Last night on Twitter I reached out to hear people’s thoughts on how to go about writing a KS3 science curriculum bearing cognitive science in mind (1). I got some really interesting responses from people who are a) more knowledgeable than I am and b) more experienced than I am. I wanted to get down some tentative thoughts here, not because I think they will be exhaustive at all, but because it helps me to frame the debate. All of the things I am going to mention below could be the subjects of longer blogs (and maybe one day will be).
The Problem With KS3 Curricula
- Since the SATs were abolished, in many places there has been limited emphasis on KS3 science. In an era of high stakes accountability this is understandable
- The proliferation of KS3 bought-in schemes of work has enabled teachers to take the back seat when it comes to science curriculum planning
- In conjunction with 1.2 there are now thousands of different KS3 science resources floating around, all related to different schemes of work and different curricula, with different emphases. This has led to a very laissez faire approach to what is actually taught
- KS3 assessments tend to be very poor (in the four or so schemes of work I have used) and do not focus on the actual science that a student needs to know and focus a lot more on the scientific process. This means they are not a reliable or valid indicator of what the student actually knows. Add to this that some of the questions are just appallingly worded and based on an obsolete level-descriptor model.
- A lot of science teachers I speak to from across the country are struggling to deliver the new GCSE syllabus: it is more voluminous and conceptually demanding than any of the past. It is imperative that KS3 prepares students appropriately.
- Building on that, it is incredibly distressing to me that students appear to reach KS4 and have highly sparse background knowledge. This could be a function of both curriculum and teaching but is necessary to be addressed.
The Big Ideas of Science: What’s the Big Idea?
A number of people referenced this ASE document which details the Big Ideas of Science and says that all teaching should be in reference to them. There’s a lot of language in there that doesn’t really suit me (2) but I wanted to unpick a bit of the debate surrounding them last night (and today).
- What is the purpose of the Big Idea?
- The Big Idea could be there to kind of tie everything together so we don’t have a list of “disconnected facts”
- Is this a “thing in and of itself”? I.e. it should not be thought of in reference to its utility to some other goal (e.g. helping students to learn and systematise knowledge) but is important in its own right.
- Are these more of a planning tool than a teaching tool?
- It also could be there as we think this is something fundamental to understanding new science when presented to us, so we can fit it into a pre-organised and arranged system. Which leads me on to…
- Are these the same as “schema”?
- If they are, then that has implications for how we go about teaching them. As i have written before, the lack of reference to cognitive science in academic educational science writing is incredibly frustrating to me.
- Can you teach Big Ideas without reference to its “application”?
- I had a great discussion with Helen Rogerson and Helen Harden about this. Take for example statement BI “all the material in the universe is made of very small particles.” Presumably an “application” of that would be statement A “atoms are very small particles, which are, in turn, made of even smaller particles”In what order to you teach these BI and A? Do you start with BI and then give examples like A? Is it possible to understand BI without examples? But then what if you just teach A and then BI? Have you properly shown students that science is a coherent system with overarching principles?
Would a compromise approach be to start with a lot of examples and then halfway through your course start introducing big ideas and then continually reference them?
- I had a great discussion with Helen Rogerson and Helen Harden about this. Take for example statement BI “all the material in the universe is made of very small particles.” Presumably an “application” of that would be statement A “atoms are very small particles, which are, in turn, made of even smaller particles”In what order to you teach these BI and A? Do you start with BI and then give examples like A? Is it possible to understand BI without examples? But then what if you just teach A and then BI? Have you properly shown students that science is a coherent system with overarching principles?
- Who decides what these Big Ideas are?
- I haven’t read the document cover to cover but it gives a fairly extensive justification of each of the ideas
- Unfortunately in their panel, actual classroom teachers are massively under-represented with only a couple of the “senior” members ever having spent time in a classroom. No current teachers. This shouldn’t necessarily take away from the substance of the report but still irks me.
- Some of the principles seem a little, “unweighty.” Take for example “objects can affect other objects at a distance.” Yes, that’s true, but it’s hardly on par with the conservation of matter, which is not included in the list. It seems like someone took a list of topics like magnetism, gravity and radiation, figured out that they all involve objects affecting other objects at a distance, and categorised them based on that.
- Is there any systematic evidence to suggest that students who are taught using the big ideas are more effective scientists? If not then why should we pay them any heed?
Building a curriculum for knowledge
Something I suggested was to write a list of 600 questions that you want students to be able to answer by the end of KS3. You can then build your scheme around those questions, constantly referring to them and using knowledge organisers or some other method to engage in spaced and interleaved retrieval practice.
The obvious question is how do you decide the questions? This could be mediated by:
- Core knowledge that people need to access society (Hirschian approach?)
- Core knowledge that people need to make informed scientific decisions (e.g. vaccines, climate change etc.)
- Core knowledge that students need to succeed in KS4 (and make the KS4 teacher’s life easier)
- Things that are “awesome” and “wonderful”
There’s also the possibility of throwing the “how science works” stuff into the mix. My feelings on that are pretty strong, but will have to be a blog for another time.
Misconceptions
Common misconceptions need to be realised and thought about in planning. This is a very tricky area and I’m currently researching more about how misconceptions arise (in evolutionary psychological terms) and if they can be overwritten or if the best we can hope for is suppression.
