Pedagogical ideas and supporting research

Pedagogical Ideas

Key pedagogical features of the Building Science Concepts series include:

Teaching science concepts in familiar contexts. Students can actively build their understandings when the context(s) of learning are familiar and meaningful. However some contexts are more helpful than others for challenging and building conceptual thinking in different areas of science. Contexts have been chosen to reflect traditional "favourites" as well as to suggest new possibilities for learning in primary science.

Explicit patterning of how to keep a clear science-conceptual focus while exploring a familiar context. Concepts within a context are clearly identified so that it is possible to keep a sharp focus on the planned learning. By indicating possible "foothills" for conceptual learning within a topic, the booklets show how students may build their experiences of the world to accommodate increasingly abstract and/or interconnected ideas.

Signalling possible ideas that students might bring to their science learning. A large body of science education research shows that school learning may have no impact on students' personal theories about the world unless these are acknowledged and used as a starting point on which to build. Activities in the series draw on research to anticipate students' likely personal theories, and a "what you look for" guide assists teachers to draw out and use students' thinking in their teaching.

Supporting research

English, C. and Hipkins, R. (1999). Supporting primary teachers in their understanding of some key science concepts while focusing on the development of provisional concepts. (Download in MSWord format). Paper presented to Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) Conference, Rotorua, July 8-11 1999.

This paper was written relatively early in the developmental stages of the Building Science Concepts project. It explains the thinking behind the development of the concept template and of the overall booklet structure. A provisional example that illustrates how this structure might apply to the "big idea" of a water cycle is appended. The subsequent 2000 NZARE paper compares this and other concept templates from the early stages of the project with the same templates in a more final form some eighteen months later.

Hipkins, R. and English, C. (1999). Continuing the discussion about supporting teachers in their understanding of some key science concepts: making the science problematic. (Download in MSWord format). Paper presented to Ministry of Education Conference on Primary Science Teaching, Wellington, September 1999.

Presented six months after the ASERA Conference, this paper builds on the earlier ideas through a discussion about the features of science knowledge that may create particular teaching and learning challenges. Using the big idea "energy" as an illustration, the paper suggests that the format of the Building Science Concepts booklets could be one way to help teachers negotiate the minefields of the abstract science.

Hipkins, R., Joyce, C. and Bull, A. (2000). Modeling the complexity of concept/ context interactions in science learning. (Download in MSWord format).Wellington College of Education Paper presented to NZARE conference, Hamilton, 30 November - 2 December 2000.

[introduction to 2000 NZARE paper to come]