Enabling learners to think about their thinking in science

In this session we focussed on 3 key questions that are made explicit in the EEF report on metacognition.

How do I establish a learning environment that promotes a culture of thinking and curiosity? How can I introduce an appropriate level of collaborative challenge in my science lessons? How might I employ classroom dialogue (metacognitive talk) to facilitate challenge (and conflict) and metacognition in my science lessons? 

In this interactive workshop, Natasha Serret and Alex Black drew from the 5 pillars of CASE to explore some classroom strategies (and insights) that will support you in enabling learners to think about their thinking in science in today's classroom. We presented participants with a set of density blocks and asked them what variables they noticed. Then focussing on the cold feel of copper and aluminium compared to the warm feel of wood we asked them to Predict and explain on which material molten wax would solidify fastest. A second use of this  Predict and explain strategy was applied to the problem  on which material ice cubes would melt the fastest. Various stages of elicitation of ideas and cognitive conflict were collected and displayed so all could monitor, evaluate and plan how to move on in the investigation. The session concluded with professional reflection on the use of the 5 pillars of CASE methodology to create the appropriate level of metacognitive challenge and opportunities for dialogue, exposing misconceptions and conceptual change.

How to develop exploratory talk Alex Black

The session gave a brief overview of the Assessment Companion for Thinking Skills (ACTS) developed as part of a transnational Erasmus project. The main part of the workshop was to  interactively use the Exploratory Talk Tool from this project and discussed how relevant this is to Science Teachers and what teacher talk moves will help develop productive talk.

The ACTS illustration “Ideas about a flame” was used to show some teacher talk prompts to try to develop exploratory scientific talk. For, example on your own,  observe,  then share your observations with the focus on what you agree about and how you can add to each other's ideas. Then the level of talk challenge was raised by asking what is a flame? Again share, look for agreement and add to the previous ideas of the model. This scaffolding provided to show how essential teacher scaffolding is for productive small group discussions.

Then the challenge was raised  with the use of the Predict, Explain Observe and re-explain strategy. This was applied to a static force situation compared with a two pulley system. Here the scaffolding was to collect the ideas and predictions and provide cognitive conflict challenges in the small group and whole class talk.

The presentation concluded with professional reflection on the use and importance of challenging stimuli and teacher mediation of student talk. The need to structure the growing demands of the discussion through a lesson was discussed and how this might vary at different ages and stages was acknowledged.
 

How to get to know how your students think Alex Black

This interactive presentation showed how  two of the most important products of the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education intervention were the Science Reasoning Tasks (SRT) and The Curriculum Analysis Taxonomy (CAT).

They allowed objective measurement of the cognitive readiness students bring to their learning and the demand of key scientific objectives. This workshop interactively explored how these two sets of instruments can be applied to help plan a science curriculum and really find out how your students think and how the quality of their thinking can be fully developed.

The first part of the presentation was based on the Piagetian work on the development of spatial reasoning and participants interactively engaged with children's drawings that showed the progression through topological, projective and euclidean forms of representation. How these are applied in the Science Reasoning Task (I) the so called “Juice test” was demonstrated. Then a brief introduction to SRT (II) Volume and Heavines was explored. It was emphasised that these instruments were designed for any science teacher to gain invaluable insights into the thinking of their students and help them plan how to respond to the different levels of thinking within a class or year level.

The overall result of the CSMS (Concepts in Secondary Mathematics and Science) survey of 11,000 UK children published in Towards a Science of Science Teaching was then later used in combination with the  Curriculum Analysis Taxonomy (CAT) Aspects of development section for a group discussion of how these finding raised challenges and perhaps solutions to curriculum planning at different ages and stages.