Tag Archives: wikid science

APP and Wikid Science – how they fit well together

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I attended a county APP network meeting last week which included a show & tell session.  Being a model of good organisation I remembered that I was meant to be taking something two day before.  I could have simply gone through my schemes of work and picked an example of how we use APP, but instead I wanted to include something fresh.

I looked at the lesson plan for my next Y7 lesson, which was from the A&E sequence.  Students were looking at some of the key pieces of equipment used in a hospital used to aid diagnosis.  The teaching resources needed a little differentiation, partly to make them more accessible and partly to speed up that part of the lesson so we were free to move on.

I looked at the APP criteria that matched this lesson, which also gave me an idea of the outcomes I could expect from my students and what the next steps should be.  I chose AF2 and students were recognising roles in the hospital with science and applications of science.

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  • Identify a link to science in familiar objects
  • Recognise scientific developments that help us
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  • Describe in familiar contexts how science helps us do things
  • Identify people who use science to help others
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  • Identify aspects of our lives, or of the work that people do, which are based on scientific ideas
  • Link applications to specific characteristic or properties
4
  • Identify aspects of science used within particular jobs or roles
  • Recognise applications of specific scientific ideas
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  • Link application of science or technology to their underpinning scientific ideas
  • Identify ethical or moral issues linked to scientific or technological developments

I then modified the task so that students would have more of a chance to demonstrate these skills in a way that suited their special needs.  I decided that students would be presenting to the hospital board (who were looking for job cuts) and explaining to them that science was important in the hospital and which jobs used some kind of science.  Students would also mention the key pieces of apparatus used in a hospital, relating applications of science to specific properties (e.g. the X-ray machine).

Students were videoed making their presentation to the hospital board after planning the presentation (in pairs).  Students then watched back the presentations as a class the next lesson and offered peer feedback on both the presentations and the specific science skills (above) we were looking at.

I’ve included the presentation and worksheet that I used for this lesson, however I wanted to make the point that APP isn’t about collecting mountains of paperwork or one off assessment style lessons.  It can be used to aid most science activities (either for assessment, development or both) and that the writing of Wikid Science makes this process extremely easy.

Resources

equipment used for diagnosis

Presenting to hospital board – APP

Wikid Science – thermite reaction in pyrotechnics

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The pyrotechnics module contains both the thermite reaction, and the reaction of copper oxide and zinc.  I have done the thermite reaction this way (CLEAPSS method with fluted filter paper) many times before but never tried the copper oxide and zinc reaction.

I’m sure there are teachers out there who haven’t tried either – I’ve put videos of both below so you can see what to expect (and the students loved them!).

Wikid Science – how I make mine better

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Practical work.  That’s the main method.  The more the better.  Science is a practical subject and you learn best by doing and making sense of what you have seen.  I like to shoehorn any practical work in that helps students grasp a topic – the more the better.

This lesson in the Pyrotechnics sequence had flame tests in.  Students love flame tests but they don’t really help reinforce the concept of elements and compounds.  The solution?  Keep the flame tests but stick in some extra practical work to reinforce the main learning objectives.  I slotted in a small-scale reaction of iron and sulphur (in CLEAPSS recommended quantities of 2g iron/sulphur mix per student), moving this from the following lesson which already contains plenty of meaningful practical work.

This reinforced the concept of elements and compounds within this lesson, and provided more meaningful practical work than flame tests alone.

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Practical (used to aid teaching) works best when it helps students to grasp the main objective of the lesson.  Don’t be afraid to stick more practical work in your schemes of work if it makes science more fun and aids understanding, or move it to more appropriate parts of your scheme of work.

Wikid Science KS3 – my reflections on the new Year 8 units

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upd8-wikid-logo[1] Having taught almost three of the new format Wikid year 8 units I had to post an update on my progress with Wikid, and my thoughts about the scheme.

In terms of organisation the new year 8 modules are a huge leap forward.  Lessons are organised into folders by lesson which makes a huge amount of difference when it comes to locating resources and lesson plans.  The content of the lessons is much the same, although they aren’t as heavily dependent on the power points to make them work which is a relief because the novelty of showing presentations soon wore off, both with myself and the pupils! The new modules have supporting video from Teachers.tv (anyone can download these from the teachers.tv website) which the Wikid team have skilfully woven into their topics, helping maintain the theme that runs through each.

The structure of the topics and activities makes it easy to add APP criteria to an activity turning it into an APP assessment with the minimum of effort.  Hot off the press is their mapping grid which helps you see which topics relate to which strand of APP, proving the Wikid team are listening to customer requests).

All is not perfect with the Wikid scheme though, and it still requires some work to use it well, and many schools may not feel confident adopting it lock, stock and barrel. 

To improve the scheme I would like to see Wikid:

  • Reduce the content in the scheme and flag lessons as core lessons and lessons that can be skipped
  • Less detail on lesson plans – they take ages to read!
  • Lesson plans in one place (ideally one document) so you can see the progression from lesson to lesson and how they flow together.
  • More AfL linked to APP built into the scheme – and not the absolutely ghastly Apprend scheme they are flogging like a dead horse.
  • More support for SEN and lower achieving pupils.  Many of the activities are too wordy or too complicated and require extensive adaptation.  Not all pupils achieve level 4 – yet this seems to be the starting point for many of the assessment activities.  (And remember that many of these pupils have poor literacy skills – expecting them to write more than a few words is not an option).
  • Fewer resources to photocopy – and in black and white please.  I haven’t seen a school yet that colour photocopies or prints whole class sets of colour worksheets.
  • Promote the Wiki that the whole scheme is named after and encourage participation by ALL teachers who deliver the course.  At the moment the Wiki is difficult to navigate and is further let down by the lack of participation.
  • Remove the Upd8 forums since Wikid staff never bother to reply to questions in there anymore.  If it’s obsolete, take it down!

Would I recommend Wikid to others? Yes.  In fact I’ve had science teachers come from out of county and within county to see it in action.  Wikid science shows enormous potential, and most students are engaged and achieving well on the course.  Of course the scheme isn’t perfect – but show me a scheme that is!