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By robert, May 31, 2010 12:38 pm

I came across this book as a result of someone posting messages on the TES forums.  I decided to check out the book, especially as Hodder make this very easy – you can sign up for an E-inspection copy and get access to the book on screen for 30 days.  Whilst this does not give the same experience as flicking through a paper copy, it does provide a very useful insight into the book. (Click here for more information)

It is interesting to see that the book is quite different from the Edexcel one.  Note that I say different, not better.  How you rate the book will depend on for what you intend to use the book, and the teaching styles of the department.  The emphasis of the book is more of a teaching resource than a reference resource.  As a result there is less factual information and content in the book, but more ideas of assignments.  For those that are serious about the vocational aspect of BTEC, the book also links topics with appropriate science careers, and is probably worth keeping a single copy in the department for this reason alone.  I’d rate the quality of the assessment tasks more highly than Edexcel book (especially P1,M1,D1 of the core physics module! If you’ve got the Edexcel book you’ll know what I mean!)

As I said above, how useful this book is will depend on how you deliver BTEC within the department.  The Edexcel was more of a traditional text book matched to BTEC, almost with assessment material added as an afterthought.  The Hodder book feels much more like a teaching resources, and has more teaching sequences that you could use with students, or that students could follow independently.  Of course using the text book as the primary teaching method could mean significant investment in a resource that could be out of date as soon as the specifications change again.

Would I buy the book?  I think in my last review I made my dislike of text books obvious.  Whilst they are useful for cover lessons or occasional use, I can’t imagine a modern and forward thinking department using text books as the primary teaching method.  I’d recommend science departments to check out both of the BTEC books and buy a set that most suits the use to which they will be put (e.g. cover lessons)

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By robert, May 5, 2010 6:00 pm

File sync programs can replace the carrying of USB flash drives.  You simply install the software on your home and work computers, and then when you change a file on one computer the file is copied into the cloud and changed on the other computers that are in the sync relationship.  This saves carrying an unreliable and old fashioned USB flash drive that you have to remember to back up.

A while ago I blogged that I used Windows Live Mesh (beta) for syncing files between home and work.  I’d recently got fed up of the huge wait on boot up while live mesh indexed files on my hard drive and I decided to try some alternatives.  These are my thoughts on the software products I tried:

So which did I choose?  There was little difference in transfer speed and overall functionality between products.  Live Mesh took an age to start up (whether from boot or resuming from hibernation) but the other two pieces of software made little noticeable difference to start up times.

At the moment I’m using Jungledisk (I’m on an old plan and only pay the storage fees, not the monthly fee) and I feel safer knowing my documents are securely encrypted in the cloud.  The only catch is the lack of conflict resolution which has to be checked manually at regular intervals.

There are many cloud-based file sync products out there, and I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has tried one of the products above or one similar (e.g. sugarsync) for use by teachers.

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By Rob, May 4, 2010 6:45 pm

BTEC Level 2 First Applied Science Student Book (Paperback) by Ms Patricia Rhodes, Christine Brain, Mr Peter Gale, Mr David Goodfellow, Ms Sue Hocking, Mrs Christine Kitchin, Mr Roy Llewellyn, Ms Julie Matthews, Dr Ismail Musa

I bought a copy of this text book having co-developed a scheme of work for the new BTEC specifications.  I was interested to see what the book looked like, and how it covered the BTEC assessment criteria.

The book provides a useful but not essential resource to support the teaching of BTEC Applied Science.  The book is printed in colour and the content is matched to the requirements of the course, giving it an advantage over generic text books.  Activities are matched to the content, but there tends to be very little in the way of activities apart from the assessment tasks.  The assessment materials don’t include scenarios or assignment briefs, but do provide a useful illustration of what level of work would be required for each of the assessment criteria.

Are they worth buying?  I’ve spent 15 years teaching without using text books, I passionately believe that there are many more engaging and stimulating ways to teach students than referring to text books.

