Journal Entry 1 - Following 28/2/08 Tute & Lecture

Well, here is the first in a series of diatribe that will surely bore anyone who happens upon this blog lol!

The first week is over, and Science education has begun. I have to admit I am still a little nervous of becoming a science and chemistry teacher. I think today's POE largely demonstrated that I am not the only one who would have these concerns though! There were clearly disagreements about one of the commonest physics experiments on the planet - which of the equivalently sized but unevenly weighted balls will hit the ground first, if they are released from the same height and at the same time. What heartens me is that I think I did recall the science behind this one....but not everyone did, and without a shadow of a doubt, at many points I will struggle with some of the content that surely I should know. So many of the teachers-to-be could barely believe the four storey drop resulted in the balls dropping at different rates. What will I be caught out on?

So I am still nervous.

Having said that, I thought the POE approach is a very engaging one for students. Will I be able to do them this effectively? What exactly was it about it that made it engaging, and what exactly was wrong with the first demonstration that made it a "bad" POE (apart from the obvious 'bore' factor for the students)? What was the good recipe?

• Is it the entertainment aspect (Greg was certainly entertaining!)?
• Is it the build up of suspense? No matter what you're doing, if you can add a bit of suspense it's interesting.
• Was it that people all wanted to see if their guess was right - the voting approach makes it a bit like gambling where you really must have the answer.

What was it? There was no explanation by the lecturers after the experiment until the tutes. Do you usually leave explaining to a group discussion, as it was with us, or do students research individually first in a regular classroom?

And the failed one?

• Was it too short?
• Not enough time to think? Being rushed didn't give enough time to contemplate the prediction, do the observation properly, or really explain anything.
• Lacked entertainment? If this was the problem, is it really necessary for teachers to be actors?

Explicit connections were not made to the 'real world', other than the obvious that we're all held down by gravity, but why should the students care about the outcome? I don't believe the interest had anything to do with real life context. Hmmm. Time to do some reading, on multiple fronts.

I also found the 'shut eyes' for the 'predict' part of the POE demonstration to be an interesting approach. Were other students as confronted by this as I was? How many would abstain/give a biased answer if they could see the weight of opinion in a show of hands? I can see why it was done, but I felt like the lecturers would quietly take note of who understood the science & who didn't, and frankly, their opinion holds significantly more weight than my peers' - especially since I don't know many of them as yet. I can see how a classroom might be different in this regard though. This problem seems like an ideal moment for a technological solution to me - the work that Richard O'Donovan is doing with iPod Touches, for instantaneous survey data collection within a classroom springs to mind - I wonder if I'll be able to convince a school to buy a class set...hehe. Really not likely, but I can think of a myriad of uses for this single device within a science classroom. This is an interesting thing to me (actually, a bit of a relief!), as I really struggled on the use of technology for maths teaching last year, b/c many of the software programmes just seemed to be there for the sake of gimmikery & I'm not a fan of that. Science classrooms seem to have a more obvious authentic use for emerging technology to me....maybe I'm just a bit blind with the maths & need to think more.

Other things from the lecture - I loved the fact that all the lecturers are also tutors - it's very confidence inspiring. Also, the connection between the lecture and the tute is seamless, when the people leading them are one and the same. It was nice that the lecture was shared in delivery - kinda like 'team teaching', which I have heard about but not experienced until now.

The half hour break left me a little at a loose end, but maybe it was necessary from the lecturer's perspective, as my observation is that students always have things to sort out at the end of lectures. The price of having the lecturer the same person as the tutor, I suppose.

The 'get to know you' in tute was nice, but I hope I remember everyone! Not too good at that I'm afraid :-( I'll know everyone soon enough - it seems like a really nice, diverse group in Mandi's tute. I must remember to ask Mandi what her 'trick' is for remembering names - she said she had one.

I got more out of the discussion relating to 'camp ideas' than I thought I might have - it's great trying to think up ideas for activities that will teach science in a meaningful and effective way. Much more thinking to do in this area for me, but I could put more context around the ideas our group was coming up with, as a result of last year's study.

I've been doing some reading on 'talk aloud', which was linked from Mandi's blog. I notice Mandi does this quite a bit, and I wonder - does Mandi vocalise things she's genuinely wondering about for herself, or things she thinks we should be wondering about? Must ask her.... probably a bit of both I suspect. Does there come a point where your reflective questioning undermines the position of 'knowledgeable person' as a teacher? With me, perhaps I should hold back on wondering out loud about the scientific facts too much....strike a balance lol!

Anyway, enough for now. Until next time, dear blog reader :P