History of science
George Pidgeon pointed out that the history of science is important too in terms of the way our ideas have developed. In my opinion this is important for a number of reasons:
- It gives students a coherent narrative. Perhaps could even replace the “Big Ideas”
- Can preempt misconceptions: for every daft idea you hear in the classroom, there will be a towering figure from the history of science who believed it was true
- Gives a more nuanced view of “scientific enquiry” than the usual “let’s plan a practical!” approach
Ease of delivery/preparation
There is also the rather pedestrian concern of actual delivery. Any curriculum would need to be deliverable by all teachers and properly resourced and assessed (though assessment is decidedly less pedestrian).
Compromise position
In short, there is much to think about. I don’t yet know what my dream KS3 curriculum would be, but this is a good starting point. Presumably there would have to be a compromise at some point – you can never please everyone!
(1) The background to this is that our department’s KS3 coordinator is leaving and this provides a great opportunity to go back to the drawing board. My recent thinking on this pays some debt to Michael Fordham’s piece. I am also aware that there is a gibongous amount of literature on curriculum design. I’m just a teacher though, so I have raised issues here as I see them.
(2) the Ten Principles of Science Education section is highly objectionable
February 26, 2017 at 11:36 am
This is great. I think if I had to start working on this I’d start brainstorming the 600 questions and see if any answers to the deeper questions jumped out at me. Also I think probably yes, big ideas are or at least should be schemata. Thanks for a very useful post
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February 26, 2017 at 7:54 pm
Nice post, although faced with coming up with six hundred questions I’d probably find the marking I’m supposed to be doing now attractive! As I’m only.responsible for Physics would I only have 200?
A few years ago we were drowning under GCSE and A level ISAs (practical assessments) & decided that while we wouldn’t change the content of KS3 we would change the emphasis so that if they came out of KS3 knowing anything it would be how a practical works so we didn’t have to teach for the ISAs. That worked well.
More recently we’ve switched to the CIE iGCSE which has a lot more challenge than we were used to, so we have tweaked KS3 again to up it’s challenge to match. This is a more painful change, I’m not sure the kids turn up expecting to be pushed quite that hard & supporting material is few and far between.
If there were a point to my ramble I think it would be, ask your six hundred by all means, but also ask, where are we weak? What can KS3 do for Ks4 & A level? It doesn’t have to be content it can just be emphasis and expectation.
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February 26, 2017 at 7:58 pm
Thank you for this – very thoughtful. The idea was 200 qs per science. I just find it easier to be so specific as to exactly what you want them to be able to know and do – questions are a good way to do this and aid in long term learning. It also aids in emphasis and expectation – the demand from the student could not be clearer: you need to answer this.
You are absolutely correct that we also need to see where we are weak at ks4 and buttress that too.
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February 27, 2017 at 5:54 am
I am with you on (2) I found the ASE document quite preachy. However it did make me reflect on my STEM Ambassador approach to some Primary Science club presentations I had made. One, where I had emphasised scale in Physics from 10-18 to 10+18, specifically butterfly wing energy to … I had wondered afterwards whether this had been a worthwhile topic to focus on and note that it is not in the 10 big ideas. But I do appreciate the smallness of such a number, as compared to 200 for kids who may not be progressing their Science beyond s3 (in Scotland where Basic General Education “ends” in secondary). At the latter Junior High part of the edu journey there seems so much to learn about: I recently helped (& assessed) a Go4Set engineering student led inter-2ndaryschool competition which involved group work etc. I had wanted to inject some proper science in but had been discouraged from doing so. Probably correctly since when I was at an evening Careers Event the sea of young faces (& I am talking parent as well) watching my few slides of fantastic Industrial tech seemed wistful.
So in conclusion have 200qs per science but 10 is a better number to try and get a broad audience to appreciate (sermonmodeoff)
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April 29, 2017 at 4:51 am
An excellent blog post – good to see the Big Ideas work being looked at for application to building a school curriculum while also being challenged. Good question on how BIs should be taught/explored as well.
While the concept of Big Ideas is a really useful one trying to have a small number across science was always going to be an issue. I think there is more to be done in defining the big ideas of chemistry, biology and physics (and other subjects – geology?) in separate sets where they have overlap. That may make it easier to build a subject specific curriculum/SoW from.
As you mentioned there is the issue of who decides the ideas (and if they are big enough) To me this comes down to how the big ideas help develop someone’s understanding about the nature of the subject and if it unlocks more understanding (each idea should have a threshold concept?) e.g should the concept of substance be a big idea for chemistry because it is so important to unlocking the wider subject and is fundamental to the nature of chemistry?
On teaching BI, if you use BIs (whatever they are) to structure your curriculum/content then it is taught through content/applications and shouldn’t need explicit teaching as the students ‘discover’ the big question for themselves. Having the BIs lead the structure also helps validate all content – does X help develop student understanding of BI Y? This requires careful planning and teachers who know the BIs well.
On the history of science point you raised – I agree this is very important and should sit alongside the BIs as part of the narrative but not dominant. If anything the history of science can help contextualise the content than define the content?
I also like the term ‘alternative concept’ over misconception (nothing wrong to have an alternative concept based on own experiences – what science is about) and recommend Taber’s work.
Thought provoking and I could type more/discuss more!
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April 29, 2017 at 8:33 pm
Many thanks for this. Much to think about.
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April 30, 2020 at 10:51 am
Maybe update the names in this article a little… I understand it’s old but I just tried searching for Toby French when the link didn’t work and was not expecting what I found! Disgusting man.
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April 30, 2020 at 2:08 pm
Thank you for pointing that out. You are quite right. Vile man.
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