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My Personal Learning Network as at 02/05/23

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an abundance of resources for creating games for learning and researching

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An excellent resource for scientific research and understanding. QR codes can be placed around the school and children can use iPads to search for clues and answer questions. Could easily be adapted to maths and english as well as other subjects

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🚀  NEW RESOURCE

🟢 Evidence-Informed Teaching
https://t.co/1BwtVtsXhF

🗣️ CPD in schools and how to distribute knowledge collectively across the organisation.

 ➡️ Available via #TheToolkit 
https://t.co/9SYaeDaVSY

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Member Resources Archives - TeacherToolkit

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This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing using this site we'll assume you're OK with this. Accept Read More Close This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies

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Exclusive VIP resources for teachers, plus behind the scenes insights and support for schools...

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The Toolkit Membership is invaluable for teachers who want to keep up to date with issues happening at a national and international level.

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🚀  NEW RESOURCE

🟢 Evidence-Informed Teaching
https://t.co/1BwtVtsXhF

🗣️ CPD in schools and how to distribute knowledge collectively across the organisation.

 ➡️ Available via #TheToolkit 
https://t.co/9SYaeDaVSY https://t.co/xiZn7HIESJ

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🚀 NEW RESOURCE

🟢 Evidence-Informed Teachinghttps://t.co/1BwtVtsXhF

🗣️ CPD in schools and how to distribute knowledge collectively across the organisation.

➡️ Available via #TheToolkit https://t.co/9SYaeDaVSY pic.twitter.com/xiZn7HIESJ
— 🇬🇧 TeacherToolkit.co.uk (@TeacherToolkit) April 30, 2023

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Member Resources Archives - TeacherToolkit

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This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing using this site we'll assume you're OK with this. Accept Read More Close This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies

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Exclusive VIP resources for teachers, plus behind the scenes insights and support for schools...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.entities.urls[].description
The Toolkit Membership is invaluable for teachers who want to keep up to date with issues happening at a national and international level.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
🚀  NEW RESOURCE

🟢 Evidence-Informed Teaching
https://t.co/1BwtVtsXhF

🗣️ CPD in schools and how to distribute knowledge collectively across the organisation.

 ➡️ Available via #TheToolkit 
https://t.co/9SYaeDaVSY https://t.co/xiZn7HIESJ

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
🚀  NEW RESOURCE

🟢 Evidence-Informed Teaching
https://t.co/1BwtVtsXhF

🗣️ CPD in schools and how to distribute knowledge collectively across the organisation.

 ➡️ Available via #TheToolkit 
https://t.co/9SYaeDaVSY https://t.co/xiZn7HIESJ

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
🚀  NEW RESOURCE

🟢 Evidence-Informed Teaching
https://t.co/1BwtVtsXhF

🗣️ CPD in schools and how to distribute knowledge collectively across the organisation.

 ➡️ Available via #TheToolkit 
https://t.co/9SYaeDaVSY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].title
Member Resources Archives - TeacherToolkit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].description
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing using this site we'll assume you're OK with this. Accept Read More Close This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].title
Exclusive VIP resources for teachers, plus behind the scenes insights and support for schools...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].description
The Toolkit Membership is invaluable for teachers who want to keep up to date with issues happening at a national and international level.

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A website where you can create your own story using a range of pictures and templates. This resource would be great to model writing, complete a shared write or encourage independent writing.

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Storybird - Read, write, discover, and share the books you'll always remember.

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Become a better writer with Storybird's creativity tools. Online courses, challenges, and reader feedback will help you improve your writing.

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A programme used by schools where educators can set tasks on a range of topics for children to complete as homework. Popular for flipped learning approach.

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Flipped learning: the process where children are pre-taught by using ICT at home before the lesson is taught, allowing educators to focus on weak areas.

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What is flipped learning?

Flipped learning (sometimes referred to as flipped classrooms) is a pedagogical approach that inverts the traditional method of the teacher leading learning, instead handing responsibility over to the student.

This is a learner-centred approach that involves students being active in, and accountable for, their development. In the flipped-learning scenario, pupils are given materials and tasks prior to a lesson and instructed to work through these independently.

The technique proposes completing what is generally considered more traditional class work at home and extended homework tasks in school.

Where did it come from?

Although practices involving peer instruction and students assuming the role of teacher have been around for some time, the term "flipped learning" came into use around 2012 with the work of two science teachers, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams.

Both were interested in the best way to use face-to-face lesson time with their students and investigated different ways of using independent study (homework) and technology to free up lesson time for deeper and more developed thinking.

How is it used in schools?

