Create - Innovate - Writing Sentences In Science

During the KPop in Science unit I have been explicitly teaching how to write well. 

Not how to write well in science.

How to write well. 

We started with "writing with precision" and I used an (only slightly) adjusted lesson with Y9, 11 and 13. My friend Kata (who attended the same writing conference with me) also used these slides with her tutor, Y9, 12 and 13. We share some of the Y11's and 13's, and they recognised the learning from their other subject. 

This is the presentation I used with Y9, at the end of their "forensics" unit. 

The link to this is here.

The class completed the learning activities for this on paper.  Next we moved onto the Evil and Good Wizard activities, which focussed very simply on the use of capital letters and fullstops (see previous blog).   Since then I've taught them some different styles of sentences to include in their writing (again, thanks to the learning I took from Dr Ian Hunter, founder of Write That Essay, which I desperately want our school to purchase).

The link for this presentation is here, and we completed these sentences online on a shared Padlet.  Students completed blog posts reflecting on their hangi experience utilising the three sentences they had just learnt about, some links to their blogs here: Teremoana Roimata Meafou Havea Journey Michael
Later I taught the remaining three sentence types: 

Create - Innovate - Writing Paragraphs in Science

This activity took three days but I believe it was completely worth it! 

First, we spent an entire period playing with these energy cards. 

Students raced against other to complete a full set, and then I gave them a few minutes to look at their completed sets as "answers." Then the real fun began. Desks were set in a circle, and students battled each other in a game of memory by setting the cards in a grid and taking turns flipping over three. 

Two rules must be enforced for this: 

1. Cards must be flipped over in the spot that they lived, and stay in that spot when they're flipped back over.

2. Both students must see all flipped cards, not just their own. 

The next day we had a double period. 

I moved around the room and let students randomly draw out pictures from this set. Then they had to identify two different types of energy in the picture, before swapping and having another go. Finally, in their small groups I gave them 1 picture between them and they set about writing a paragraph onto a big whiteboard between them. If they got stuck they could use this template. 

For the rest of the lesson (once they had a complete paragraph with full stops and capital letters in the right places) they individually split their paragraph as "Evil Wizards." Many students found this difficult and I had to spend time with lots of students 1-on-1 to teach them. This activity only works if each sentence is split in HALF (not more than that). Having different energy scenarios (from the different images) ensured that each paragraph was different - necessary for the next activity.

As an added bonus I included the word "wizard" in korean at the top and a link to it being pronounced out loud, because this class (largely) are quite interested in Eastern cultures, hence the KPop context for this term as well.

This activity engaged some students who had previously not been engaged. Student 2 LOVED it. 

Another student who hasn't been very interested in writing anything much this year also really engaged with this, she experienced lots of pride in completing her paragraph split before others in the group and led the charge as a "Good Wizard" in our final lesson.  Here is the link to her finished work. 

The final lesson was perhaps the most simple, but the most effective. 

I had copied and pasted 6 finished "Evil Wizard" split paragraphs from the 6 groups in class into a document and printed one copy. Then, I cut them out and sellotaped them around the room. "Could this have been done digitally?" asked Russell, our DP. Yes, it probably could have, but I wanted students to get up out of their seats and move around the room, rather than their usual static position. 

Students recognised their own paragraphs and most "healed" them first.  This also gave them ownership of their learning - they had created the activity themselves!  They were eager to move around the room and solve the rest. 

Here is the link to a blank "Good Wizard" activity - you'll have to complete the lesson sequence to have 6 split paragraphs to solve!

Create - Try New Things

The first thing I tried that I would not usually do is spend an entire 50 minute period NOT learning science
but instead trying to HOOK students to the topic!



3 minute vocabulary test - data on paper. I will compare this to a similar test done at the end.



Interactive Reading

I created a text based on the transcript of this video here, and then I went through and made a few 
volcanic vocabulary tweaks. Next I made an “interactive reading guide” to accompany it, which included 
instructions on HOW to read the text. This included instructions for things like scanning the text at the 
start for clues in the title, bold words and images before making a prediction about what they might learn 
in the text. It also included how many paragraphs to after they had done that and then where to stop, 
mini-activities like drawing a sketch for four of the sentences, to stop and watch a video to watch at a 
certain point, to summarise a paragraph, find evidence in the text for the meaning of two words (one 
volcanic, one not), questions to answer after a paragraph and then to share their answers in pairs etc. 


