Year+6+Science+Personal+Journey

My Science Journey Thus Far….

Teaching science is a new discipline for me and I initially I was worried about my own knowledge of scientific concepts. Fortunately Primary Connections has teacher resource pages, which provide detailed background for teachers and included further resources.

I have changed the format for science this term to a 3 week (10 lessons) unit. It was ineffective teaching science only once a week last term as I spent most of the time recapping previous lesson content. Students became disengaged and the unit suffered.

This term I will be teaching a 3 week unit about earthquakes. I have used Primary Connections as my basis, however I have incorporated other lesson ideas from Scootle etc. As part of the engage/explore phase I’ll be taking the students to Geoscience Australia for an opportunity to explore earthquakes through hands-on experiences.

I have been very fortunate to work with Sam and Sharon Fellows this term. They have been valuable to my development in my ability to program units. We have had discussions about why I am teaching the unit and what are the enduring understandings students will come away with. Following these discussions as a staff we have decided to include a unit rationale and an enduring understandings section. It’s been really valuable working with my colleagues to refine the purpose of the unit and to ensure that the unit aligns with the National Curriculum as well as engaging the students.

I have aligned my assessment tasks to reflect the skills and knowledge from the National Curriculum. I’ll be able to annotate work samples. I have really focused on this area in my programming, ensuring that I include diagnostic, formative and summative assessment tasks. I’ll be developing a success criteria with the students for their final assessment piece, which will focus on the process and content.

I am working towards finding ways to differentiate tasks for the students. I have looked at differentiating student questions. I still need to work on this area. I’m going to focus on differentiating the content and the process for some tasks to suit their individual needs. I’ve currently looked at extending some students by asking higher-order questions.