Category Archives: Teaching

#ASEchat summary – Food webs and chains

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Summary of the #ASEchat held on Twitter on 04/02/13


Contributions from ASEchatters turned what could have been a dull and boring topic into a lively one with lots of practical ideas to use in the classroom.

The topic started with the concept of arrows on food chains – and @Viciascience asked if the direction of the arrow on a food chain was important to which the answer was a resounding YES. Many chatters went as far as to say that they would mark an answer wrong in which the arrow was pointing the right way. Several teachers pointed out that getting the arrow the wrong way round was a fairly common mistake. @Teachingofsci mischievously suggested that you could add a horse to a food web with an arrow pointing to a human to prompt discussion!

@teachingofsci intends using lego this year to show blocks being used the next level up. @MrsDrSarah referred to the ‘satsuma model’ in which you model plants as a bag of satsumas, passing one to a primary consumer, one to secondary consumer and squidging one to show energy loss. Post-It notes were also suggested to model, as was passing water or sand down a line.

Chatters pointed out links to nutrition and even sustainability that could be introduced with this topic. The topic moved onto pyramids of biomass/number and real life examples. Several chatters liked unusually shaped ‘pyramids’ such as aphids on an oak tree. The Minamata bay incident was discussed as being useful to share with students. A useful strategy suggested was making bar charts into pyramids of number to be used with SEN and lower attaining pupils.

@Mr_D_Cheng requested that we all get away from the common food chain of grass -> rabbit -> fox and others agreed. It was suggested that pupils construct their own from field work or real examples (e.g. Holly leaf miner). There were also a number of ways suggested to challenge more able students such as discussing island populations, making a closed ecosystem (with brine shrimp) and the introduction of carnivorous plants.

Top Tweets

@teachingofsci: For recent news relevance, add ‘horse’ to a food chain pointing at ‘human’. #asechat

@viciascience How important is the direction of arrows in a food chain diagram. Would you mark down for arrow direction wrong? #ASEChat

@Lethandrel #asechat I introduce food chains as grass going INTO a rabbit, rabbit going INTO a fox etc before introducing energy etc

@teachingofsci @Lethandrel i plan to make lego models this year, show blocks being used for next level up. Ideal would be stop motion. #asechat

Mr_D_Cheng Get a few pupils to stand in line, add coloured water, get them to pour a bit out when move, heat, excrete. Shows energy loss #asechat

@debrichmond @cleverfiend I get students to draw up bar charts then cut out bars and stick as pyramids. Good for lower ability. #asechat

@SAPS_News @hrogerson there are some fascinating things going on inside pitcher plants – great video here from our US colleagues. #asechat

Useful links

The Old Lady and the Fly http://t.co/XoBzfOXH

Simple food chain game: http://t.co/sjXn3Cmm

More complex food web game: http://t.co/oHxAjxGL

Why an understanding of food (chains) interdependence and recycling is important http://t.co/yPO6gWLl

It’s grass-rabbit-fox, but this is a great online game: http://t.co/QbUQWdxt

Take a virtual dive on the reef here http://t.co/a59I9jVl or explore via Google Earth and streetview http://t.co/rLWv3qyN

 

As usual the official ASE chat page can be found here

My downloaded copy of the Tweets (an archive of the conversation) can be downloaded here

ASE CPD (East Midlands) with Anne Goldsworthy

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The ASE organises many regional CPD events for those with an interest in science education. These events are open to members and non-members (although there is usually a significant cost saving to members). On Nov 3rd 2012 the North/East Midlands committee of the ASE ran such a CPD session. The venue was kindly provided by Riverside Community Primary School in Birstall, and the event consisted of a series of short presentations by ASE committee members, and a two hour session from the inspirational Anne Goldsworthy.

As part of the mini-presentations I spoke about #ASEchat and using Google Apps for collaborative writing, and I’ve embedded these at the bottom of this post for those who are interested.

Following the mini-presentations, Anne Goldsworthy spoke about scientific enquiry. I had been fortunate to attend one of Anne’s sessions before and I came with high expectations. Needless to say I wasn’t disappointed. Anne used materials from her books, examples from real classrooms and fun activities to help teachers develop scientific enquiry skills in students of all ages. The course participants tried a range of activities that might be used with students, and the photos and video clips below show you the level of engagement.

 


You can find details of Anne’s books on her website and I can wholeheartedly recommend them to teachers from KS1 to KS3 (I confess to owning a copy of Scientific Enquiry Games myself!).

It was great to see so many enthusiastic and committed primary school teachers giving up their Saturday morning to attend this CPD session.  There was also a large contingent of students from Derby University (which says something to me about the calibre of students they are selecting!).

If you aren’t already a member of the ASE then you might want to check out membership deals including the new Primary e-Membership.

My new job – three weeks in

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Only a matter of weeks ago I was teaching science and apart from a few whole school responsibilities, my only worries revolved around teaching my classes and providing support to other teachers.  I was able to empty my inbox and to-do list on a weekly basis.

I’m three weeks into a new term and my job looks completely different now.  In the last week I’ve been in meetings with parents, education professionals and governors.  I’ve completed my designated person child protection training, I’ve organised cover, revised policies, been through the budget checking we are on track, signed cheques and purchase orders, and still managed to spend a large amount of time with students.  I receive an average of 30/40 emails a day, many of which seem to require a response (inbox zero – not a chance) and my to-do list only ever gets longer.

