during the task Make it specific and about the task, not the individual Re-teaching using the whiteboard and direct instruction can be a powerful way to rapidly address whole class difficulties
Feedback on the tasks can be achieved in lots of different ways. 1-1 dialogue, direct instruction at the front of the class or homework set to target specific misconceptions. For me this type of feedback, driven by the outcome of well-designed task, is so much richer and more effective than can be achieved by self-evaluation.

28. Be cautious when using challenge to first teach knowledge and skills
Best learning occurs when high skills are matched with high challenge
Assess prior knowledge first so you know how high to aim: challenge does not just mean difficult
Challenge is most effective when used alongside rapid feedback
Like the best things in life, use challenge sparingly. Challenging all the time leads to cognitive overload and boredom. Use appropriate challenge as a formative assessment tool when skills and knowledge have been learnt and you are looking to see if they have been understood.

29. thescienceteacher.co.uk Search Share Newsletter
Let’s look at thescienceteacher.co.uk. A free website created by me (Jasper Green) for science teachers. The website provides teaching resources and ideas to support effective pedagogies to challenge students in science lessons. You can search for specific resources and join the monthly newsletter. I am hoping that other science teachers will share their resources with thescienceteacher.co.uk so that these can be uploaded onto the site. There is an emphasis on challenge and curation. We want to provide a website that provides only a few excellent resources for each topic so that teachers don’t have to spend hours trawling through worksheets.

30. Resources Editable MSWord file PDF
For each resource there is an editable word document and a PDF to download.

31. Pedagogy
Thescienceteacher.co.uk has a section dedicated to science pedagogy. These pages are concise summaries of the key areas of science education research, together with my own experiences from teaching science in secondary schools.

32. Thank you
Susie Sell, editor Jill White and Tom Kitwood for resources and valuable discussions Science teachers and students for inspiration
@sci_challenge
thescienceteacher.co.uk
A massive that you to the above poeple for supporting the development of thescienceteacher.co.uk.