This is my reflection from that activity:

~ It was glorious, three girls in particular were engaged throughout. They did some extra research and 
reading about taniwha of Taupo and found images of carvings of the guard dogs. They also found 
another guardian carving of the lake. 

~ Other students in the class engaged well with the visual of the video supporting the text and said 
things like ‘woooaaah’ when they saw the mountain collapse and the lahar powering through.

~ This is the second time I’ve made the class do a large reading and it worked 100x better in pairs rather 
than in when we did readings groups of 4 with the clarifier and questioner roles etc. 

~ The interactive reading prompts seemed to be set at appropriate levels for this class.

~ There were three students in particular who didn’t really engage as much as the others; two were 
having an “off” day and one is difficult to engage, but it’s wonderful to see when they do!

~ Taking a full double to really engage with the text definitely paid off. 


Vocabulary Instruction

The research I got this from said my natural instinct might be to front load students with definitions and 
to be honest I nearly did. But I caught myself in time and instead I included gifs and videos in the 
document before each definition to illustrate the vocabulary (and hopefully pique their curiosity) before 
they read about it. The next step was to complete a crossword (solving the clues, using the vocab).


This is my reflection from that activity:

~ I definitely delivered this activity wrong. I gave students both the volcanic vocabulary document AND 
the crossword at the same time - foolish! As one student pointed out, “Miss you should have just given 
us the document first.” 

~ Students were in a rush to answer the crossword and didn’t have the skimming/scanning strategies 
available to flick back and forth between the crossword and the document full of answers. 

~ The three students who were not at all engaged by the interactive reading were FAR more engaged 
during this activity. 

~ Most boys seemed to tolerate both activities but didn’t really “get into” either of them so far.

~ One student requested that next time it be a wordfind not a crossword, so I need to think of a way to 
upgrade the learning value of a wordfind. Maybe matching found words to definitions!



Physically modelling the relationship between vocabulary in a story

This one didn’t really involve a literacy strategy specifically described in my literature review -  the 
activity was to animate the concept of a hotspot; they had to interpret the volcanic vocabulary given to 
them in ‘captions’ and model it in a play-doh animation.



My reflection from this activity:

~ This activity would have gone better if I had one more lesson previously to establish some
understanding of hotspots. As it is I tried to squash this into one lesson; a quick video about hotspots, a
diagram showing all of Auckland’s 52 volcanoes to amaze them and link the video to their lives, and then
I explained it all again. 

~ Then I had to deliver some technical instruction around how to physically make an animation and what 
the expectations for that were, which chewed up more time; we watched a video I’d previously made for 
Y11 about stop-motion animations and I showed them examples of hotspot animations from previous 
years. 

~ Students were definitely engaged during this lesson but there wasn’t enough of me to go around. 

~ Some groups required more guidance and time than I could give them, so consequently not all groups 
finished their animated interpretation of the captions I’d given!

~ This one engaged the boys a lot more, but they required a lot of support and I didn’t get to help all of 
them.



Gamifying writing

I got this literacy strategy from Matt Goodwin (Pt England Primary) after a discussion on literacy 
instruction. He suggested turning writing into a competition and assigning words or language features 
points or deductions. He also clarified for me what a narrative, recount, and explanation were, and said 
that the best writing in the real world is a combination of all of them. 

This activity does also involve something that I took away from Dr Jannie van Hees’ second COL 
presentation; to get students to really focus in on one thing when they watch a video or do a task. I 
turned off the light, cranked up the volume and got students to watch an animated volcanic eruption in 
Auckland three times; first to think how they would describe what they saw and felt using adjectives, then 
to focus on how they would describe what they saw using scientific vocabulary, then finally to think about 
the processes happening under the ground that they couldn’t see. Then I got them to write a short story 
describing the eruption; they could earn points for different writing features and vocabulary that were 
included.



My reflection:

~ Everyone seemed to enjoy this activity, bar one boy. One of the other boys who had been disengaged 
in other activities jumped right on board this one as it involved blogging, which I’ve noticed he’s both 
good and prolific at - he’s had almost 5000 visitors to his blog! 

~ The one boy in particular who did not engage is consistently resistant to getting started on work, and 
this is a trend in his other classes as well. Hopefully a culture of writing and learning can be built in the 
class and he gets swept up in it. Positive peer pressure for learning!

