HoDSciSci February Roundtable: Remote Assessment

We have interviewed a couple of HoDs regarding how they are using remote assessment. While the UK has only a week or so of remote teaching in front of us we are very aware that there are many HoDs working internationally, so this might be of help. As always a big thank you to the

HoDSciSci January Roundtable: The Quality Assurance of Remote Learning.

We kick off the first HoDSciSci post with a remote learning roundtable. Here a few willing HoDs have answered questions focussed on the quality assurance of remote learning.   In today’s post we have Darren Walkerdine, Ryan Badham, Nik Rorke and Chris Smith. All four have their students learning via live lessons, which appears to be

CogSciSci Book Review: Motivated Teaching by Peps Mccrea

Reviewed by Jo Castelino Have you ever told your classes that focussing more in lessons will help them do better? If you have, you probably had a few students nod their heads or the majority listen seemingly attentively to every word you’ve uttered. Why then does this alone not work? Why is it so easy

Curriculum Broader Themes: Developing Department Discourse in Science – A Model For Better CPD

Ruth Ashbee presents a model for departmental CPD that moves beyond “the session”. 00:00 Welcome and outline 00:30 Context 03:21 Three principles of CPD 06:06 Curriculum or pedagogy 07:28 Beyond “the session” 11:24 Theme 1: How we teach X 13:46 Theme 2: Getting to grips with X 15:06 Theme 3: 3-point discussion 16:17 Outcomes 19:45

Curriculum Soapbox: Electrolysis

Helen Skelton discusses the topic of electrolysis and demonstrates her approach to teaching it. 00:00 Welcome and introductions 01:20 Why electrolysis? 03:37 Firm foundations – prior knowledge 08:30 Sequencing 18:03 Ways of seeing – Johnstone’s triangle 23:05 Instruction and SLOP 25:40 Copper chloride electrolysis example 35:57 Practical work 43:28 Summary You might find the following

Curriculum Chats: Structure and Bonding

Niki Kaiser, Elizabeth Mountstevens, Michael Adenekan and Adam Robbins get together to discuss their approaches to the topic of structure and bonding. 00:00 Welcome and introductions 01:25 What do students find most difficult about structure and bonding? 08:55 What do you do to address student misconceptions about structure and bonding? 17:09 What misconceptions do teachers

Curriculum Links Part 2: Planning A Science Curriculum

In Part 1, we looked at some of the principles that could form the foundations of a good science curriculum. Here we look more closely at the implementation of these ideas within different teachers’ science curricula.  Planning  Ruth Ashbee gives a great overview of how to overhaul your curriculum with a framework of meetings that would

Curriculum Soapbox: Writing Good Biology SLOP

Pritesh Raichura discusses how he writes Shed Loads Of Practice (SLOP) for Biology. Pritesh has a blog with lots of examples that can be found here. 00:00 Welcome and overview 00:57 Don’t pupils need a variety of activities? 03:25 The best activities will help pupils to… 05:50 Purpose informs question writing 07:45 Guide pupils to

Curriculum Broader Themes: The KS2 to KS3 Transition in Science

Nimish Lad and Neil Almond chat about students moving from primary to secondary school. What should KS3 teachers know about KS2? What should KS2 teachers know about KS3? You can use the chapters embedded in the video to find any of the specific questions that we discuss (you might need to be on YouTube to

Curriculum Chats: Inheritance, Variation and Evolution

Previously, we asked on the twitter page which topics in each of the sciences you thought required the most thought in the curriculum. For biology, you chose the topic of inheritance, variation and evolution and in the video below, Dom Shibli, Pritesh Raichura, Jo Castelino, Rachel Wong (BioRach) and Christian Moore Anderson get together to