There are numerous ways to flip a classroom but some of the following strategies can help:

Set pre-lesson content and material that is engaging. Assuming that all pupils will read challenging, lengthy texts or complete detailed research from vague instructions may be unrealistic. Tasks should raise questions, spark interest and have clear, attainable goals that students can reach independently.

Make use of technology. Many flipped-learning teachers use videos and online resources to create a form of tutorial outside of designated lesson time. This leaves them free to engage with students individually and provide support and extension more effectively when back in the classroom as they are not leading from the front.

Set up expectations before flipping the learning so that all students know what they will be required to do and produce. Effective flipped learning happens with pupils who are comfortable with the process of studying independently and have clear structures to follow. Teachers should model desired approaches to research and note-taking and teach pupils how to go about tasks before sending them off to complete them individually.

Make students accountable and ensure that the expected work has been completed by building in comprehension tests or informal assessments. Simple tests of learning can be set via online programmes for students to complete prior to the lesson, or starter activities that make use of knowledge from independent study might be used to gauge the level of work completed (or, more importantly, the range of understanding across the classroom).

Further reading

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As part of our Pedagogy Focus series, we look at the flipped-learning teaching method and how it is used in lessons

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Primary computer programmimg

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Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

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Useful for looking at age appropriate books and recommended reads

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Reading lists for primary school learners aged 3-11

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Recommended reading books for learners aged 3-11 in UK primary schools, curated and updated by professional teachers and librarians.

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Great for ideas for teaching science in a practical and innovative way

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Our professional development has a proven impact on participants, their school or college and, ultimately, young people.

As an early graduate of the ENTHUSE-funded New and Aspiring Heads of Science course, I have been inspired to stay in teaching, have progressed to senior leadership and now have a new role leading science across a major academy chain.

Mat Galvin, Assistant Head and Regional Secondary Science lead for AET

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STEM Learning - Resources, CPD, STEM Ambassadors and enrichment | STEM

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Our professional development has a proven impact on participants, their school or college and, ultimately, young people. As an early graduate of the ENTHUSE-funded New and Aspiring Heads of Science course, I have been inspired to stay in teaching, have progressed to senior leadership and now have a new role leading science across a major academy chain.

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Common misconceptions in primary science, useful when planning lessons

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Perhaps one of the greatest privileges of being a science teacher is having the chance to remedy students' deeply held misconceptions (alternative conceptions). It is important that whilst we do this, however, we don't rubbish students' ideas just because they don't fit our scientifically acceptable schemas. Indeed, many alternative conceptions are very useful for students and allow them to live perfectly happy and functional lives e.g. buying plant food and closing the door to keep the cold out! The trick is to introduce the scientific ideas clearly and get students to understand why the misconception is wrong.

My hero Rosalind Driver

Rosalind Driver made a huge contribution to the field of understanding student misconceptions in science. She believed students construct their understanding of the world through their observations and interactions with their peers, creating a coherent set of 'alternative conceptions' based on common sense, but wrong, logic.

Driver recognised that students need teacher guidance if they are to make sense of the world. Students are unlikely to give up their alternative conceptions easily, so lessons must be carefully designed to help them make this leap; those who champion discovery based learning beware! Students need opportunities to make their current thinking visible, be presented with alternative ideas, and should be given time to assimilate these into their thinking.

Driver proposed that a number of issues make it difficult for students to discover meaning for themselves.

Students are unclear about what to focus on. For example, they may focus on the magnetic stirrer when the intended outcome was to focus on the solution inside the beaker

Students hold preconceptions about what they will see, such as expecting smoke to move randomly in air

Students are unclear of the meaning of scientific conventions. For example, an arrow can refer to a force in physics, moving from reactants to products in chemistry or energy transfer in biology

Examples of misconceptions held by students (and adults!)

1. Plants get their food from the soil

2. Particles expand when they are heated

3. Light travels from students' eyes to the object

Other sources of misconceptions

As well as students constructing misconceptions for themselves, based on their everyday experiences, misconceptions can also be passed from the teacher to student through wrong or inaccurate teaching. Textbooks can be another source of misconceptions.

Strategies to explore misconceptions

Multiple choice questions - students must select the scientific answer from a series of options, one of which will contain the misconception (distractor). Example here for teaching osmosis.

Refutation tasks - ask students to refute a misconception, explaining why it is wrong. For example: some people think that plants get food from the ground but..... . Example here for teaching conservation of mass.

Open-ended questions - can explore the learners' thinking processes e.g. are humans still evolving?

