Trust Projects - The Graduate School of Education, Queen's University of Belfast and St Mary's University College, Belfast.

Supporting the implementation of science within the revised Northern Ireland primary curriculum through professional development

The unique feature of this project is that e-conferencing will be used to support student/classroom teacher teams in geographically distant schools as they implement the revised primary curriculum for science in Northern Ireland. The teams will focus on the development of children's expertise in scientific investigation, particularly their thinking skills.

The project will facilitate science professional development during the pilot phase of the introduction of the new curriculum (2003-4).   The current nine-subject curriculum will be collapsed into five areas. Science and technology will be combined with geography and history in an area called The World Around Us . There is reduced prescription for teachers to cover content and teachers are given new flexibility in what they teach.

The project will offer an intensive professional development workshop programme for teachers and science specialist student teachers.   This will be supported by follow-up work in schools by each teacher-student team who will trial and evaluate resources they have produced during the workshops  The follow up phase    will take place during the students' school placement. Since students are normally placed in their home towns, they will be geographically widespread. The project ensures that participant schools will have the opportunity to collaborate via computer conferencing. Teachers, students and children will be able to share experiences, ideas and resources using this facility. This work will be facilitated via e-conferencing   between teachers, students and children. The final phase of the project will take place after the student placements and will involve whole school development to address the teaching of science in the revised primary curriculum.   Formative and summative evaluation of the immediate and longer-term impacts of the programme including the use of specific evaluation/research methodologies such as; classroom observations, teacher and student teacher personal reflection and interviews of relevant personnel will take place.

The aims of the proposed project are to:

• Enable teachers, students and children to use ICT to enhance their science communication skills

• Improve and student confidence in teaching science and their knowledge of science and science pedagogy in relation to the curriculum changes

• I mprove pupils' achievement, experience and enjoyment of science.

 To address these aims the objectives for the project are to:

• Facilitate e-conferencing between teachers, students and children so that they can use ICT to enhance their science communication skills. 

• Enable collaboration between primary teachers and student teachers in addressing the issues arising out of the proposed changes to the primary curriculum. 

• Develop exemplars of content that might be covered in KS 1 & KS 2 which will support the teaching of science in the new curriculum.

• Promote personal and interpersonal skills through science teaching. 

• Promote thinking skills and creativity through science teaching. 

• Provide evaluative reports on the short and longer-term impacts of the programme

Project outline

The project will be carried out over a period of 12 months from September 2003 to August 2004. 

It will involve the following personnel:

• Primary teachers from 12 schools throughout Northern Ireland

• Science specialist student teachers (BEd year 3)

• Science teacher educators (university and university college)

• Science advisers (education and library boards, ELBs)

• Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CEA)

• Education Officers from voluntary sector organisations

Workshops

Workshops will be centred on the following themes:

• Using ICT in primary science and technology

• Technology and tools in all themes of ' The World Around Us'

• Management, progression, schemes and planning of science in the new curriculum

• Children's learning in science

• Forces and energy in ' An Ever Changing World '

• Light and sound in ' An Ever Changing World '

• Habitats and environmental issues in ' The Way We Live '* and ' Materials and Change '

• Science and structured play in ' Me and My Home', 'My School' and 'My Environment'

• Materials and their properties in ' Materials and Change ' 

Workshop Series 1:

Using ICT in primary science and technology

• E-conferencing and how it can be used to support primary science

• Pixie - a control technology tool which can be used to enhance children's science learning throughout the primary school

• Black Cat - this is the software that is available in all Northern Ireland primary schools to support learning in various areas. Participants will have the opportunity to learn more about the potential of using Black Cat in their science teaching. They will explore the software in groups in relation to a variety of science activities.

• The Fight Experience - an interactive CD-ROM produced by Bombardier, also available in all primary schools which demonstrates how ingenious applications of technology over the past 100 years have allowed people to design, build and fly aircraft.

Technology and Tools

• Safe use of materials and equipment e.g. sawing and glue gun skills

• Simple safe procedures to help children/encourage them to develop thinking skills solve problems

• The importance of instructions and having all materials and equipment prepared and ready

• How to simply make a propelled car using different materials

• Bridge making, encouraging more ideas to construct something rather than step by step instructions

• Rigid structures -building spaghetti and marshmallow tower

• Using technology in the area of movement and mechanisms ( cow jumped over the moon activity)

• Use of syringes in pneumatics

· Planning, design drawing, questioning, Evaluation of skills

• Lego Technic

E-conferencing

This is a new and innovative aspect of the project which is being introduced because the schools involved are widely spread geographically and     students and teachers need to be able to continue collaborating after the workshops and during their school placement.

Following an introduction, demonstration and hands-on activity session on the use of e-conferencing for science on Workshop Series 1, participant teachers will collaboratively, using e-conferencing, plan and carry out the 'Hands Up for Science' activity, which has been developed by the project team. For this, children (or the teacher) enter either 'R' or 'L' into a prepared database to indicate which hand they used for the following tasks: writing their name and throwing a tennis ball into a box (for 'handedness); kicking a tennis ball and hopping on one leg (for 'footedness'); identifying a quiet sound in a box ('earedness') and looking at a friend through a cardboard tube ('eyedness'). Children can obtain immediate feedback as to how their data fed into the total set and an update on the analysis.

This activity will be evaluated during Workshop Series 2   On the strength of what has been learned from this evaluation, participants will assist in designing and carrying out further 'e-science' activities between Workshop Series 2 and 4.

Evaluation Strategy

The work will be evaluated formatively and summatively.  Evaluation methodology will include:

• Surveys of children, primary teachers and student teachers

• Focus group discussions and interviews

• Participant observation during placements

• Workshop evaluations

• School development programme reports

Project leader: Dr Collette Murphy