This week I received a booklet from the NASUWT (I’m still a member for now!) telling me what I shouldn’t be doing.  Reading through I understand that many of the instructions are intended to reduce the workload of our overloaded profession, but the real target of the action appears to be school leaders.  This is compounded in small schools like my own which have a limited budget for supply, no cover supervisors, and are not able to pay everyone responsible for a curriculum area a TLR allowance.  The unions seem oblivious to the plight of school leaders and see them as part of the problem.

The contrast between my two roles couldn’t be greater, but ultimately my reason for being at school hasn’t changed.  Teachers and school leaders share a common purpose and need to stand together as they seek to provide the best possible education for their students.  With a hostile government using dubious motives and tactics, this is even more important and yet the unions seek to drive teachers and school leaders further apart.

Perhaps my school is different to the norm. We don’t do most of the things on the union hit list, and my staff share a passion to educate and make a difference to our students, so the union action won’t have much impact here!

Perhaps it is time for all of us to take a long hard look at where we go forward?

Comments and feedback appreciated :)

“Literacy across the curriculum” as featured in Special Children magazine (Optimus Publishing)

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I’ve blogged before about literacy across the curriculum and what worked for me. I recently spoke to Alison Thomas from Special Children Magazine about literacy across the curriculum. The attached article provides an insight into what I’ve done in my own school, and how a mainstream school has built on my work with their own pupils.

Thank you to Special Children Magazine for allowing me to reproduce this article. If you want to know more about subscribing to Special School magazine follow this link.

Link to article on literacy across the curriculum (or click on the image below to view full size)

I’d love to receive your thoughts and comments below.

Writing lesson plans–do YOU have to?

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Planning "Best Practices" Video for DOE

I work in a school where we don’t have to write formal lesson plans, and staff are treated as trusted professionals.  We have always written lesson observations for observed lessons, and I’ve filled in many lesson plans at other schools while doing outreach there, but planning  in my own school has been left to the discretion of the individual.  I’ve also been into other schools that are in an Ofsted category and the completion of written lesson plans is usually mandatory for those in this position (with noble intentions).  That’s not to say we don’t have detailed planning documents, but teachers are left to decide the format and content for themselves.

I was skimming through a document today from the DFE entitled “Reducing bureaucracy for schools – myths and facts” and it’s worth a read if you haven’t come across it.

Myth: A written lesson plan must be produced for every lesson.
Fact. There is no statutory obligation to produce a written lesson plan for every lesson. Ofsted inspectors do not routinely scrutinise teachers’ individual plans, although they will look at them when they are offered by teachers. Inspectors focus on the quality of the school’s planning process and link that to teaching in classrooms. Where the quality of teaching is weak, it is important that schools can provide documentary evidence to show that proper planning to address this is in place.

With more schools buying in commercial resources it seems to me more important than ever to show that the bought-in scheme has been adapted and personalised for the groups it is to be used for, but it may be that writing of individual lesson plans is not the best way to do this.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on lesson plans.  Do you write detailed individual lesson plans by choice?  Are you instructed to write them by your department? If you don’t write detailed lesson plans what form does your planning take? Have you come across a really good way of planning?

Image © Old Shoe Woman on Flickr

Using Facebook groups to allow parents to network with each other

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Facebook

 

We had an inset day at the end of term and one of our sessions revolved around improving communication with parents.  We have a huge catchment and students can come from a huge area so parents of students in the same class could potentially live ten to fifteen miles apart.  This means that parents find it hard to speak to each other, and to support each other.  We have a parent of one of our students on staff and she raised the issue that she doesn’t know what her child does on a day to day basis at school, so some kind of feedback and class based communication would be appreciated.  We brainstormed ideas and that was as far as we got.

 

My sister had a similar issue with pupils of her primary school (although on a smaller geographic scale) and has decided to pilot using Facebook groups to allow parents to talk to each other.  When people first hear the word ‘Facebook’ in connection with education alarm bells start to sound, and people who should know better start to think that inappropriate communications will happen.  So why did she decide to let common sense prevail and go with Facebook?  First of all a significant proportion of parents are already Facebook users, they have login details and passwords already and are familiar with the system.  Having something new to learn and remember is always a barrier to adoption.  Facebook groups are separate to being friends with someone – you can’t see personal details, photos or posts from others in the same group unless you are friends with them as well.  This means that parents can talk to each other (and even selected staff from school as well) without being able to see private photos or status information.  Facebook also gives to the ability to create private groups (hidden if required) that an administrator controls who can join.  This gives control to the school (who will have a member of staff overseeing admission to the new groups) and parents who overstep the agreed boundaries/rules of the group can either have their posts deleted or can be removed (or even banned) from the group.   Parents can choose to receive email updates from the group too if required.

 

The groups aren’t up and running yet but it will be interesting to see how the groups are used (one group per class) and if the levels of parental engagement are improved.  The system also leaves plenty of room for development such as piping in RSS and Twitter feeds, so who knows what the future will bring?

 

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or see any problems that we might have overlooked Smile