Using statements - provide students with some statements about scientific concepts. Students must then comment whether the statement is correct, partially correct or incorrect, and justify their answers with reasons. An example below is taken from Yip (1998)
In the mammalian circulatory system, the blood flow rate is lowest at the capillaries because, the very narrow capillaries offer great resistance to blood flow.
This statement is partially correct - the blood flow rate is the lowest at the capillaries but the reasoning is wrong. In a closed system, such as our circulatory system, the rate of fluid flow at any point is not determined by the pressure at that point, but by its relative total cross-sectional area. The blood flow rate is therefore lowest at the capillary network because of its large total cross-sectional area not because of the lumen size.

How can science teachers bring about conceptual change?

1. Start with the correct scientific view

2. Once the scientific ideas have been introduced you can introduce the misconception - read up on what students are likely to think before you plan the lesson - some misconceptions are far more common than others

3. Explain, or even better show, why the misconception is wrong - present competing theories to students so they have the opportunity to reject some theories (misconceptions) and accept others (conceptual change). Concept cartoons can help here if used after the correct information has been introduced.

4. Cognitive conflict can be a useful strategy to promote reorganisation of ideas e.g. show students that the same mass of plasticine will sink and float depending on its shape - mass therefore can't explain why something floats or sinks

5. Provide tasks where students have to demonstrate that they understand the scientific idea (why right is right) and are aware of the misconception (why wrong is wrong). Writing tasks can help here.

Links to pages about misconceptions in science

Not all misconceptions are errors

It's worth remembering that not all student mistakes are misconceptions. I have written about this here.

Misconceptions remain

Finally, below is an excellent video, A Private Universe, that shows just how resistant to change some misconceptions are, even among Harvard graduates.

Full a private universe original from steven allardi on Vimeo.

Further reading

Driver, R. (2008). The Pupil as Scientist? Open University Press: Maidenhead UK.

Driver, R., Squires, A.,Rushworth, P. and Wood-Robinson, V. (1994) Making sense of Secondary Science: Research Into Children's Ideas, London: Routledge

Guzzetti, B. J. (2000). Learning counter-intuitive science concepts: What have we learned from over a decade of research? Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 16, 89 -98.

Hans-Dieter Barke, Al Hazari, Sileshi Yitbarek (2009). Misconceptions in Chemistry

Sadler, P. M., Sonnert, G., Coyle, H.P., Cook-Smith, N., & Miller, J.L. (2013) Student learning in middle school science classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 50, 1020-1049

Schneps, M. and Sadler, P.M., 1989. A private universe [Video]. Santa Monica, CA: Pyramid Film and Video

Talanquer, V., 2007. Explanations and teleology in chemistry education. International Journal of Science Education, 29(7), pp.853-870.

Taylor, A. How to Help Students Overcome Misconceptions

Yip, D. (1998). Teachers' misconceptions of the circulatory system. Journal of Biological Education, 32. 207-215.

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Misconceptions and conceptual change in science education | the science teacher

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Perhaps one of the greatest privileges of being a science teacher is having the chance to remedy students' deeply held misconceptions (alternative conceptions). It is important that whilst we do this, however, we don't rubbish students' ideas just because they ...

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engaging and challenging maths games focused around the Primary curriculum

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search

Enriching mathematics for all learners

A free-to-use collection of mathematics activities, lessons and problems designed to nurture curious, resourceful and confident learners of mathematics. Produced by The University of Cambridge.

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The Nrich Maths Project Cambridge,England. Mathematics resources for children,parents and teachers to enrich learning. Problems,children's solutions,interactivities,games,articles.

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Our primary science resource packages provide a useful starting point for teachers in planning and delivering science lessons or in supplementing a teacher’s own planning.

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An online resource that provides educational resources for all primary curriculum subjects

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Use BBC Bitesize to help with your homework, revision and learning from KS1 to GCSE. Find free videos, step-by-step guides, activities and quizzes.

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The national curriculum primary programmes of study and attainment targets for key stages 1 and 2.

Details

The statutory primary national curriculum, including programmes of study and attainment targets, for all subjects at key stages 1 and 2. Languages are only statutory at key stage 2.

These must be taught in all local-authority-maintained primary schools in England.

The statutory primary national curriculum is issued by law, which means you must follow it unless there is a good reason not to.

Schools are not required by law to teach the example content in [square brackets] or the content indicated as being 'non-statutory'.

The individual programmes of study for key stages 1 and 2 are also available for each subject.

Further information about the pre-2014 primary curriculum is available on the National Archives.

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National curriculum in England: primary curriculum

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The national curriculum primary programmes of study and attainment targets for key stages 1 and 2.