Monday 19 November 2012

My display about Reading, Writing and Mathematics in Science

So as promised, if slightly delayed here are some photos of the display I have done to try and explain and encourage the links between Science, Reading, Writing and Mathematics taken on my phone.
Some of you lovely people may have seen these on Twitter already but here goes.....please excuse the 'surroundings' and lack of board backing but my room is not exactly a palace!
You might need to zoom in a bit if you want to read the writing....still learning this blogging lark!







So what I was going for was a clear, visible link between reading, writing, mathematics and science to explain the reason why these things are important in science and to scientists.

I'm not sure how many of the boys have noticed it, but the staff have been instructed to come and view it and make a version for their own subject...I guess this is good news for me and a little 'pat on the back' which is always nice.

I have also been asked to support our English teacher (the man dubbed responsible for improving the literacy of these naughty boys) in some 'Literacy walks' as what I do in science is very good practice.  I am pleased to be asked to do this, I really hope it means I can 'make my mark' in some way and set these kids up for the future better equipped for what lies out there.

This has not come from no-where. This has come from a lot of background hard work on my part, attendance on Quality of Written Communication courses and similar, working with my local Babcock4S advisor and a change in the marking policy in school to account for literacy. This means marking takes longer (but when you only have about 50 kids it is not so bad, totally have empathy for those marking 200 odd books every week or so.) We've got stickers and everything! :)

Are we noticing a difference? Well it is really early days but I do think many are of the students are more happy to read, and understand the importance of reading for the first time, many are less frustrated if they find a word they can't say because they have some 'tools' to at least attempt to sound it out which they did not have before. Some of them have discovered they actually LIKE reading....(shock horror!) and have found books they like....knock me over with a feather!

As for science itself....well its that age old problem of high literacy demand and high reading age of the textbooks. So my next steps are these:
1. Display 3 key words every lesson on the board and discuss during starter/objectives (I think sometimes it is going to be hard to limit to 3 but we'll see)
2. Make sure key words are highlighted in schemes of work along with opportunities for reading, writing (and what style of writing is used) and mathematics (which area)
3. Come up with a selection of 'hard science words' for a whole school permanent display. I'm thinking about spellings here and practical skills stuff otherwise I would have to change it too often
4. Look at some older textbooks recommended to me by @LGolton which are more suitable for scientists with lower reading ages to see whether they will help with literacy differentiation
5. Use 'Science Web Readers' when appropriate to practice comprehension and reading non-fiction text.
6. Incorporate all this into any new curriculum that deems to be published in the next few months
7. Encourage the use of dictionaries, contents pages and indexes for locating information, it is surprising how few can actually do this! 

Phew!

The other thing interesting me which I have been watching from afar is SOLO....I can't make up my mind whether it will work for my students or just be too demoralising if they can't get to the higher levels. I would love to have some of the successes of @KDWScience but at the moment feel it is a step too far....I would love for the BESD boys I teach to want to take control of their own learning and 'want' to learn because they enjoy it. At the moment they are not there, at least not in science....but I'll keep plugging away and see what happens. Time will tell.


Sunday 4 November 2012

End of half term.....boo...

...but feeling better. Lots better. Possibly (just possibly) looking forward to going back....not said that in a while.

I've done my planning, at least up until Thursday but no biggie.


I've gathered some resources together for tutoring which starts on Thursday, got a bit more to do to be ready for that but Core Science so is pretty straightforward. I'm looking forward to meeting my student/victim who is resitting in January....should be all ok.


What I have also done today is put together a display called "Scientists need Reading, Writing and Maths"

The aim is to show my students, who have real issues with all these things, why it is worth developing the skills within and for other subjects.
I've basically listed some reasons why scientists need to be able to read, write and use maths well...reasonable examples that even Year 7 should be able to appreciate. There are loads, particularly for maths.
Then I've done a section about why scientific reading in particular is difficult....we all know why but I think it's important the kids know. 
Finally I've listed some things the kids can do to help themselves. Here is the list. I'm sure people could add more (and please do....I can always add them on!)