~ Lots of students asked me to check their writing as they were going; they were both proud of what 
they’d come up with and wanting feedback on how to include more of the vocabulary/score higher points.

~ Students had read my comment/their score on their blogs by the time they arrived in class the next 
day!

~ One student mentioned she had also visited other students’ blogs; particularly the boy who had beaten 
her by one point in the competition!



3 minute vocabulary test in exactly the same conditions as the pre test - the same desk layout, the same
refill paper, the same thick colourful pens, the same simple instructions, the same timer projected on the
board, the same prompts to hide their work and encouragement “just keep going!” as they started to fade
at the end. Then I let them do a summary crossword of the entire topic at the end, because they had
enjoyed that. We went through the answers at the end.

Create - Innovate - Responding to Student Voice

Design of the new Year 10 curriculum has begun and I'm proud to report that one of the five responses from students has now been incorporated, within two of four 'themes' that classes could select to learn for the year. 

The first theme is called Survival (see below) and focusses on designing houses using sustainable materials. It features a reading about the Te Kura Whare by Tuhoe, as well as a Living Building competition, which could stimulate further research and reading (as there are many similar competitions around the world, with some in America focussing on withstanding tornados as the student suggested).

The new survival theme in the year 10 curriculum.

Te Kura Whare Green Building design reading by Tuhoe

The Living Building reading by the Living Building Initiative

The second theme is Building to Live.  In this theme there are two readings - the first is about traditional Maori Architecture by Te Ara (see below) which could prompt students to think about traditional building styles and how they could continue to be incorporated into future designs.

The new building to live theme in the year 10 curriculum

The Te Ara reading that tells the story of Maori buildings from more traditional to contemporary.

Other things that I will try to incorporate into the year 9 or 10 curriculum (based on student voice) are Maori technology - I don't know anything about this and will have to research it! Running a study on something in culture - I feel this could be left quite open-ended and student-centred. Students also mentioned learning about the history and things Polynesian people discovered or invented - this could be tools again but I'm thinking more about the navigation of ancestors to NZ and around the Pacific using stars.

The last idea that students offered up was to include Maori and Pacific scientists or inventors in the curriculum and it got me thinking - all of the scientists we traditionally talk about are old, stuffy, white men. They're not really role models for the students at Tamaki College. We SHOULD be including successful Maori and Pacific academics, scientists and inventors into our junior curriculum so students see that science IS for them, CAN be part of their future and is entirely achievable for them.

So.. stay posted!

Create - Innovate - Affordances of Technology

Manaiakalani ascribes to the learn create share pedagogy, where students are constantly engaging in a cycle of learning, using that understanding to create, and then sharing what they have learnt/developed/created. Also, students might skip ahead to create and learn while they do so!

I personally like this pedagogy because it's a nice simple checkpoint for me during planning my lessons or a sequence of lessons; am I giving students time to process all the new scientific concepts they're being exposed to? What are they doing with it and how are they taking ownership of it? Thinking about learn create share means I can't just be transmitting knowledge and holding all the power; I need to pass it over and I need to do so regularly.

Learn create share also nicely lines up with SOLO. Learning is unistructural and multistructural, maybe even sometimes relational depending on the learning process; creating often requires relating ideas and creating is definitely an extended abstract process as the learning takes on a new form.

Anyway, I need to consider learn create share while I think about changing the junior curriculum.

How can learn create share and the affordances of technology help our new junior curriculum:

• assist teaching conversations
• increase visibility
• provide cognitive challenge
• provide scaffolding
• engage learners

I think the answer to this lies in structuring the new junior curriculum around SOLO taxonomy, where learning outcomes are phrased as "I can" statements. That way, learners should be able to articulate where they are and where they're going next, and say things like "I need help so I can.." 

Having a clear progression of SOLO levels and associated learning activities will provide ever-increasing cognitive challenge as students move through the SOLO levels of a new scientific concept. Being able to move up and down through the levels should provide both the scaffolding and challenge for learning; move down and be scaffolded if a particular SOLO level is too hard, or skip on and move up a SOLO level to provide challenge if you already "can do/describe" things. 

I think engaging learners will be the hardest thing. As with committing to any one framework or any one learning style, this can lead to the loss of novelty and excitement! I can try to plan varied activities and practicals as often as possible, cultural links and links to life, etc, but I think it will often be down to the teacher to spot if students are becoming disengaged and their class needs a bit of 'spicing up' or offline variation etc.