I bought these last year – handy for seeing magnetic field lines without messy iron filings.
And while you are on the topic of magnetism, the floating paperclip never fails to engage students of all ability.
I recently attended a weekend ASE event at the CELS centre at Nottingham Trent University. Hosted by the ever creative Mark Crowley we looked at the importance of practical work in science.
I would advise science teachers from all phases to check out the Getting Practical site which offers some ideas online and access to free CPD for science teachers.
There are many reasons why you might want to include practical activities in a lesson. Some of the reasons suggested include:
The strategy recommends planning to include all of these intended learning outcomes in your schemes of work, and provides audit materials to assist you in this process.
The getting practical strategy is backed by SCORE (Science Community Partnership Supporting Education) and training is provided free of charge. With many schools currently rewriting their schemes of work it could be worth finding out more about Getting Practical.
I read the volume of anti-APP threads on the TES forums, I listen to the comments of my secondary colleagues and I speak to friends who teach in the primary phase. On top of this I’ve checked out the growing software industry making APP tracking products and I’ve spoken to colleagues who are responsible for moving APP forward.
Yes APP arose from the need for consistent assessment data between schools and more importantly to fix the discrepancy between primary and secondary NC levels (I’ve yet to find a secondary teacher who uses primary science levels as a reliable baseline!). Yes APP came from the National Strategies team but the bank of APP statements represent a very useful resource for AfL – after all what is the point in having accurate and reliable assessment data and doing nothing with it?
As a leader of APP practice within the authority I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject. The points below summarise my thinking about APP
What APP is:
What APP isn’t:
I teach in a special school where teacher assessment has been for norm for years. APP is nothing new to us – we’ve been following a very similar process for years, finding new ways to make assessment work. I know APP isn’t perfect, but it occurs to me that a lot of teachers seem to be getting into a flap about nothing – APP will be what you make it!
Click on the APP tag to read my other posts about APP
My opinions are based on my experiences of using the Science APP framework. Whilst I’ve looked at APP materials for other subjects I haven’t used them with students.
Thank you @sanmccarron on Twitter for pointing out this blog post about girls and pink microscopes/tools.
The author makes some excellent points and you begin to wonder who designed these products and for what purpose (to look pretty or to be functional?). I’d agree that presenting positive imagery of successful (and everyday) female scientists is more likely to encourage women into science careers.
Perhaps we are looking too deep. At the end of the day the makers of pink products want to sell units, that is their driver rather than encouraging women into science.
(And I wouldn’t mind a pink microscope, mine are all a boring grey colour. I kitted out my lab with pink headphones and they boys all use them too – we don’t believe in gender stereotypes at my school!).
(Originally posted on Tumblr).