  • Write down difficult spellings and learn them
  • Highlight or underline key words in your book
  • Read to someone and let them read to you
  • Keep practicing using the words in your writing and when speaking
  • Use the William’s Words Science Dictionaries (Google it)
  • Take time to think about your answers and how to use the words correctly 
  • Practice reading non-fiction texts for example: reading the news online, choosing book about something you are interested in rather than a book with a story 
  • Practice ‘scan reading’ to locate information
  • Use the contents pages and indexes of textbooks to find what you need 
  • Talk to me and to each other using scientific language when answering questions





I'll take a photo once its all up....might take a while to get someone to help me do it but I think it will look great when its done as a permanent display in my room. 

I also ordered a couple of books which I think will help, all Amazon found. 

The three 'Science Web readers' - one for each science to help with reading in science
The Collins 'Science Skills Builder' - one for KS3 and one for GCSE (which I have lurking somewhere as a freebie from a course where Collins had a display. Mental note: Must find it)

Also definitely need to look at the William's Words site for more word based science fun.....along with Freezeray which has some science word games. 

I am literally on a roll at the moment....just wish I had more time to develop all this in my own school. :(  

Hope this helps some of my fellow scientists out with their literacy in lessons.....

Now I'm off to see Skyfall....what an end to the holiday! :)  
   



 
·  


 



Friday 2 November 2012

What am I doing this for?


Today is officially the last day of half term. I have started to look at some work for next week but have got distracted a bit by everything else, such as cleaning (never has cleaning been more enjoyable) doing laundry (ooooh folding) and generally procrastinating....including writing this. 

I have been having a 'rest' this half term...at least til today. I ended the last (long) one very tired, stressed and generally upset about a lot of things that were going on in school. I felt hugely that lots of things were 'not fair' and that I was being penalised for working hard and being the best I can be. Its that old thing of 'if you want something done ask a busy person.' Thing is one person as a department with a full timetable can only do so much.
I think some people at school are starting to realise that science will not be able to move any further forward without the subject coordinator (aka me) having some time to coordinate, and meet with English and develop literacy and reading in science. Thing is, I don't know whether anything will change, I don't know if the people realising are important enough....I teach more than anyone else in the school, it's no wonder I feel left behind. 

So, back to today. I have checked my work email, nothing urgent at all....good start.

Then I started setting up my folders to organise resources to go up onto the VLE for this half term. Brilliant you may think. Well the VLE is not accessible to students yet. Nor will it be till probably after Christmas or even Easter. This means the slog of resourcing it for last half term was fairly pointless but I still have to get on and do this one. The issue I have is this. By the time the kids get onto the VLE in a 'useful' capacity I will have to re-do all the resourcing because we will probably have a new National Curriculum so it will be mostly irrelevant in terms of its structure.

So is this a timewasting activity....in some ways yes, why resource it when it can't be used? When you know it is changing?
Well I hope that some of the stuff I have put up there remains useful, lets be honest the fundementals of science don't really change (although I'm sure Mr Gove would like them to) so maybe it is not so fruitless. Only time will tell. I'm hoping that some 're-ordering' of resources and 'renaming' of topics will partially suffice but until the new document is published we are all in the dark.

Once I've resourced some of this I'll move on to next weeks planning....bread and butter stuff, a couple of hours and it is done.

Then....I want to develop a 'Science and Literacy/Numeracy' display....to show my naughty boys why scientists need to read and write and do 'maff' - sounds easy but I don't think it will be. I've tried the approach of making a display about why science is important, and one about science and jobs but it doesn't seem to matter....most of them just don't like it because they find it too hard. They like practical work (to muck about and break stuff in the most part - don't dare ask them to do repeats....a lot of swearing ensues and claims of "I've done it I'm not f-ing doing it again") but the actual understanding of the world around them - not bothered, its too hard so why try and risk failing?

In some ways this links back to a previous blog post about textbooks and resources and the demand level being too high on average. When you are trying to teach science GCSE to kids with a reading age of 9 it is very hard....hard for me but more importantly hard for them. Mainly I feel sorry for them because I can only imagine how it feels to be presented with something they can't read, access or understand. It must be awful. Probably similar to me trying to read and understand my other half's engineering nonsense....see I do have empathy!

So I try.....and try and try and try and don't give in. THIS is what makes me stressed and tired. That I give and give for not a lot back.....we'll get there in the end, but probably not before everything changes again.

For the record. My 'to-do list' could be a mile long. There are things that I am constantly being asked to do which are not important, are impractical or non sensical. Right now, today, I am focussing on the three most important things.....and procrastinating :)

Hope everyone has a happy return to school on Monday....