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 & UnderstandingScience at Work

Science concept development maps

Matter Living things Forces & motion Earth & space

Focus ideasStudent everyday experiences vs scientific view

Critical teaching ideasTeaching 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?

VictorianEssential Learning

Standards

What is powerful learning and

what promotes it?

Principles ofLearning

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