1. Is it worth doing practical work?
Evaluating whether it helps students to learn’
Mark Winterbottom
Senior Lecturer in Education
May 2017 1 1

2. Who am I? Senior Lecturer in Science Education,
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
Initial teacher education
MEd for teachers
CPD for teachers
Senior Examiner for OCR (like CIE but in the UK)
Head of Biology in a UK Upper School (GCSE, A level)
PGCE (QTS), Homerton College (Cambridge)
PhD in Evolutionary Ecology (Sheffield)
BA in Zoology (Oxford) 2 2 2 2

3. 1. Make sure you have a pen and your writing pad.
2. Sit in one of the seats which are in pairs, facing each other.
3. On your own, write down a description of a piece of hands-on / practical work you ask students to do, and why you like it.

4. Speed sharing! Why is hand-on work good?
Tell your partner about your activity for 45 seconds.
While you are talking and listening, think about what you and your partners value in hands-on work
At the very end of the speed share, with your final partner, answer the question below as a list of bullet points…make sure you both have a copy of your answer
Why is hand-on work good?

5. Stay still when the bell goes!

6. Evaluating hands on work
Return to the main tables. Using what you wrote down with your final partner, in pairs…
take a piece of paper, and write a list of questions for teachers to ask themselves when deciding whether to use a particular hands-on activity in the classroom.
It should have questions such as…
‘How does the activity students to learn?’.
‘How does the activity enable students to work together?’
Etc.

7. Task
In pairs, look back at the activities you wrote about at the start.
Complete the ‘evaluation form’ you have just invented to evaluate each of your hands-on activities.

8. What questions did you write down?

9. Evaluating Hands-On Work

10. Would students learn more if they spent less time doing hands-on work?

11. Popular With Students?
They may be popular with students because they are less demanding than theory lessons

12. Popular With Students?
Teachers often say that students are motivated or enthused by hands-on work
But when asked which approaches are "most useful and effective in helping them to understand the top approach was "having a discussion/debate in class“.

13. Popular With Teachers?
It's easier to check that a child has done something correctly, than it is to check that he or she has fully understood.
It's easier to teach a child how to do something, than it is to teach for understanding.

14. objects and observables
Why?
The purpose of hands-on work is to help pupils make links between two domains of knowledge:
Hands on minds on
'We need to increase the 'minds on' aspects of [hands-on] work, if we want to make it more effective.‘ (Miller and Abrahams 2009)
objects and observables
ideas
Hands-on work

15. What we ask them to do What they actually do
Did pupils do what they were intended to do (and see the things they were meant to see)?

16. Why did we ask them to do that?
What we ask them to do
Why did we ask them to do that?
What they actually do
Did it help?

17. Effectiveness at Level 1 Effectiveness at Level 2
Developer's objectives
what the pupils are intended to learn 2
Effectiveness at Level 1
Did pupils do what they were intended to do (and see the things they were meant to see)?
B. Task specification
what the pupils are intended to do 1
Effectiveness at Level 2
Did pupils learn (and can later show understanding of) what they were intended to learn?
C. Classroom events
what the pupils actually do
D. Learning outcomes
what the pupils actually learn

18. Domain of objects and observables
Domain of ideas
Effective 1
Students do what was intended with the objects and materials , and observe what they were meant to observe
Effective 2

19. Domain of objects and observables
Domain of ideas
Effective 1
Effective 2

20. Domain of objects and observables
Domain of ideas
Effective 1
Students do what was intended with the objects and materials , and observe what they were meant to observe
Effective 2
Students can later recall and describe what they did in the activity and what they observed

21. Domain of objects and observables
Domain of ideas
Effective 1
Students do what was intended with the objects and materials , and observe what they were meant to observe
During the activity, students think about what they are doing and observing, using the ideas intended, or implicit in the activity
Effective 2
Students can later recall and describe what they did in the activity and what they observed

22. Domain of objects and observables
Domain of ideas
Effective 1
Students do what was intended with the objects and materials , and observe what they were meant to observe
During the activity, students think about what they are doing and observing, using the ideas intended, or implicit in the activity
Effective 2
Students can later recall and describe what they did in the activity and what they observed
Students can later discuss the activity, using the ideas that it was aiming to develop, or which were implicit in it (and can perhaps show understanding of these ideas in other contexts

23. Your task In pairs, think about your activities from earlier.
For each one:
write down the learning objectives at the top of the page, and then
write down what success 'looks like' in each of the boxes
To finish, focus on teachers' answers to the final bullet point. Bring out the idea that practical in itself is not active learning, but work needs to be done to 'scaffold' that learning which can be drawn from the practical work.

25. Write about what the students will do
Write about what the students will see during the task, that is related to their eventual learning.
Write about what the students will learn how to do.
Write about what the students will be able to explain about what they do and see (i.e. what conceptual ideas they learn)

26. On the back:
To secure success, what additional input is required, over and above simply completing the activity?
This may need you to write down the questions you would ask (for example)

27. Finally
In pairs, think about another activity which you think may benefit from being evaluated like this.
Work through this new evaluation framework.
For your chosen activity, identify what success 'looks like' in each of the boxes.
Underneath, write down the questions that students would need to answer to help them achieve that success.

28. Why bother?
Improvement is not a matter of doing more activities, but of thinking about how they help learning, and refining them to make them even more effective.
Using hands-on work to enable students to build ideas themselves is essential to good teaching and learning.

29. Questionnaires
Your own lesson evaluations
Observations by colleagues
Interviews with students
Video and audio to review later

30. Any questions?? 31 31 31 31

31. Learn more! Getting in touch with Cambridge is easy
us at
or telephone (0) 32 32