I would however recommend having a copy of this on the shelf so that teachers can refer to it when they aren’t sure of the content, or when setting/marking assessments.   Teachers new to BTEC would benefit most from this resource and the security it brings.  It might also be worth having a class set of these to use for cover work, or for occasional use as a reference material.

One point I’ve not made is the unfair advantage that Pearson holds over other publishers as owner of Edexcel.  Is it right that the exam board also publishes text books and teaching materials to accompany the course? (Some might think that they already make quite enough money from getting teachers to do all their marking and work for them!)

Have a look at the samples available from Pearson and leave a comment telling me what you think of these materials.

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By robert, March 23, 2010 10:10 pm

For several years I’ve used level assessed tasks as one of my peer assessment tools in science lessons. I’ve used them with a range of students of different abilities from foundation tier GCSE to Entry level and below. Usually I’ve used them part way through a topic to check understanding and highlight opportunities to develop through the rest of the topic.

I was recently contacted by Dr Mark Evans (co-author of Badger APP materials) regarding a post on my blog I had made about APP in science (and why teachers don’t get it). Mark kindly gave me access to his Webquest APP tasks and I decided to try them out with one of my groups as an AfL activity.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with these Webquests, you are given a structured task supported by online reference materials (including updated links to other sites). These materials do not rely on text books, and the materials can be uploaded onto your VLE, making them suitable for homework and cover lessons as well as for use in class.

The lesson I had chosen wasn’t ideal because I had to leave half way through, but that still gave me 40 minutes to start my students off. I had chosen a task titled “Invisibility cloaks” in which students accessed reference materials about how light travels and reflection/refraction of light. Students were then asked to apply this knowledge to describe a model and see if it could be used to explain how to make an invisibility cloak (Harry Potter style).

My students struggled with this task, not because of the task itself, but because of their low literacy and independence levels. Less able students struggled with reading information off of the web sites, and text-to-speech tools aren’t very popular with our students. This is the first barrier to success for my students.

Some students who could access the information struggled with its application to a near identical diagram, and were unable to take in the short presentations on reflection/refraction. Even when an adult sat down with them and explained the content, many students were unable to apply this knowledge and identify which scientific evidence would support their ideas.

All students needed lots of guidance as they worked through the task and none were able to access it independently. This is not a criticism of the Webquests, in fact as I marked the tasks I was impressed by the structured way in which the student worksheet led the students to gather the required information and apply it to a given situation that could be assessed. I would have no hesitation in recommending these activities for use with more able and more literate students than my own (as part of a balanced and varied diet of AfL and APP activities).

An example of a completed activity is given here (page 1, page 2) complete with annotations to help me make sense of the levels before we follow up with a peer assessment/target setting lesson.  Unfotunately it wasn’t possible to capture  the good quality science discussion that also took place in this lesson.

So how could I make this task work better for my students?

• Reduce the literacy requirements of the task still further by using more narrated animations or video so that students could use the web materials as a reference material independently.
• Provide a little more structure to the writing frame to support students with lower literacy, maybe as sub-headings or more diagrammatical work.
• Add level information to each step of the writing frame so that students can more easily check their levels as most were unable to access the level ladder, even when it was presented in pupil speak.
• Use tasks like this more regularly so that students become used to finding things out for themselves and less reliant on an adult feeding them instructions or information (training)
• Refer to APP criteria and next steps more frequently so that students become better at identifying ways forward. Not all APP activities need to be written or recorded, it is possible to use APP criteria in ordinary AfL activities (rather than slotting in off-the-shelf tasks in the way you would do a test).
• Use a task better suited to the topic/material my students were most familiar with rather than use an off the shelf task.

Remember that there isn’t a proper way to use APP.  Tasks like the one above are only one example from a number of ways that APP can be used in schools.  Good AfL is key to good quality science teaching and in turn to embedding APP and making it work.

Have you used APP tasks with students of low ability or with low literacy levels?  What obstacles did you come across and how did you overcome them?