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Collaborative Planning Document.

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As teacher attitudes greatly affect student learning, I try to be more cognisant of how I approach certain questions and ideas. In my lessons, I try to reiterate and emphasise the fact that science does not just consist of facts and knowing all of the answers. Instead, science is all about asking questions, collaborating and making mistakes. Building student confidence is paramount and allowing them to make mistakes without feeling embarrassed is a huge part of this.

"Numerous studies agree on the positive correlation between science teaching attitudes and the ability to be an effective science teacher. Factors affecting teaching attitudes are found to include confidence about subject content, willingness to utilize curricular and pedagogical innovations, and a commitment to student learning (de Souza-Barros & Elia, 1997)".

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In this paper, Lyons mentions the importance of initial experiences of science in the classroom which is impacted not only by the subject matter, but also by the culture in the classroom, the students' relationships with each other and the teacher as well as how the subject matter is taught. This is something which I tried to constantly remind myself of before entering the classroom every day.

Instead of simply giving the students facts upon facts to write down and remember, I try my best to maintain an inquiry-based approach and allow the students ample opportunity to critically think about something before trying to answer a question or provide input.

"This significance is crucial since students construct their conceptions of school science, and science more generally,
by interpreting their experiences in laboratories and classrooms with a variety of teachers and classmates, over a number of years (Désautels, 1998; Evans & Fisher, 2000; Levy et al., 1997)".

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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500690500339621?needAccess=true

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This paper reviews the remarkably similar experiences of school science reported by high school students in Sweden, England, and Australia. It compares student narratives from interpretive studies by Lindahl, by Osborne and Collins, and by Lyons, identifying core themes relating to critical contemporary issues in science education. These themes revolve around the transmissive pedagogy, decontextualized content, and unnecessary difficulty of school science commonly reported by students in the studies. Their collective experiences are used as a framework for examining student conceptions of, and attitudes to, school science more generally, drawing on an extensive range of international literature. The paper argues that the experiences of students in the three studies provide important insights into the widespread declines in interest and enrolments in high school and university science courses.

Notes

1. While many of the comments and extracts are from the English summary of Lindahl's dissertation (Lindahl, 2003b. 2003b Pupils' responses to school science and technology? A longitudinal study of pathways to upper secondary school English summary of a dissertation. Retrieved February 6, 2004, from http://www.mna.hkr.se/∼ll/summary.pdf ), additional quotes have been translated by Lindahl specifically for this paper.

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Different Countries, Same Science Classes: Students' experiences of school science in their own words

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This paper reviews the remarkably similar experiences of school science reported by high school students in Sweden, England, and Australia. It compares student narratives from interpretive studies by Lindahl, by Osborne and Collins, and by Lyons, identifying core themes relating to critical contemporary issues in science education.

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Make it explicit: Key concepts regarding the nature and process of science should be explicitly and independently emphasized. Engaging in inquiry and studying the history of science are most helpful when the nature-of-science concepts they exemplify are explicitly drawn out in discussion and interactions.

Help them reflect: Throughout instruction, students should be encouraged to examine, test, and revise their ideas about what science is and how it works.

Give it context, again and again: Key concepts about the nature and process of science should be revisited in multiple contexts throughout the school year, allowing students to see how they apply to real-world situations.

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https://undsci.berkeley.edu/teaching/index.php

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Teaching resources

Science is an inspiring process of discovery that helps satisfy the natural curiosity with which we are all born. Unfortunately, traditional instruction that misrepresents science as a body of facts to be memorized and the process of science as a rigid 5-step procedure can deaden students' spirit of inquiry.

Students should come away from our classrooms with an appreciation of the natural world — fascinated by its intricacies and excited to learn more. They should view and value science as a multi-faceted, flexible process for better understanding that world. Such views encourage life-long learning and foster critical thinking about everyday problems students face in their lives. You can cultivate these ways of thinking in your students through science instruction that accurately and enthusiastically communicates the true nature of science and that encourages students to question how we know what we know.

Fortunately, fostering such understandings needn't require reorganizing your entire curriculum. Simple shifts in how content and activities are approached can make a big difference in overcoming student misconceptions and building more accurate views of the process of science. Educational research supports the following strategies for teaching about the scientific endeavor:

Make it explicit: Key concepts regarding the nature and process of science should be explicitly and independently emphasized. Engaging in inquiry and studying the history of science are most helpful when the nature-of-science concepts they exemplify are explicitly drawn out in discussion and interactions.

Help them reflect: Throughout instruction, students should be encouraged to examine, test, and revise their ideas about what science is and how it works.

Give it context, again and again: Key concepts about the nature and process of science should be revisited in multiple contexts throughout the school year, allowing students to see how they apply to real-world situations.

We've assembled a variety of resources to help you increase student understanding of nature and process of science. To improve your own content knowledge, explore Understanding Science 101 and our resource library. To prepare yourself with lesson plans, teaching tips, and pedagogical strategies, visit a Teacher's Lounge or explore the all-level resources listed below and to the right.

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Teaching resources Science is an inspiring process of discovery that helps satisfy the natural curiosity with which we are all born. Unfortunately, traditional instruction that misrepresents science as a body of facts to be memorized and the process of science as a rigid 5-step procedure can deaden students' spirit of inquiry.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQP4UJhNn0I

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lNF3_30lUE

Helping the students to truly grasp the astronomically small size of atoms using real-life examples. Help them use their imagination to try and understand their size.

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How Small Is An Atom? Spoiler: Very Small.

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https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/build-an-atom

Along with using Play-Doh to construct models of atoms and their structure, the students also really enjoyed creating various atoms using this simulation. I was also able to use this as a way of assessing the students' ability to model certain atoms.

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Build an atom out of protons, neutrons, and electrons, and see how the element, charge, and mass change. Then play a game to test your ideas!

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Managing myself -  Allowing students to become more responsible for their learning – uploading their homework to google classroom as well as allowing them to self-correct. Setting and achieving goals using learning intentions and success criteria.

Staying well -  Bringing the students outside sometimes to work, roleplaying as the different atomic particles, building confidence by always praising and giving them the chance to read slides to help improve their literacy.

Communicating -  Peer work and group work, turn-taking, justifying their reasoning when answering questions to improve their communication skills, friendly debate. Presenting data appropriately using google slides, excel and tables.

Being creative - Using analogies to help describe the size of atoms, using digital technologies such as PHET simulations.

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Nature of Science 1: “Students should be able to appreciate how scientists work and how scientific ideas are modified over time.”

When I first introduced this topic to the students and told the students what they are going to be learning, I mentioned the fact that we are standing on the shoulders of giants in that we are always building on scientific knowledge and science involved collaboration. To get the students motivated, I told them that by the end of the topic, they will know more about the atom than the best scientists in the world did 100 years ago!

Nature of Science 10: “Students should be able to appreciate the role of science in society; and its personal, social and global importance; and how society influences scientific research.”

I asked my students if they know why the discovery of the atom and its subatomic particles might be useful for us as humans before giving them some examples such as screens in phones, iPads and TVs, and nuclear energy.

Chemical World 2: “Students should be able to develop and use models to describe the atomic nature of matter; demonstrate how they provide a simple way to account for the conservation of mass, changes of state, physical change, chemical change, mixtures, and their separation.”

When I was teaching my students about atomic structure, I asked them where atoms come from and if they can be destroyed. Using this information, they began to already grasp the conservation of mass and changes of state.

Physical World 1: “Students should be able to identify and measure/calculate length, mass, time, temperature, area, volume, density, speed, acceleration, force, potential difference, current, resistance, electrical power.”

I briefly touched on the fact that it wouldn’t make sense to measure atomic particles in centimetres or millimetres, grams or micrograms as atoms are simply too tiny. Instead, scientists developed a new measurement; atomic mass unit (AMU) and use nanometres.